Every now and then a new enthusiastic person joins the ranks of the PT advocates and soon their thoughts turn to HSR (High-Speed Rail). Why can’t we have HSR between Auckland and Wellington, they ask? Politely it is explained that the fact we are a hilly, low population density island means it is not practical. That does not mean however we should not introduce higher quality, new inter-city rail services between Auckland and the surrounding area, but it means we should carefully think about what nature the improvements should take on.
I had this in mind and answered some of my questions while reading the UK government’s HS2 plans on The Transport Politic blog, here are some details:
The lines in orange are brand new corridors and the government is talking about speeds of up to 400 km/hr, the initial phase will have a cost of 30 billion pounds.
What struck me while looking at this is its similarity to us. Scale the population down 10 times, the speeds to 1/3, flip the layout and replace London with Auckland, Birmingham with Hamilton, Manchester with Tauranga and Leeds with Rotorua and it is a mirror of the top of our North Island:
These are the existing rail corridors, this area is the “Golden Triangle” in NZ, well over 60% of our national population will live inside the area shown by 2050, a large amount of freight is also carried to the two ports inside this area. This approximately 250 kms of track is well worth investigating an upgrade to, given the percentage of the population that will live within 30 minutes of it.
So what should we aim for that is cost effective? What work is essential? What work desirable?
I believe we should aim for most improvement in the Auckland –> Hamilton corridor and aim for travel times of less than one hour between these two cities. Top speeds of 160 km/hr – 180 km/hr should be the goal.
The question I’m sure coming to mind is should we electrify? The answer is no. To electrify the full length of the track shown would cost $1 – $1.5 billion at minimum, quickly making the proposal un-viable when other costs are added. This not however the end of the world, Queensland Rail currently runs diesel tilt trains capable of 160 km/hr top speeds. Electrification could occur if freight increases or world oil price dictates with the purchased diesels running underneath the wires till replacement. I believe you would need about 10 trains for 4 services from Tauranga and Rotorua each per day and extra peak hour services between Auckland and Hamilton, cost $150 million.
- QR Tilt Train (EMU)
Absolutely essential is the triple tracking of the Southern and Eastern lines in Auckland where commuter services operate and the completion of double tracking between Auckland and Hamilton (13 kms remain single tracked I believe), triple tracking will hopefully take place as part of Auckland commuter and freight requirements, cost of double tracking Auckland –> Hamilton, $150 million.
The remainder of essential work would include track alignment easing and passing loops to allow smooth operations and travel times significantly faster than by car, again particularly between Auckland and Hamilton, costs will depend on the available budget that allows the project to remain viable given user projections while reaching certain operational speeds.
I believe three services could be offered:
– Kaimai Express, Tauranga –> Auckland via Hamilton, 4 trains each way per day.
– Geyserlander, Rotorua –> Auckland via Hamilton, 4 trains each way per day.
– Auckland –> Hamilton peak hour commuter trains, 2 trains each way both AM and PM peak.
The basis of a case for a proper investigation with services begin in the next 10 – 15 years is there.
The effects of such a development would be interesting. In both Spain and France towns on HSR routes an hour outside main centres have seen a reverse in decades old declines as people commute from further and further out. Joel Cayford is only politician I have seen actually questioning whether Auckland should try and avoid hitting 2 million people due to the pressure it would put on our infrastructure, enabling <1 hour commutes from the Hamilton to Auckland CBD could encourage more of this growth to occur in Hamilton.
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“the initial phase will have a cost of 30 billion pounds.”
According to the map, the initial phase is the 160km between London and Birmingham. Thats 200 million quid a kilometer. Feck that’s an expensive bit of track!
Or, putting it another way… You’ve envisaged an upgrade to the top of the North Island costing $150million. I don’t know how you calculated that figure, but it’d buy you about 300m of HS2.
I was involved in the route selection process for the recetly published draft HS2 routes, for consultation. I’m also a kiwi expat, and I know the north island very well.
I can vouch for the difficulties that would be associated with HS rail from Auckland to the south. There would be some serious difficulty with terrian. HS2 rail requied much lower gradients and much greater curve radii than classic railways. The result is you need to rely on a lot of tunnellling to get under natural obstacles. Even between London and Birmingham the (flat by NZ standards) terrain requires numerous expensive tunnels, by far the most costly element of the project in pure construction$. The tunnels also require emergency intervention shafts to the surface about every 2km. . .
OF course, NZ has the added issues of some very sensitive environments along the most direct routes. The existing railway tracks could not be used, as they would be too slow, and the freight trains running on them would hold up fast HS stock.Double tracking would be the only solution. Additionally HS rail requires much wider rail corridors than classic rail. Vehile access along the whole line is preferred and the lines are electricity use intensive.
Unless someone could sit down with google eath, and show me a theoretical corridor, with realistic gradients and curves I wouldn’t be too sold on the possibilities.
I guess the difference is that HS2 is designed for 300-350kph speeds, whereas I think what Jeremy is proposing is more in the 160kph range. Surely that means a much lower per km price tag.
