Dunedin Heritage Light Rail Trust spokesman Neville Jemmett is delighted to see cable cars return to Dunedin. (Video first published in June 2018)

Backers of a $23 million plan to get cable cars back on Dunedin streets hope their dream will become a reality sooner rather than later.

Dunedin was the second city to run cable cars after San Francisco, but stopped doing so in 1957.

The Dunedin Heritage Light Rail Trust has now secured two cable cars from Christchurch's Ferrymead Heritage Park to reinstate the technology to the original 1.6-kilometre route along High St.

HAMISH McNEILLY/STUFF Cable cars arrive in Dunedin.

The vehicles arrived at their new home – a temporary shed on the edge of Mornington Park – on Friday morning.

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Spokesman Neville Jemmett said the trust would now launch a $23m campaign to reinstate the Mornington Line over the next three years.

SUPPLIED An artist's impression of a cable car display at Mornington Park, Dunedin.

The trust wants to build a museum, cafe, workshop and cable car storage area before starting work on the cable car route.

The newly-returned Dunedin cable cars – the fully restored 111 Mornington and the unrestored 97 Roslyn – had been leased from Ferrymead for just $10 a year.

There was potential to buy unwanted motors and pullies from the Queenstown gondola, Jemmett said.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF The Dunedin Heritage Light Rail Trust is working to restore the 1.6km Mornington line, which will take the car up the steep High St.

"It has been 61 long years," he said on Thursday as the cars were moved south.

The trust hoped to ask Regional Development Minister Shane Jones' office for funding for the project.

If fully realised, the reinstated Mornington line would become a major tourism attraction and be the only true cable car service in the southern hemisphere, Jemmett said.