A quite interesting question that I have wondered about over the past year or so is whether we could have had electric trains delivered and operational by the time of next year’s Rugby World Cup, had the government not stepped in in March last year to cancel the regional fuel tax and then spend the next six or so months figuring out how to fund electrification. There have always been two components to the electrification project: the physical infrastructure which was always to be funded by the government and seems to have been proceeding as planned; and the electric trains themselves, which ARTA (through a loan taken out by the ARC and repaid through the regional fuel tax) was to have paid for.
Recently a friend, who had done an OIA request for information on the electrification project, passed on to me an interesting briefing paper which provides a bit of insight into answering this long-held question of mine. The briefing paper can be read here (it’s only six pages).
The purpose of the paper is to advise the Minister on the progress of the electric train procurement process, and shows that it might actually be quite a challenge to now have the electric trains delivered by 2013 – as is widely expected. But the parts of the paper I find most interesting are those which relate to the history of the electrification project (which is quite long and complex), and most particularly how the current timeframes compare with those of the original ARTA electrification proposal. A brief history of the project is outlined below:
It’s interesting that 2013 is mentioned as the likely date of “below track electrification civil work” completion. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it would have been impossible to electrify the section between Britomart and Morningside as a priority. The paper is a bit defensive about the issue of whether it would have been possible to run electric trains at the RWC, not saying that it wouldn’t have been possible, but rather that as far as the author knew, it had never been committed.
That may seem a bit “nit-picky” or “conspiracy theorist”, but when one looks at the table on the last page of the paper it’s interesting to see how the dates line up for the two options for procuring the electric trains when this was written in October last year, and how they compare with the milestone dates of ARTA’s original proposal:
The line that immediately caught my attention was the third from bottom one, the date for the arrival of the first EMUs under the different scenarios. Under ARTA’s proposal we would have had completed electric trains in Auckland by May 2011 – May next year! Now of course the day electric trains arrive is very different to the day that they start operating passenger service – as can be seen in the other two columns there’s around a four month lag between delivery and actual passenger service operation.
Of course, what is four months after May 2011? Why it’s September 2011. And what happens in September 2011? Well of course we have a Rugby World Cup starting. ARTA understood this, and that’s why I think they timed everything to happen like this. I reckon ARTA hoped that the tracks out to Eden Park would be electrified first, making it possible to run shiny new electric trains between Britomart and Kingsland for the World Cup. Of course those plans got dashed in March last year when the Minister cancelled the regional petrol tax and ARTA’s process stopped. Now it seems as though the arrival of our electric trains has been delayed by nearly two years compared to what might have been.
Oh well, at least we’ll know who to blame if our old diesel trains die during next year’s World Cup.
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Of course the train specifications have changed from what was originally planned by ARTA and what is now being looked at. In particular we were going to have 70 two car EMU’s (140 cars all up) with one motor car and one trailer car, similar to what Wellington has just got, those cars were to be 20m long. We are now looking at 38 three car EMU’s (114 cars) with each car being 24m long and having two motor cars. When you consider that almost all services by that time will need to be equivalent to a 4 car train that means with ARTA plan we would have had 35 trains all up compared to 38 for the new plan. I also understand that the two 2 car EMU’s coupled together to create a four car train has a very similar passenger capacity as the three car option so we haven’t lost out anything there.
In the end I don’t know what option is the better one but it sounds to me like the new spec would be more ideal from the fact that there is more power available which should make the trains faster (at least in acceleration) and would probably be easier to get up the grade in the CBD tunnel. It also means that we know that as soon as these start running full time we will have at least the equivalent of our current SA sets on off peak and weekend runs. If the new plan is better then I think it will end up being worth the extra wait and who knows, depending on the winning bid, they may be able to build and deliver the units sooner than 2013 because as I mentioned in another post a few months ago that Hyundai-Rotem state they have the capacity to design and build 700 EMU’s a year.
Rushing the trains for the RWC might however have gotten us a crap product, and a start marred with all the teething problems of something brought in in a hurry. Mind you, I am not excusing the criminal delays that SJ has since introduced by his muddle of cancelling the fuel tax, then not committing to funding the trains, then talking up PPPs for the trains, then committing to funding the trains, and then clarifying that it was all just a loan that Auckland would have to pay for, sans fuel tax (Hahah! Tricked you!). But I’m not too worried about not making RWC.
Agreed, who cares about rugby fans and why are they more important than normal people who are far more likely to use them more often
At the risk of sounding like an apologist, Let the whole “if the evil National government had not been elected, we would have new trains next year” thing go,
Unfortunately there was never any government buy in for electric EMUs for the Rugby World Cup, the timetable was just too damn tight- ARTA may have wanted it, but that was not supported by the Government.
“The aim is to have electrification completed by 2013. The government has investigated the possibility of having electric trains up and running for the Rugby World Cup in 2011, but this would be too risky and costly in terms of sourcing material for electrifying the system and buying rolling stock. – Michael Cullen in Budget 2007. http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/29347
With power feeds only at Penrose and Southdown, it is a real issue to string and power a section only from Britomart to Kingsland,
Additionally the timetable talks about the delivery of the First EMU, and that is what it would have been the first EMU set, not dozens.
In Wellington, the next delivery is not happening until October, 3 months after the first one, so if Auckland followed a similar timetable the second EMU would not arrive until at the earliest August, too late to really be tested and put into service for the RWC.
As has been said above, you run the risk of rushing the design and testing process of a item with a 30 year life to fit one event that lasts 6 weeks,
Take the time do it right, and get a product that will serve auckland well into the future, rather than buying into the “we must have it for the RWC” hype
Fair points, I accept that it would have been a real push to get anything up and running for RWC. I guess I just get frustrated by the delays to this project.