Interislander

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Interislander is a road and rail ferry service across New Zealand's Cook Strait, between Wellington in the North Island and Picton in the South Island. It is owned and operated by state-owned rail operator KiwiRail. Two roll-on roll-off (RORO) vessels operate the 50-nautical-mile (93 km; 58 mi) route, taking about three hours to complete the crossing. The inter-island rail ferry service began in August 1962, operated by the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR). The service primarily provided a RORO rail link between its North and South Island networks, allowing NZR to compete directly with coastal shipping companies for inter-island freight. It also provided the first RORO road link between the two islands, which saw the Wellington to Picton ferries compete with, and then completely replace, the Union Company's Wellington–Lyttelton ferry service. Today, the Interislander service is still well patronised despite competition with Bluebridge on the Wellington–Picton sea route and from airlines, carrying around one million passengers and 230,000 vehicles per year on 5,500 sailings. In 2017, Interislander became part of Great Journeys New Zealand, a new tourism brand created by KiwiRail to unite its four scenic passenger services: Interislander, Northern Explorer, Coastal Pacific and the TranzAlpine.