 By 1949 the travel time between Wellington and Napier was seven hours.The Railways Department had been experimenting with railcars for provincial and rural services since 1912, and in the 1930s they started to become successful.In the 1940s they proved popular on other Hawkes Bay services, and due to their greater efficiency and lower running costs the Railways Department began considering replacing the "Napier Express" with a railcar service.