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By Peter M, on May 7th, 2012 As part of their efforts to supposedly make inter-city rail between Auckland and Wellington more cost-effective, KiwiRail have significantly changed the way the current Overlander service operates, and have now announced it will be renamed as the “Northern Explorer”. Here are the details:
KiwiRail’s new North Island train service, which will begin service in the middle of this year, has been given a new name – Northern Explorer.
The name was announced this morning at the TRENZ conference, where New Zealand’s key tourism providers meet to showcase their products to international travel and tourism buyers.
“The new name signals a fundamentally different train service for the North Island and the transformation of the service into an internationally recognised tourism product,” says KiwiRail’s Scenic Manager Tom Evers-Swindell.
“This is a journey through the heart of New Zealand’s scenic North Island and the name Northern Explorer evokes a sense of discovery on a trip with a real New Zealand experience.”
Mr Evers-Swindell says that KiwiRail has and will continue to work with tourism operators to develop tourism packages and help showcase what is great about the North Island – both inside and outside the train.
“Feedback that KiwiRail received from Overlander passengers about the service is that while the scenery is beautiful and the staff are fantastic, the carriages are very old and the journey time is too long. The introduction of the Northern Explorer service with its new scenic carriages and shorter journey time will be a big shift in the experience that will be offered to our international and domestic passengers,” Mr Evers-Swindell says.
In addition to the new carriages, changes include a new café carriage, an open-air viewing carriage, a multi-lingual commentary system, in-carriage display maps and a new menu, showcasing New Zealand food and wine.
The new train will run three weekly services from Auckland and three weekly services from Wellington, with a lay-over day on Wednesday for vehicle maintenance. In addition to reducing the number of weekly services from 14 to six, a shorter journey time with fewer stops is also being introduced. Intermediate stops will be limited to Hamilton, National Park, Ohakune and Palmerston North.
“The new timetable will be operating year-round – 6 days a week every week of the year, making it easier for customers to plan their journeys,” says Mr Evers-Swindell.
“The future for long distance passenger train travel in New Zealand is now about creating a world-class travel experience rather than simply getting people from one place to another. We want to make the new Northern Explorer service – and the North Island – a must-do tourism experience for people travelling in and around New Zealand,” Mr Evers-Swindell says.
The new way of running the service obviously means that only one train will be needed to operate it – rather than the current two trains – as the service will depart Auckland and Wellington on alternate days. Maybe it’s good that the service is one that can (hopefully) be financially sustainable, but overall the changes feel quite disappointing – effectively a cutback, especially from the current summer timetable when trains run from both Auckland and Wellington every day.
By Matt L, on April 26th, 2012 The entire Auckland train network was shut down during the evening peak today due to a power failure in Wellington. In this case it wasn’t a power failure from government ministers who would probably like nothing more than to close the network down but a problem at Kiwirails train control centre. The Herald reports:
KiwiRail has apologised for the widespread disruption, which was caused by a power outage in its National Train Control Centre in Wellington.
The outage affected all radio and signals in Auckland, requiring all trains services to be halted.
KiwiRail chief executive Jim Quinn said KiwiRail was working closely with Veolia in order to get trains moving again.
Mr Quinn said an urgent investigation is underway to understand the cause of the outage. “We are taking the situation very seriously,” he said.
The outage only affected the Auckland metropolitan network and train services elsewhere in the country were operating as scheduled.
Trains in between stations were forced to pull up into platforms, allowing passengers to disembark, after the outage.
Veolia Transport said it was trying to source as many rail bus services and taxis for customers on the network as it can.
The fault at KiwiRail’s National Train Control in Wellington, which controls Auckland signals and radio control, occurred about 4pm.
Limited services on the Eastern line started running just after 5pm, with all signals back up and running by 5.30pm.
Kiwirail only recently moved operations for the Auckland network down to Wellington which was done as part of the new and meant to be state of the art signalling system. Some imediate questions that come to mind are,
- Where are the back up systems and why did they fail?
- Why was Auckland the only region affected?
- What are the disaster recovery plans and how long would Auckland be without train services if there was a serious earthquake in Wellington?
- Is Kiwirail going to compensate Auckland Transport for this, after all we are paying them ever increasing amounts in track access fees.
- Does this get added as just one fault to the list?
I’m sure these and other questions will be answered as part of the review, hopefully that review is made public. About the only positive thing to come out of this is so far is that for a brief time today we actually had integrated ticketing.
Rail tickets are accepted on the following Buses: NZ Bus, Metro link, Waka Pacific, Howick & Eastern and Go West.
