Rail use jimnys in New Zealand

In NZ, rail operator Kiwirail (previously Ontrack) and other contractors have used many modified Suzuki Jimnys as rail inspection vehicles. An engineering firm converts them over to rail use. The conversion added manually operated hi-rail gear sets to each end of the Jimny. Originally Ontrack and then later Kiwirail purchased a handful of these between 2007 and 2012 and operated them across the country, eventually with petrol powered vehicles being banned from use on kiwirail’s network they were replaced with light duty trucks with the last leaving the fleet mid last year. Contractor Downer and tourist railway Dunedin Railways also used ex Kiwirail jimnys in their fleets.
As proof of reliability of the Jimny, many of them were driven long distances daily gaining over 400,000 kilometres on the odometer before leaving the fleet and are still in use today with private owners. Here is a collection of photos I have taken of them.

That's really interesting. Thanks for sharing!
It looks like the narrow wheel track of the Jimny is ideal for driving on the rails.

Personally I'm loving the road wheels, wonder why they changed them from factory ones?

I want one - fantastic idea. An alternative to the usual commute and probably more reliable than travelling by some of the UK's rail companies.

Of course there's a Yorkshire business over in Ripon who are already active in converting 4X4's for travelling by rail. No sign of Jimnys though!

www.aquariusrail.com/products/r2r-4x4/

Amazing - why particularly would the Jimny have been chosen over any other vehicles?

Here in South Africa they used to use Vitaras.