Coming up soon is an interesting rail/peformance mash-up that gives people an extemely rare chance to travel by train up the Weka Pass Railway in North Canterbury.
Anthonie Tonnon is presenting a new edition of his Rail Land show, with a national tour this December.
Rail Land is a tour celebrating passenger rail in Aotearoa. Each show, performer and audience travel together by passenger rail, reaching some of our most extraordinary community venues.
Rail Land ran in five locations across Aotearoa last year in and around Dunedin, Wellington, Palmerston North, and Auckland. Christchurch missed out due to logistical difficulties. However! The organisers have gone to great lengths to make it happen this year – chartering the Weka Pass Railway from Glenmark to Waikari. And because a rule of the concept is that you should be able to travel from your centre city, they are also chartering a comfortable coach journey to the train and back from the Christchurch Bus Interchange.
The show itself is a theatrical extension of Tonnon’s live set. It mixes new songs with rarely-played older ones, and links them together with a narrative, and custom-made music. After five performances of the 2018 show last summer, and special encores in 2019, Tonnon is presenting an all-new version of Rail Land for the end of this year.
The show will once again travel with a collection of large scale NZR Advertising department posters, thanks to sponsor, Phantom Billstickers.
The Christchurch (Waikari) show is Saturday December 14th, train departing Glenmark Station at 6:45pm.
I’d encourage you to check out the details, tickets, itineraries and further information for Rail Land at anthonietonnon.com/railland
I’ll leave you with a video Radio NZ made describing a little more of the philosophy behind the tour.
TALKING TRANSPORT 
What a great idea to celebrate NZ rail. Booked it, thanks for sharing!
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It was an awesome experience, both the travel and the music!
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