It’s Friday again, here’s some articles that caught our attention this week.

This week in Greater Auckland

Interislander Blow

We’ll cover this in more detail in a separate post but it’s hard to go past the news this week that the government refused to fund a (massive) cost increase for the project to replace our interislander ferries, more than doubling to around $3 billion – and as a result, Kiwirail said they’re cancelling the project.

It seems most of that cost is not for the ships themselves but the port infrastructure needed to support them.

Unfortunately cost increases like this seem to have become common place in the transport industry at present. Will National take the same approach to roading projects where the cost blows out?

Christmas Rail Closure

Also in Kiwirail news this week, they announced more details about their Christmas rail closure.

While people are enjoying their Christmas holidays, around 1,800 KiwiRail staff and contractors will be out on the tracks across Auckland, making progress on rail improvement projects and essential maintenance.

The Auckland passenger rail network will be closed from Boxing Day (26 December) to 14 January 2024 for the annual network shutdown.

The Western Line will be closed until 19 January. Waitematā Station (Britomart) will also be closed until 21 January while CRL teams undertake necessary track work.

[…..]

“This is one of our biggest Christmas closures ever – with around 1,800 people working at 89 different rail sites across the city.”

Mr Gordon says this holiday will see a focus on the Western Line – including slip repairs and carrying out the most invasive part of the Rail Network Rebuild (RNR).

“As part of RNR between Newmarket and New Lynn, we will be lifting away the tracks and sleepers and digging a metre below ground level to remove and replace the compacted rock foundations under the tracks. This work is crucial to removing speed restrictions currently in place on the line and enabling more reliable and frequent rail services.”

“This RNR work is very labour intensive and will require the Western Line to remain closed for a week longer than the rest of the network. There is a lot to do and much of the work will need to be done 24/7. However, doing this work now means we will be able to reduce disruption to passengers later, by enabling trains to run on one of the Western Line tracks as RNR work continues over the coming months.”

[…..]

Work over the holiday break includes:

  • Progressing enabling works for the new Third Main Line around Middlemore Station and signaling upgrades at Wiri, as a step towards making the whole Third Main operational.
  • Commissioning the new overhead lines between Papakura and Pukekohe, as part of the project to extend electrification to Pukekohe.
  • Replacing rails, sleepers and ballast (the rocks that sit around the tracks) at sites across Auckland as part of ongoing maintenance.
  • City Rail Link teams are doing significant track and civil work at Waitematā Station, at Quay Park and some work at Newmarket.
  • Slip repair work at a number of sites on the Western Line between New Lynn and Fruitvale.
  • Doing major civil and drainage works on the inner part of the Western Line, as part of RNR Stage 3a.
  • Completing RNR Stage 2 on the Eastern Line, which has been closed since March 2023.

With RNR Stage 2 completed, current closed stations on the Eastern Line will reopen and services resume on 15 January. Because Waitematā Station will remain closed for CRL works until 21 January, Eastern Line services will run between Manukau and The Strand (near the bottom of Parnell Rise) for that week. From 22 January services will resume travelling to Waitematā.

I get it’s a quite time of the year but it’s incredibly frustrating that we have to have these closures every year and even more so that with the rail network rebuild works, there’s no commitment that we won’t still have this every year in the future too.

Auditor General on Infrastructure decisions

And somewhat related, the Office of the Auditor General has published a report titled “Making infrastructure investment decisions quickly” which has looked at the decision making behind the previous government’s NZ Upgrade Programme and Shovel Ready projects.

What we found

Officials worked hard to meet expectations and provided advice about the risks. At several points, officials advised Ministers of risks to value for money for both the NZUP and the SRP.

Ministers made decisions to progress some NZUP projects even though those projects were not fully scoped or planned. Full business cases were not always available or up to date even when the project’s planning was more advanced, such as for transport projects that were already part of the National Land Transport Programme.

In our view, Ministers did not have enough information to be sure that decisions supported value for money.

The SRP was a largely well-run process, and there is good reporting on the programme’s delivery. However, the process was let down by the absence of clear records and a rationale of how and why some decisions were made after an Infrastructure Reference Group provided its report to Ministers.

Ministers have the authority to make significant decisions. In our view, this power comes with an obligation to Parliament and the public to be transparent about how and why they made those decisions and whether those investments deliver what was intended.

They’ve even produced a quick video on it.

Meadowbank to Kohimarama Connections

One of the interesting things at the most recent AT board meeting was an update on the Meadowbank to Kohimarama Connections project – providing much a much needed connection across the Pourewa Valley. The final stage of the project is a link from Gowing Dr to the Glen Innes to Tamaki Dr Path via an an underpass of the rail line. That underpass was meant to have been built while the Eastern Line has been closed for most of the year but AT deferred it after the floods in January and February.