By Matt L, on April 19th, 2012 Answers to parliamentary written questions from Phil Tywford give a worrying view about the state of Auckland rail network. Over the past year there have been 454 signalling and 241 points faults across the network which is almost 2 per day. Now I am fully aware we are currently in the process of upgrading the network including installing a brand new, state of the art system however this number seems amazingly high. This is especially when you consider that the new system has already been installed across a large amount of the network but also when you compare the results to the same ones from a few years ago when we were also in the middle of duplicating the Western line. Here is the answer from the last time the question was asked:
Question: How does the number of points or signal failures on the Auckland rail system over the past year compare to previous years?
Answer Text: KiwiRail has advised the following:
Signal failures:
Apr 07 – Jan 08 (10 months) 144
Feb 08 – Jan 09 (12 months) 214
Feb 09 – Jan 10 (12 months) 172
Point failures:
Apr 07 – Jan 08 (10 months) 288
Feb 08 – Jan 09 (12 months) 267
Feb 09 – Jan 10 (12 months) 234
Somehow we have gone from having 406 signal faults a year in 2009-2010 to having 695 over the last year. What I want to know is why do things appear to be getting worse and what is being done to fix these issues permanently. It is also worth pointing out that our cousins to the South don’t fare much better, they have had 554 signal and 101 point faults in the last year.
By admin, on December 28th, 2011 While the rail system is shut to trains over the next few weeks, quite a lot of important works will be taking place. I’ll try to get out and about over my break to take some photos of what’s going on, but here’s a summary from Auckland Transport:
While most Aucklanders are enjoying their Christmas holidays, train stations and other parts of the rail network will be getting an upgrade.
Auckland Transport with partners KiwiRail and NZTA are making full use of the annual rail network closures to continue their extensive rail construction and maintenance programme.
Starting Boxing Day, the old Mountain Rd Bridge near Panmure Station will be demolished to make way for a new bridge as part of the AMETI Panmure transport project. This will allow for a new road next to the rail line, as well as allowing for electrification of the rail network. KiwiRail are currently carrying out preparatory ground work at two other overbridges; Morrin Rd and Orakei Rd ahead of building replacement bridges with enough clearance for electricity lines to run underneath.
Track enabling work at the proposed location for the new Parnell station is well underway including lowering and realigning the tracks over a 600m track section. Replacement bus services are in place to replace trains between Newmarket and Britomart.
Further back at Ellerslie, the $8 million station upgrade which includes relocating the Southern Line tracks to create space for an additional northbound motorway lane is progressing well. Already the old concrete ramp has been replaced with a set of stairs and a second passenger shelter has been added to the platform. When the seven month project is complete the station will have additional shelters and improved accessibility measures including new lifts for pedestrian access connecting to bridges over the motorway and train lines.
At the southern end at Papakura, the station is being upgraded to meet future patronage growth and modernise existing platform amenities. At the same time KiwiRail is undertaking a rearrangement of the tracks to provide a dedicated freight line through the station as well as optimising track and platform layouts ahead of the new electrified network.
Papakura is the southern extent of electrified railway and will provide integration for the continued diesel services south of Papakura to Pukekohe.
Auckland Transport Project Director for Rail Improvements Nick Seymour says: “The overall intention of the station upgrade programme is to improve the functionality of stations from both a passenger experience and a transport efficiency perspective.
“We have a lot to do in a short space of time and will be working around the clock in some locations. It is our intention to work as quickly and quietly as we can and return to normal services with minimal impact on surrounding businesses and communities.
“Although we understand there will be inconvenience for passengers the station enhancements will result in greater amenity and passenger comfort, with modern platform furniture, increased CCTV coverage, and improved access for mobility users.
“Working with both the NZTA and KiwiRail means a saving on time, money and minimum disruption to the roading and rail networks,” Mr Seymour says.
Auckland’s rail network is being upgraded to enable more frequent and reliable commuter services, and prepare for electrification in time for the delivery of Auckland’s new electric trains. Auckland trains will be out of action over the Christmas and New Year period with commencement of some southern services from the 4th Jan 2012. Full opening of the Auckland rail network is scheduled for the morning of 19th January 2012.
It seems that Parnell, Ellerslie, Panmure (for AMETI works) and Papakura will be the most interesting places to see the works that are happening. I also imagine that KiwiRail will be taking the opportunity of a closed network to also put up a lot more electrification masts and foundations.
I’m always amazed at how much work gets done in the short shutdown period. And I also give thanks to all the workers slogging away while we enjoy our holidays.
