History
The railcars are most famous for their service on the eponymous North Island Main Trunk daylight passenger train between Auckland and Wellington between Sunday 14 December 1972 and Sunday 8 December 1991.
Built by Kawasaki and Toshiba (trading as Nissho Iwai), the Silver Ferns were introduced in 1972 to encourage passengers back to rail transport due to competition from air and road transport. The class was named the "Silver Ferns" (a national symbol of New Zealand) because of their exterior was made of corrugated stainless steel, like the overnight "Silver Star" carriage train, and replaced the three 82-seater Blue Streak railcars. The railcars are most famous for their service on the eponymous North Island Main Trunk daylight passenger train between Wellington and Auckland between Sunday 14 December 1972 and Sunday 8 December 1991.
In December 1991 the Silver Fern was replaced by the Overlander carriage train. The railcars were transferred to two newly introduced services: the Kaimai Express between Auckland and Tauranga and the Geyserland Express between Auckland and Rotorua. In 2000, a third service was added, the Waikato Connection between Auckland and Hamilton. All three services ceased on 7 October 2001.
From 2002 two of the class were employed on Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) commuter services between Auckland and Pukekohe. The services were operated by Veolia Auckland as part of their contract with ARTA, with ARTA leasing the units from Tranz Scenic, later KiwiRail.
This lease expired in 2009 and the units were replaced by additional carriage services. This freed the units for charter and other services, such as KiwiRail's 'Explore by Rail' specials. In 2010 a major refurbishment of the units commenced in Wellington to extend their services, with the program completed by mid-2011. Proposals existed for the units to be employed on a revived Waikato Connection service, but this fell through late in 2011.
Read more about this topic: NZR RM Class (Silver Fern)
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