I’m not sure if it’s a result of that deferral but the cost of the project has increased from $21 million to $32.4 million, however, the board approved the project to still go ahead with construction due to start in mid-2024 – meaning another Eastern Line closure to build it.

What caught my attention was the design – that’s quite the switchback.

I’m surprised they didn’t add stairs in for more able bodied pedestrians.

Post-COVID bike use

Some interesting research from New Jersey on the impact COVID has had on cycling.

We already knew that COVID caused a bike boom (and arguably, a bit of a bike bust as supply chains caught up and inventory swelled in the past year). But while you may have assumed the greatest bike usage was happening as people tried to ride to work to avoid public transit, the biggest bump in biking was from the newly-minted Work From Home people who had more time to pedal for fun.

Of the 2400 New Jersey residents surveyed, almost half owned a bike and 15 percent reported an increase in riding during COVID. 34 percent of respondents reported that they increased their recreational cycling, while only 11 percent shifted to riding to work.

And that change in behavior has continued in the years since: 50 percent of those surveyed who owned a bike said their habit change is permanent. 33 percent of the work-from-home crowd says they plan to increase their riding in the future!

Riding streets during lockdown was easyAnd a great local look at it from Radio NZ

As the weather warms up and the days get longer, you might have noticed more people getting back on their bikes. A noticable trend during the pandemic was the the influx of electric bikes, or e – bikes, cruising around the streets and bike paths. But is that still the case? And has the cost of living crisis and climate change played a part? Leonard Powell went to find if people are still going electric.

Shorts

Finally some great bus advertising

Something for Auckland Transport to copy?

Have a great weekend.

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79 comments

  1. The Ferry project was approved with a cost of $775M.
    There is a fixed contract contract of $551M for the ferries.
    Presumably this left $224M for two ferry terminals.
    The cost has blown out a couple of times with the latest estimate being about $3B, suggesting the cost of the terminals is about 11 times the original estimate.
    Those responsible for this need to resign.

    Reply

      1. About time that part of the country got a taste of the consequences of endless escalations in cost and scope; which is that a project doesn’t happen because it ultimately becomes unaffordable.

        It’s something Auckland has had to live with for some time now.

        Reply

    2. The original project was scoped and designed in just 6 weeks – it was a Mickey Mouse procurement process that never realistically reflected what KiwiRail needed (they weren’t sure what they needed either) nor the cost to actually build it. The whole thing got redesigned several times as KiwiRail tried to decide what it was they wanted, and more and more bits kept getting added until we got to where we are.
      It should have been properly thought out, scoped and had a business case done before any detailed design contract was let. The cost would have been less than now but likely much more realistic than the original price. My understanding is the cost for the ships has not changed significantly.

      Reply

    3. It’s still essential national infrastructure though and needs to happen. By all means hold an investigation into the costing fiasco, but don’t just ditch the entire project, especially now when the ships are close to construction. The implications for the national rail network of severing the link, which will happen when the 25 year old Aratere retires, are very serious. Already the traffic on the NIMT has noticeably declined with only one rail ferry. Then there’s the seismic vulnerabilty of the current docks and the 40 reduction in emissions from the new vessels.

      Reply

      1. But if they don’t ditch the project, how will the poor landlords get their rebate? It can’t all fall on smokers.

        Reply

    4. “Those responsible for this need to resign.”

      Unless the same thing happened what always happens with “gold plated cycleways” – other people change the original scope, by adding different unrelated requirements (or related but still not mandatory requirements). At the end instead of a cycleway you have a whole street upgrade including fixing sewer pipe issues from 1952, and a Herald article blaming people on bikes.

      I doubt that an 11-fold increase is due to incompetence. Sure, you could get some quite significant variance by people missing things and then later having to add them in. But not anything like that.

      Reply

      1. Seems like bad management to be quite honest. Scope creep & the team all getting a bit carried away with wishful thinking perhaps.
        Bit of insights here in this interview:
        “Breakfast speaks to KiwiRail’s chief executive Peter Reidy and Finance Minister Nicola Willis”
        https://youtu.be/1xWVgoLMx6o?si=a2wVIAgXJi5c5bGH
        In saying that, I think a big investment in this project is needed & it’s more a case of under cooking the costs to start with.

        Reply

        1. Perhaps the cost of the infrastructure would be way less if they purchased three smaller ferries rather than two larger ones. I’d expect the running costs including carbon to be more though.

        2. Well if they had enough time they could sell the ferries that are on order (as suggested they may have have to) if they are lucky, the profit & funds back (+ some more $?) may pay for the whole project (and get 2 more ferries even more modern). A bit like flipping property.

        3. Grant how ca they sell something that has only 60% of the design done and no plate cut as yet ? , The cutting of the 1st plate was not due to be started until late Jan. 2024 .

