#wanaka

Lone Tree

44°36'13.8"S 169°14'55.6"E

instagram/oftwolands

A Lonely Tree Under The Milky Way In Wanaka, New Zealand

I have previously designed hypothetical train maps for the Christchurch metro area, and the West Coast Regional Area, both in Aotearoa.

I'm back with a third hypothetical map, this time for the Queenstown Lakes Regional Area.

[A metro style map of the Queenstown Lakes Area and descriptions of each line.

A yellow line goes east from Queenstown to Frankton & Airport, Lake Hayes, then northeast to Arrowtown and Cardrona Ski Area, then north to terminate in Wānaka.

A red line goes east from Queenstown to Frankton & Airport, Lake Hayes, then east through the Kawarau Gorge to Cromwell. There is a split in the line, with one branch going south to Alexandra, and the other branch going north alongside Lake Dunstan to Luggate, then northwest to Albert Town, then west to terminate in Wānaka.

A brown line goes east from Queenstown to Frankton & Airport, then south to Jack's Point, then continues south alongside Lake Wakatipu to Kingston and Invercargill.

A purple line follows the edge of Lake Wakatipu west from Queenstown to Fernhill, then north to terminate in Glenorchy.

A green line goes west from Remarkables Ski Are to Jacks Point, then northwest to Kelvin Heights, then north across the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu to Queenstown, then northeast to Arthurs Point, then east to Coronet Ski Area and terminating in Arrowtown.

A blue line goes south from Lake Hāwea to Albert Town, then west to Wānaka, then west alongside Lake Wānaka to terminate at Treblecone Ski Area.

End description of each line]

My thoughts

Although the region has a small permanent population, there are around 1.5 million tourists annually to the towns of Queenstown and Wānaka and the four ski areas. With so many tourists, I think a train system would work incredibly well, as most tourists fly in, and currently need to either rent a car or use the limited bus network to get around. A train system would be a good alternative.

I tried to think about the geography of the routes when designing this map, as the area is very mountainous. The only place that would need a major tunnel is the section between Arrowtown and the Cardrona Ski Area, as there is a full mountain range in between. The only other significantly challenging bit of terrain would be the Kawarau Gorge between Cromwell and Lake Hayes, and the track would have to have steep gradients and sharp curves to fit in the winding gorge.

Speaking of the Kawarau gorge, there could be additional stops through the gorge for the many tourist activities along the way, from the bungy jumping and white water rafting, to vineyards and LOTR filming locations. I haven't included those stops on the map, I've only included population areas and ski fields.

With the ski stations, I'm envisioning that the stations would be at the base of the mountains, with cable car, chairlift, or gondola access up to the actual ski fields.

The brown line south to Kingston could connect to the historical railway in Kingston, which could once again connect to Invercargill, and the rest of Southland. Similarly, the red branch line from Cromwell to Alexandra could connect with the historical rail there, and reconnect to Dunedin through Central Otago. (Did you know that Aotearoa used to have a fairly comprehensive rail network, and only a fraction of it remains today? Doesn't that just grind your gears? It certainly grinds my gears, but that's a separate post.)

The blue line could also extend north alongside Lake Wānaka all the way up to Makaroa, and then potentially across the Southern Alps to the West Coast, but that would be significantly more challenging geographically, with far less population

I don't like how empty the top left corner of the map looks, but there's nothing I could put there. The area turns into wilderness very quickly, forming part of Fiordland and Mount Aspiring National Parks. Maybe if this was an actual map of a real train system, that space could be used for a logo or a key, or something, but because this is a hypothetical map made by an amateur cartographer and train enthusiast I am going to leave it blank.