What a great trip this would be.

Backyard tinkerers have long fitted railway wheels to an assortment of maverick machines designed to run either on tarmac or on rail.

Back in the 1930s, the general manager of New Zealand Railways had his own "inspection railcar", a car adapted to drive along the rails.

And, in a famous 1987 episode of MacGyver, our hero escapes from trigger-happy Latin American guerrillas by stripping down a jeep to run along jungle railway tracks.

No problem for MacGyver; all he needed was a Swiss army knife, some duct tape and a spare hour.

But Waikato entrepreneur Ian Balme found the job slightly more taxing when he decided to run tourists along the old Stratford to Okahukura Railway Line.

Balme's company, Forgotten World Adventures, began operations this month, using half a dozen "rail carts", actually golf carts, which can be converted into railway vehicles within about a minute.

The machines run daily on a rail line built from 1901 until 1933, then mothballed in 2009.

Several versions of the ride are attracting adventure tourists from far and wide.

The company's primo ride is a leisurely two-day junket over the full 142km of line, broken in the middle with an overnight stay at the Whangamomona Hotel.

Full story on NZHerald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/motoring/news/article.cfm?c_id=9&objectid=10843019