        4. I know they have not even started building them yet, but because they will have to break a contract, it will cost them I presume. Pretty sure the selling was mentioned by Kiwi Rail as a possibility (don’t quote me on that, in a new video could be the reporters words).

    5. Gold plating engineers, safety police and lazy operational personal leads to overly ambitious projects. Has anybody heard of shunting do they just want the new ferries to swallow a whole train in one bite

      Reply

      1. Kiwirail need to explain the cost increase in detail to stop rumour mongering about gold plates and safety police. Peter Reidy should have stepped up before now. He’s left it too late and looks flat footed.

        Reply

    6. If that’s the case every time a major roading project blows out, which is pretty much every time, that they should all resign too.

      They will go for a half baked idea that costs almost as much and won’t have the same benefit.

      Reply

    7. The price increased from 24 bike crossings of an Auckland railway line up to 94 crossings. Maybe the 24 was a bit light to begin with. But then again WTF are we spending $32,000,000 on a crossing for a few people to use?

      Reply

        1. I divided the cost of the Cook Street ferries and shore works by the price given above of a ramp over a railway line in Auckland. Surely even at the new price of the ferries they are more worthy than what AT is doing. Especially given that the Cook Strait ferries give a return.

    8. And if an Airline/s bought new Aircraft that didn’t fit what is there , then the Airport out of their own pocket would build the infrastructure , so why can’t the Port Authorities at either end do the same ? . As one day if something ever happened that all will be all theirs .

      Reply

      1. And this from Peter Reddy ;-

        Peter Reidy, CEO of KiwiRail, is questioning who should be footing the bill for that in the first place.

        “If Air New Zealand brought in large planes, they wouldn’t have to pay for all the upgrades for the terminals,” he told AM on Thursday.

        Reply

        1. How much taxpayer money goes into building Blue Bridge terminals?

          And wrt airports. Do they rely on taxpayer money? Or do the airlines, and therefore the passengers and freight, get charged to use them?
          Would Kiwirail be prepared to pay sufficient port and berth fees to cover the costs of those facilities>

        3. And when Containerization Arrived , Who coughed up the Money , the Harbour Boards did and just look at Auckland it’s still going .

    10. The cost escalation was largely the result of government regulations, some of which did not exist when the project started. Requirements for rail projects are much more heavily regulated than for roading projects now, despite the engineering being similar. The system is basically rigged to make rail projects unaffordable. You can therefore blame the previous government, and they have already “resigned”.

      Reply

      1. Talking with someone today and apparently the rest of the world was moving away from rail over water like that. With containerisation surely we can just shift containers not rail wagons. One thought is they could have specialty rail container moving ship. Of course port to port ship freight then comes to mind.

        Reply

  2. The underpass at Parnell consisting of about 10 concrete joined rectangles was installed about a year ago and I thought a simple path on both sides would get the job done. But the paths, walls, steps, garden, mini overbridge, ramps etc are now nearly complete and I guess the project cost has blown out to $5 or $10 million. They have mitigated against flooding.

    Reply

    1. I understand part of the cost blowout at Gowing Drive underpass is also due to much higher expectations for stormwater now.

      Reply

      1. Then there’s that design, which is going to be a pain in the proverbial to actually use – all that’s really needed is a gravel path (concrete if you’re feeling generous) in a straight line from the road to the underpass, but AT just can’t help themselves! Every property owner along there manages with a straight driveway on the same gradient…

        Then it might have come in cheap enough to build while the line was closed all year….

        Reply

  3. The short video clip from the Auditor General was very useful. Although non-specific, it would be good to know which project decisions were made by which ministries (ministers) and when. The cynic in me thinks that many decisions were made for political reasons rather than best use of taxpayer money. It’s good to hear that ongoing monitoring of decision-making (including what might happen in private meetings) will be maintained by the Auditor General’s office.

    Reply

    1. Looking forward to the AG’s view on the 13 RoNS to be delivered as part of the coalition agreement between national and NZF.

      If you want a decision that’s political in nature, start with that.

      Reply

  4. Hapi Ram Raid Ramere!!!

    Roll back on ferries, fixing our train tracks (forever), and they say we shouldn’t buy UTEs?

    Oh that’s right, we have money for roads so we still don’t actually need UTEs.

    Not to be overly ironic, but is we all really stupid? Obviously readers and writers here are educated and progressive but we seem to be in the minority over the motu.

    I can do numbers but I prefer words. The numbers are a very human creation, words are more evolutionary. Binary is boring etc.

    Let us hope that Division In His Head Wayne Brown can pull us through the period of the Triumvirate in Poneke. For our children, our elders, and even for just for us; the weirdos who care about life, poetry and public transport!?!

