After many many years of waiting, the NZ Herald reports today that the supplier for Auckland’s electric trains has been finalised:
Auckland is likely to get Spanish-made electric trains after a close bidding contest in which a Korean contender is understood to have lost out.
Efforts were being made yesterday to arrange a contract for the supply of 57 electric three-car trains, to be signed this afternoon by Auckland Transport and CAF of Spain, which has customers in 25 countries.
Officials of CAF – which stands for Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles – are believed to be in Auckland for the signing to expedite the supply of trains by 2013-14.
Initially it was thought that there would be a ceremony and announcement at Britomart this afternoon, but it seems that might be delayed a couple of days so the final details of the contract can be sorted out.
Judging from their website, CAF seem to have a lot of experience with building a wide variety of electric trains – including some pretty damn nice looking recent examples.
As noted a few weeks ago, some tweaking of the deal means that we will now end up with 57 EMUs, rather than 35 as was originally planned. This is also a pretty big improvement on where we were back in August 2009, when it seemed like even getting 35 EMUs would be impossible. The funding arrangements for the extra trains do seem fairly complex, and push a lot of the cost back onto Auckland (though of course without the ability to raise the money from a regional fuel tax as originally proposed):
The deal will be funded largely with a $590 million Government package, to be partly repaid and possibly topped up by the Auckland Council.
Although the Government is providing a $90 million grant to ensure enough trains can be bought, half of a $500 million loan will have to be repaid over about 35 years by the council, the Transport Agency providing subsidies to cover the balance.
The council’s share will cost ratepayers about $17 million a year, on top of up to $30 million in annual charges for access to state-owned KiwiRail’s tracks.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown disclosed last month that the city might also have to pay an extra $20 million to $30 million for the trains – an overall cost of $640 million has been included in the city’s draft 30-year blueprint.
But Auckland will get 50 per cent more trains than the Government initially proposed in order to reduce operating costs, which would have been higher if it had to run a mixed bag of electric multiple units and locomotive-hauled carriages.
Some older trains will still be needed for services beyond the track network which the Government is electrifying for an additional $500 million, but only as far as Papakura and Swanson.
The next thing to look forward to are some detailed designs of the trains we’re going to get. I imagine the design has been largely finalised in the incredibly long and drawn out procurement process, so hopefully we won’t need to wait too long.
Update:
Here’s a couple of photos of recent trains that CAF has built, taken from this newsletter:
I certainly await with interest to see some images of what our trains will look like.
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I’d suspect we will only get to see some artist’s impressions. But even that will be great!
Given a 35-year repayment life, I’m hopeful that a future Labour coalition will forgive the balance of the repayments. After all, Wellington has had very special treatment by central government for its purchase of metro rail rolling stock over the years.
I think that the pen to be used to sign this contract with CAF should be gold plated and mounted in a silver box and then put up for auction.
Let the auction funds become the start of an Auckland Infractructure fund to be added to with Bonds etc. offered to the public of Auckland.
I trust we’ll get the child friendly option carriages too where Len Brown and Steven Joyce can amuse themselves on the inaugural trip. For the rest of us, the bike storage and cafeteria area look great on their models.