Tuesday, 1 July 2008 will become etched in New Zealand's railway history as the dawn of a new era when the Government became the operator of the nation's railway system, again. After an absence of 15 years, it is New Zealand Government Railways once more, but this time in the form of'KiwiRail" The private ownership era did produce some positives in operational performances, especially with new traffic (milk and metroport container trains) and the 'hubbing' of train movements.However,theseachievementsareovershadowed by the boardroom antics and financial engineering deals of various shareholders. Such activities will keep business historians engrossed for years to come, and one suspects a book or two on the private enterprise experiment will be published in the not-too-distant future.
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