Milford Sound Link Rail has lodged a submission on the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s Ten Year Plan, seeking support for a 13.5km rail tunnel.
The tunnel would link the Dart and Hollyford valleys, with electric railway wagons transporting buses and cars. The Conservation Minister has previously turned down two proposals for alternative routes between Queenstown and Milford – a monorail and another tunnel.
But the proponent of the latest plan, Colin Jenner, said it allayed concerns the minister had with the other proposals relating to environmental effects and tunnel safety.
Rather than using buses in the tunnel, as with earlier proposals, electric trains would be used that would pull in fresh air with them, he said.
Spoil from the tunnel would be spread on farmland in the Dart Valley, not left in the Hollyford Valley; the tunnel entrance was outside the national park, and a rail tunnel would be safer than a road one.