By Matt L, on December 20th, 2011 A few weeks ago at the last transport committee there were presentations by both Kiwirail and Auckland Transport updating the committee on aspects of the electrification project. Much of it is probably already known by those that follow transport issues regularly but there is some new bits of information in here.
First up a presentation from Kiwirail
Click Here for video
The second video is from AT
Click here for video
The most interesting thing I took from these was that the Onehunga line would be the first have its wires livened (which will be around April) and that it will also be the first line to have EMU’s running on it. To me this makes a lot of sense as the line needs less trains to operate due to it being shorter which means AT can start showing off the ability of the EMU’s while it waits for more trains to arrive before making changes to the other lines.
There is also a third video giving an update on the EMU’s themselves but for some reason it doesn’t seem to want to work.
http://www.franklin-live.net/site/player/704.html
By admin, on November 8th, 2011 A week or so ago KiwiRail announced that they would be changing the way they operate their business fairly significantly in the future: splitting off the infrastructure side of the business from the freight side to a far greater extent. This is reported on in the KiwiRail newsletter that was distributed at the time:  There was also a fairly lengthy discussion of the plans on Radio NZ at the time, which is worth a listen. A lot of the focus is on the ‘write down’ of KiwiRail’s assets, but what is of most interest to me is the greater division proposed between the network side of KiwiRail and the rest of what they do. Effectively, it’s a bit of a shift back to the pre-2008 days when you had ONTRACK looking after the network when the trains themselves were still in private ownership. Some people seem a bit afraid that this is the first step towards selling off KiwiRail again, but I think such an outcome is fairly unlikely – the rail business is still quite a long way from being in a position to be profitable enough for anyone to want to buy it.
I think the proposal is a great idea because KiwiRail really has to achieve two quite awkward roles – being both responsible for a key part of the country’s infrastructure while also having to run a profitable freight business. It’s almost like requiring a trucking company to own and manage the roads. Splitting KiwiRail into these two parts will enable each to focus on their job: the freight/passenger side doing what it can to become profitable without having to worry about rather unrelated matters such as being involved in discussions over improving metropolitan rail in Auckland and Wellington. Meanwhile, the infrastructure side won’t have the pressure of being profitable as its key role will be to simply look after the infrastructure of the rail network – getting track access fees from metro rail operators and from the freight side of the business to help fund that task. Funding injections (whether they be from central government or NZTA or local government) to improve the network won’t be muddied by KiwiRail’s freight business. It will just make more sense.
Hopefully it’s also the first step towards looking at our transport infrastructure (roads, rail, coastal shipping) more holistically. In the future perhaps the infrastructure agency could even be rolled into NZTA to create a single agency responsible for our nationally significant transport infrastructure.
By admin, on September 1st, 2011 While we will have to wait until the end of September to find out which company has won the tender to build Auckland’s electric trains, it is my understanding that an announcement will be made at Auckland Transport later today on a few of the details about those trains. AKT has a bit more detail. Today’s announcement may shed some light on a couple of key matters:
- Who will end up owning the EMUs – KiwiRail or Auckland Council (through Auckland Transport)?
- How many EMUs will be ordered – the previously announced total of 35-38 three car trains, or a larger number?
Discussion over the past few months has indicated positive movements on both these two issues. Wellington’s rail rolling stock is to be owned by the regional council, rather than by central government – so it would be surprising to see anything but the same arrangement in Auckland. This makes some sense, as Auckland ratepayers (with a contribution from NZTA) will be the ones paying for the electric trains – as the government’s contribution is just a “loan” to KiwiRail, rather than an actual grant of the $500 million (remember that when the “we’re spending $1.6 billion on rail” line gets trotted out for the 1000th time).
On the second issue, the number of EMUs that get ordered, the original idea was to have a mix of EMUs operating on the western and eastern lines, with electric locomotives hauling our current SA Train carriages on the southern line. But that idea was before the City Rail Link came along as such a high priority project, and it’s my understanding that the SA Train Carriages have compatibility issues with the rail link’s tunnel: both in terms of their fire rating and also in terms of its steepness being too great for any train that is locomotive hauled. That issue is likely to have incentivised plans for a greater number of EMUs, while the high exchange rate may also have freed up a bit of money to purchase a greater number of trains than had previously been considered.
It will be interesting to find out what the details are.
By admin, on July 6th, 2011 On Tuesday a quite important rail funding package for Wellington was confirmed by the government. This was originally announced a few months ago, and somewhat came out of the blue. Here are the details:
The package includes Government funding of $88.4 million to renew the rest of the signalling and traction assets on the network. GWRC will take over and refurbish the 30-year-old Ganz Mavag units at a cost of $80 million, which will be supported with an operating subsidy from the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA).