I don’t propose HSR or even new corridors… Did you even read my post Phil..?
I propose an upgrade of existing track to allow top speeds in the 160 km/hr – 180 km/hr range and an average speed to allow an Auckland to Hamilton trip of <1 hour… A completely different kettle of fish…
Also I believe the bare minimum work (double tracking Auckland – Hamilton) and purchasing the trains would cost $300 million…
Thanks Jeremy for picking up on my idea and running with it. Appreciated.
I’ll continue to press for HSR between Auckland, Whangarei and Hamilton. Have to start somewhere. As for technical difficulties – they put a man on the moon so I’m not phased by arguments about technical problems.
Admin… My comments were mostly about the sheer enormous per kilometer cost of HS2. Half a billion dollars per kilometer takes my breath away.
But having said that, is the difference between 150km/hr and 350km/hr really a factor of 500? Or more, given that the UK route is mostly flat once you’ve cleared the Chilterns whereas NZ is mostly hilly? Because for that sort of money, I think I’d be quite happy to let passengers amble along at the slower speeds.
Some questions for Phil?… Just how is HS2 getting through the Chilterns? A single long tunnel? And you’ve hinted that a 150km/hr track between Auckland and Hamilton would have to be an entirely new build with more tunnels and wider turns. Would NZ’s tiny gauge be sufficient or would the new track need to be built in standard gauge?
QR uses the same gauge as us, that is why I have shown their trains, they currently operate at speeds of up to 160 km/hr and have a record top speed of 210 km/hr…
Good questions obi. For some reason building stuff in the UK seems to cost masses more than anywhere else in the world. Madrid built the entire MetroSur (40km of underground track with 28 stations) for a lot less than what London spent on simply extending the Jubilee Line I think.
Jeremy: Yes, I know. And that’s why what I wrote was in agreement with you.
OBI: Long tunnel and tunnelled section options are all proposed for getting through the chilterns. I’m not sure if the published material has the various final options, or just the preferred route. There are actually individual plan and profile sheets for the whole route available for download. I don;t have the exact link, but ARUP drew them. Maybe the ARUP website has the link, either that or DfT…As with a good portion of the urban approach to London (Euston Station). I’m not sure what the guage needs would be for a 150km train. The UK’s HS2 is to be designed to the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs)for Europe which basically say how wide/high/wonderful the train set needs to be.
Lets not forget that some of the current trains we have (the Silver Ferns) could to 140km/h on some parts of the existing track, if the signalling was upgraded.
In regard to HSR, perhaps we should look to the Spanish for tips on how to get super fast trains through very unforgiving terrain at low costs. Their latest was 24 million euro per kilometre all up.
I’d suggest the unemployment levels in Spain means you could get large numbers of well trained people to work for peanuts Nick…
How embarassing, I forgot about signalling, add another cost…
on cost, some other issues:
Tunnels: for HS are big. really big. in order to keep air pressure levels down.
Juntions: They all need to be vertically seperated generally, you can’t have HS trains crossing over other slow or other HS lines, if you can void it
Curves: Large curve radii means it’s hard to avoid hitting stuff, like houses and other buildings. these all have to be bought.
Stations: Big stations with large capacity. Existing stations (i. Euston) might require large upgrades. One proposal (i think it might even be preferred) was for vertical separation of the whole station. So you’d have rail lines coming in and out on two floors. Station redevelopment also means nearby buildings get demolished.
Environment Mitigation: Noise is a big one. With HS, over 300km/h you get aerodynamic noise. Wheel noise can usually be mitigated at track heigh (say a 1m barrier) or with special wheel designs. However aerodynamic noise comes off the whole train surface. The result = high noise barriers. I
+ there’s more besides.. can’t be bothered with the full list now.
We discussed the difference between the UK and Spain a few weeks ago. IIRC, the reference that you (or someone else?) gave suggested that the Spanish were less concerned with safety, had a system that allowed the government to appropriate land easier, and a planning system that didn’t include any system of appeals or reviews of government decisions. I’m all in favour of easing some aspects of the RMA, but I’m certainly not in favour of planning by ministerial decree.
I’m not very familiar with the pros and cons of various gauges. The advantages of narrow gauge are obvious… It’s cheap and can turn tighter corners. As for the disadvantages, it feels as if it must be inherently less stable and that must have an impact on top speed. Queensland is flat and the dirt is as hard as rock. My gut feeling is that it’d be much easier to upgrade a narrow gauge railway there to a high degree of track accuracy to allow faster speeds. Whereas NZ’s terrain is hilly, the railways have tight turns, and our soil is inclined to slip away every time there is a heavy downpour. Is that a problem? I suspect so. Are those factors fixable for a small amount of money? No idea.
