Striving to convince Companies to move freight on the little-used Gisborne-Napier railway line to save its life is merely time wastage, Gisborne's Chamber of Commerce president posts.

However, Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon and Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott posted that it was required the rail line be kept open.

The Hikurangi Forest Farms wood-processing plant was slated to be concluded by next year and would require shifting its product by rail, Mr. Foon posited.

Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce chief executive Murray Douglas believes that any step by KiwiRail to close the line will be purely a wrong decision for short-term gain.

KiwiRail this week unveiled its plans to review what it termed the "minor lines" - the Napier-Gisborne link being one of them. The review is slated to be concluded by 2012.

"Ultimately, unless they have an anchor customer or there is a compelling public good reason for them to stay open, they will be closed or moth-balled," KiwiRail Chief Executive, Jim Quinn was quoted as saying.

Over the next 20 years, with the timber industry emerging, the only long-term plausible signifies that transporting it to the Port of Napier for export would be rail.