The complete funding and ownership package comprises:
- Government funding of $88.4 million to renew the rest of the signalling and traction assets on the network.
- GWRC retaining ownership of the Matangi train fleet.
- GWRC taking over ownership of the Ganz Mavag and English Electric trains from KiwiRail and committing to upgrade the Ganz Mavag units at a cost of $80 million.
- GWRC taking over ownership and responsibility for stations (other than Wellington Station), train stabling and the electric train depot.
- The Crown (through KiwiRail) retaining ownership of the metro rail track network, the traction and signalling assets, and responsibility for any further investment in the upgrade of these assets.
- GWRC will pay a track access charge to KiwiRail, partly subsidised by NZTA, that reflects the fair cost of maintaining the tracks and other assets.
There’s also mention of the reducing NZTA funding assistance ratio – which is the same issue causing much consternation among councillors here in Auckland.
The most interesting part of this announcement is the fact that Greater Wellington Regional Council are going to take ownership of the Ganz Mavang and English Electric trains, which are currently owned by KiwiRail. This is a pretty big step away from the government’s plans for rolling stock just a year or so ago – where they wanted to establish a separate agency with connections to KiwiRail that would own rolling stock. In Auckland, initially ARTA was going to own our new electric trains – but when the government pulled the regional fuel tax and pretended to fund the trains themselves, they were also going to be owned by this separate rolling stock ownership company.
What is interesting to ponder now is who is going to end up owning the electric trains in Auckland? Technically the government is lending KiwiRail $500 million to buy the trains, with the loan being paid back from rates and NZTA subsidies. But how sensible is it really for Auckland and Wellington to have different ownership structures for their trains? Also, if Auckland really is going to be paying for the trains then it seems to be fairer if we also own them. I’m yet to see an announcement about this issue – but a few Ministry of Transport papers that I’ve flicked through seem to suggest that the government has not yet made up its mind on this issue.
If we were to assume that Auckland does end up owning the trains, then I wonder whether there might be a temptation to extend the EMU procurement beyond the 35 three-car trains that was originally being sought (perhaps that explains the delays in finalising the contract). We now know that locomotive-hauled SA trains won’t be able to run through the City Rail Link tunnel (even with electric locos the tunnel is too steep and the fire-rating isn’t compatible – whatever that means) so in the longer term we’re going to need a “full EMU fleet”.
One wonders whether the finer details of the EMU procurement are shifting away from ordering Electric Locomotives and more towards having more EMUs. Even though this might cost more in the short-run, with Auckland paying for the electric trains anyway (and potentially owning them and therefore able to make decisions about how many trains it wants) the $500 million funding cap might be able to be shifted a bit.
Of course this is all speculation – but interesting speculation all the same. It would be surprising to have a different rail setup in Wellington than Auckland, so what’s happening there may well have a pretty big impact on the long-term structure of rail operations in Auckland too.
By admin, on June 27th, 2011 The agenda for tomorrow’s meeting of Auckland Council’s governing body contains a very interesting item on the City Rail Link project (page 27 onwards). It would seem as though Auckland Council and Auckland Transport have become somewhat sick and tired of the government’s tactics in relation to the project – and are looking to effectively “go it alone” in terms of advancing to the next stage of making the project a reality: designating the route and acquiring all the necessary consents.
This is interesting because the one piece of good news that came out of the government’s review of the project’s business case was the recommendation that it ‘made good sense’ to designate the route – and the government would allow KiwiRail to be the agency that did the designation (with Auckland Council picking up the tab). Therefore, it’s not like Auckland Transport has to be the agency undertaking the designation – they have made the choice to do so. This is what the agenda item says on the issue: Given the government’s attitude towards this project so far, I quite like the idea of not having to deal with an agency like KiwiRail for now. I imagine that eventually the tracks may fall into KiwiRail’s ownership (although if Council pays for the full cost of the project, I don’t see why they wouldn’t retain ownership) post completion, but my understanding of the RMA is similar to that of the legal opinion obtained by Auckland Transport – if they have the financial responsibility for the project and are legally designated as a requiring authority then I can’t see why they wouldn’t be able to designate the route themselves.
The Council is also requested to pass a number of recommendations, which hopefully will go through: I am particularly fond of recommendation (b).