@Phil, European and Asian HSR development reminds me a lot of the technical difficulties they faced on the conchorde (sp?) project…
I’d like to point out again, I do not think anything other than slightly higher speed conventional rail is feasible…
@Obi, you raise good questions and Queensland can certainly lay higher speed tracks and electrify more easily it would seem, lots of what you raise would need to covered in a study, i.e. do we simply leave, relay older track with tight curves or build a deviation..? As for slipping track I think that is less of a concern as it is one of the reasons why ballast is laid…
The great thing about this proposal is that it does not need to be done in a big bang approach like HS2 in England.
You can easily start cheaply with the ferns, then steadily increase track speed. When this is going well, you will be able to order new trains capable of 160kmh, then keep upgrading more of the track.
There are a few other expenses you need to mention. Grade separation will become increasingly important as speeds increase, and this can add up to a fair bit on money. Also high speed trains take up more train paths than low speed ones. Therefore you will be reducing the capacity of the line for other trains. This will especially be a problem for the single track Hamilton – Tauranga section, which is very busy. Will need to build new loops, or look at double tracking long sections of the line, once you get beyond adding a few trains a day at high speed.
I think that the Spanish planning system that allows easy appropriation of land and limits appeals would be the key factor in cheapness then. Not sure if the cost of labour is a particularly high component of project cost.
There are some significant stretches of straight level track in the upper North Island too, particularly east of Hamilton.
conchorde .. lol, all kiwis spell “concorde” with an “h” now.
Those handsome bastards have ruined my spelling..!
@Luke, a lot of the track between Hamilton and Matamata is very straight and flat and I’d suggest could be double tracked quite easily, there are lots of things a study would also have to look into such as fencing significant sections of the corridors but really without a feasability study they’d be guesses however I know a project we are wasting $100 million on studying…
Speaking of the Spainish, I was at a Council shindig to welcome the Trade mission that accompanied their Majesties (King Carlos and Queen Sofia) and got to talking to one chap.
He said that he was a trade rep for the Pacific area (Aus/NZ) for a company in Spain that builds trains, lays tracks, etc. Big company – I’ve forgotton the name but I googled them and they were quite large. I knew that the Spaniards had recently built a HSR between Madrid and somehere (not Barcelona) and read some other news about their investment in HSR, so I put two and two together and realised that the Spainards have skills we don’t have.
He said in response to my question had he been here before, he said it was his fourth time. The other three were to pitch to ARTA, to the Wellington regional outfit, and to Govt.
So people in transport have been pitched to by large companies that have the capability to build HSR. This is a promising start, but once again, most likely, some less than intelligent transportation person would have asked them to pitch for a HSR between Auckland and Wellington, easily the most difficult route you could think of and most expensive. What a way to kill the idea of HSR in Aotearoa NZ.
A smart transportation person would have asked for a pitch for modest HSR between Auckland / Hamilton / Tauranga as Jeremy has pointed out is relatively achievable. But I don’t think we have smart transportation people aside from Joshua A and Jeremy H.
(I’m being negative – sorry – I’am having great difficulty at the mo getting Council people to understand how dangerous an intersection is to pedestrians. They don’t get it because they don’t walk.)
NZ is ideal for decentralisation away from Auckland – much better than this side of the Tasman. So many good cities in the 100,000 plus range. Auckland should not need more than 2 million, even if NZ got significant growth.
Has anyone given thought about connecting the route through the Airport? Or would one travelling from the Waikato/BOP need to transfer at an Auckland commuter station to an airport bound train?
I can imagine such a connection would be fantastic for tourism and also business travellers from outside of Auckland. The airport line could be built at the same time as the works to upgrade the line into the Waikato, if the commuter connection has not already been built.
Raffe, definitely agree there that if we have a full airport rail loop (Manukau-Airport-Onehunga-Britomart) then all inter-city trains should go via the airport. That would also take some pressure off the Wiri-Westfield pinch-point on the network, although triple-tracking or quad-tracking of that stretch is pretty inevitable.
We have discussed it in the past on the CBT forums, and generally it seems like a good idea to connect intercity trains to the North Islands main international airport.
It would also provide the benefit of allowing intercity trains to bypass the most congested part of the southern line (although they would still need to pass through the congested junction at Newmarket).
Yeah, I seem to recall the new bridge over Manukau on SH20 is ‘rail-ready’? If so, it may be possible to run a new commuter alignment from the Waikato through the airport and then join the existing Auckland rail network north of the harbour.
The general thought comes from my own experience – catching a ICE train direct from Stuttgart to Frankfurt airport, bypassing Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. There were pretty much direct escalators from the platforms to the check-in counter….
If we are going to upgrade tracks and run trains from both Rotorua and Tauranga then I think we should investigate building a link between them rather than have separate routes. Looking at the distances if a line roughly followed SH36 then the difference is only about 5km longer than the existing one, a route from Te Puke following SH33 is about 30km longer, this is only 5 to 15 mins difference but would give a much better result. Instead of having to run trains from each place we could make it much simpler and run them Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua. Of course the problem is the terrain is pretty rough but it still should be do-able.
What is your plan for dealing with the Kaimai tunnel, its not something that is easy to duplicate.
My plan is not to duplicate it but put passing loops on either side…