RAIL LAND
Rail land is a tour that celebrates public transport and passenger rail. Where possible, it is designed so that the audience, as well as the performer, travel to and from the show by affordable, extraordinary passenger rail. The first season is now completed, but we hope its time will come again.
In the long twilight of the summer holidays in 2018 - the last days of the working year, Rail Land traveled on all of the rail networks that still offered public transport in Aotearoa, and also recreated a public transport journey for one night in Te Waipounamu, with the help of sponsor, Dunedin Railways.
An essay about the tour, and small city urbanism in New Zealand
Poster by Daniel Blackball
The tour started as a way to celebrate our video for Old Images - which you can watch below. But it became so much more. The show, and the experience of the journey to get there, was a poetic and practical exploration of passenger rail, and a meditation on what it means to us in the modern era.
Image by Sam dan der Weerden of Caffeinated Maps
When you travel by train, your attention is freed to do other things. Rail Land is also a collection of images, maps and reading material still indexed on this page below.
Our railways are miraculous, poetic, and mysterious things. The are gifts from the past to the future, and if they didn’t exist now, they would be impossible to build from scratch. Each has a story, and Rail Land aims to tell a little of each one.
Last photo essay - Tāmaki Makaurau by Dave Agnew
Another photo essay - Palmerston North, Paekakariki, Masterton
Talking to David Herkt for Your Weekend / Stuff
Old Images live on Jesse Mulligan
Sunday Morning with Wallace Chapman
A Rail Land travelling exhibition
Presenting Daniel Blackball Alexander’s Rail Land Poster, and our sponsors
Journeys Through Rail Land - The Capital Connection
Scenic loop ex Palmerston North added on December 13
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