I like the point that Auckland Transport and Auckland Council have got to now. There seems to be a realisation that while they need to continue to discuss funding with the government and come to some agreement on outstanding differences with the project’s business case should central government be requested to provide a contribution to the project’s cost, the work that’s needed to be done over the next year or two does not require central government input – and in fact the involvement of central government so far has done little but delay thing by about 6 months.
It’s hard to understand exactly what happened in the preparation of the project’s original business case, but it would seem that at some point it morphed from being a general overview of whether the project provided value for money to support the important first step of getting the route designated, to something that tried to achieve the impossible of getting a government that’s generally sceptical of rail to stump up with over a billion dollars in funding for a project that wasn’t their idea. Yet because this transition happened partway through the preparation of the business case, it wasn’t put together in the exact way that would have ticked all the government’s boxes. The subsequent review, while an interesting exercise in helping us realise exactly how myopic the Ministry of Transport is, really achieved little more than wasting six months that should have been spent finalising documentation to support the designation process.
Let’s hope that all the recommendations go through tomorrow and that Auckland Council and Auckland Transport can just get on with sorting out the background work that’s necessary to protect the project’s route and gain all the necessary consents. While they’re doing this, one also hopes that a greater level of analysis can be undertaken into the project’s benefits, that all alternatives can be more fully explored (even if the inevitable outcome is to highlight that there really are no decent alternatives) and that perhaps the Ministry of Transport might wake up and realise it’s not the 1960s anymore.
In short, we can talk funding later – we’ve got a lot to sort out before then. Finally, it would seem that Auckland Council and Auckland Transport understand this.
By admin, on May 19th, 2011 In what is otherwise a fairly dark budget, it seems that transport – even rail – has got off reasonably lightly. Of course unsurprisingly there’s nothing in the budget about the CBD Rail Tunnel: the government’s review of that project seems to have gone on the back-burner – and the Ministry of Transport is even refusing to release to me any information on the work they’ve done in relation to the project so far this year.
All the roading expenditure is handled through the National Land Transport Fund structure, so effectively the budget announcement for that part of transport expenditure was outlined a couple of weeks back when the Draft Government Policy Statement was released. However, rail expenditure for some bizarre reason goes through the general government fund and therefore is very much dependent upon what ends up in the budget. So it was welcoming to read the following press release on transport funding:
Budget 2011 commits more than $338 million to improving commuter rail services and supporting KiwiRail to become more commercially viable.
A funding package of $88.4 million over eight years for Wellington commuter rail will help transform Wellington’s rail services, Transport Minister Steven Joyce says.
“This funding will go towards upgrading and renewing the remainder of the signalling and electric power equipment on the Wellington network.
“The Crown commitment, coupled with co-investment from the Greater Wellington Regional Council and previous investment from both parties, will transform the service into a modern reliable commuter option for Wellington.
“This work has been a long time coming and will go a long way towards easing the frustrations of commuters in our capital city,” Mr Joyce says.
The Budget also contains measures to help KiwiRail become a commercially viable rail freight business over 10 years.
KiwiRail receives the second $250 million tranche of the Government’s $750 million commitment to its Turnaround Plan over three years. The lion’s share of the $4.6 billion Turnaround Plan will be funded by KiwiRail itself from customer revenue during the 10 year plan. The money will be used to continue a range of projects, including new locomotives and wagons, and improvements to the network – particularly on the main trunk route and in the ‘golden triangle’ of Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga.
I must say I have found it somewhat frustrating how little detail we have seen from KiwiRail on what this turnaround plan funding is actually going to: particularly in the Auckland area. One would imagine that the large sums being talked about could do useful things like triple tracks the North Island Main Trunk Line to separate freight trains from passenger trains in Auckland, or perhaps even electrifying the lines between Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga – the electrification will go out to Papakura as part of the passenger system electrification project.
The other thing that’s interesting to note is how Wellington seem to do pretty well in getting central government funding to help upgrade their rail system, whereas in Auckland getting any money is like getting blood out of a stone. Wellington’s electric trains were fully funded by central government, it seems like Auckland will end up paying for ours through operating expenditure (fares, NZTA subsidies and council subsidies) dragging down rail farebox recovery rates and making the PT system look less cost-effective than it actually is.
But I guess overall things could have been worse for transport. It’s just a pity that the megabucks being spent on roads (often with very dubious economic justification) doesn’t go through the same value for money exercise as pretty much every other piece of government expenditure. Through the National Land Transport Fund Steven Joyce has his own money making machine collecting $3 billion a year in petrol taxes that he can single-handedly decide where to spend it. That’s a pretty shoddy system if you ask me.
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