    Reply

  6. I had a look at the new Station at Pukekohe there is four platforms and six through tracks surely this is a bit of an overkill. Conversely Puhinui has two platforms and three through tracks with what looks like a dock track on the Eastern side although it maybe it will become a through track at a later point.

    Reply

    1. It’s called planning for the future. Puhinui is designed so it can have 4 platforms easily and let’s hope that happens very soon

      Reply

    3. The cost of the stations at Drury West, Drury Central and Paerātā, which are expected to be completed in 2025, has now blown out to $495 million. They were originally expected to cost $247m according to KiwiRail, which is leading the works.
      Some of our busiest stations are Middlemore, MT Albert, GI and Ellerslie which are fine with platforms and cover and no very large buildings.

      Reply

  7. “and six through tracks surely this is a bit of an overkill”

    Six “Through” tracks at Pukekohe? Aren’t some of those just basically tracks for staging / waiting (don’t know the right terminology anymore) – I mean it is going to be the last station for the southern line trains, where they turn around rather than just pass through and be gone a minute or two later. Surely that needs some extra track space?

    Reply

    1. Pukekohe was a bottleneck with commuter trains, freight trains and Te Huia/Northern Explorer all fighting for space. The new layout is welcome and long overdue. Also Papakura is barely adequate for the current level of traffic and causes slowdowns and delays.

      Reply

    2. So I can imagine a scenario where there are four trains sitting at the platforms and two frieght trains come through. Imagine how complex it must be to build signals too manage that. So many points that can malfunction. Maybe they are thinking of switching some trains from diesel to electric and they need runaround tracks. Alternatively if passenger trains are going to terminate there the locomotives would need to switch ends. Still I suppose it gives them endless flexibility so they won’t have any excuses as to why they can’t run a particular service. You could run a Waiuku or Mission bush train to connect with an express Pukekohe Britormart service. So it’s there now so let’s hold their feet to the fire and make them utilise it. After all they asked for it and it was given.

      Reply

      2. The passenger trains from Auckland will be EMU’s, so no need to switch ends and the Te Huia will be passing through, so no change there either.

        Are there more passenger services you’re aware of that we don’t know about?

        Reply

        1. Possibly GVR doing special excursion like they did with one of the last weekend of the ADL/ADC’s .
          Or GVR could use the same for a passenger service to Waiuku with those that are stored in their yards .

  8. All the current ships across Cook Strait bar one, are hand me downs, not specifically designed for the arduous Cook Strait service.
    Most are very near to their end of safe, and reliable life. Corrosion and fatigue can only be slowed, not eliminated.
    Most ships do not have latest required and indeed prudent, standards of redundancy in critical systems. The fuel, engine cooling and electrical systems.
    Although the Kaitaki has multiple generators, and two propulsion motors and propellers, the generator sets rely on a single cooling circuit, and a single ring main fuelling circuit. Failure in this single cooling circuit very nearly resulted in the loss of the ship and almost significant loss of life.
    The other old ships almost certainly have similar vulnerabilities.

    Enhanced maintenance, whatever that is, will never address this fundemental shortfall in designed redundancy. Nor does it add steel thickness to the hull to address corrosion wasting, and fatigue embrittlement.

    Reply

  9. Just received a newsletter from NZTA about an amendment of the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits Amendment 2023 – saying that they have made the development of speed management plans discretionary, rather than mandatory, and revoked all prior deadlines.

    How nice that NZTA can act fast, when it comes down to it, eh?

    Meanwhile, other changes languish for years or decades – but something intended to slow down our road toll by reducing speeds? Gone with haste.

    Reply

    1. This from a Newshub posting 4days ago bringing up the same from our New Transport minister Simpleton Brown

      “New Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced the Government is amending the speed limit rules, which will see blanket speed limit reductions become a thing of the past.”

      https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/government-announces-major-change-to-speed-limit-rules/ar-AA1lmdiQ?ocid=NL_ENNZ_A1_00010101_1_1

      And it seems everyone will be going as fast as they can and playing skittles with those crossing roads .

      Reply

      1. When interviewed on AM, he said he had no info on how much the change would save (turns out its a $30m cost), what it would actually mean for productivity gains, or how many people would die as a result.

        And they say the left is ideological….

        Reply

        2. From what I’ve read this is definitely where we get into wider issue of how the minister interacts with Waka Kotahi that needs to be considered. (This might apply to the safer speeds issue but I’m less clear on that.)

          Consider the pushback on the Cycling Action Network an how Brown stopped funding e.g. https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/12/16/minister-hits-brakes-on-cycling-and-walking-initiatives/ . It’s supposed to be the board which makes these decisions based on the Government Policy Statement on Transport. Good governance does mean that these norms should generally be followed and shouldn’t generally just be ignored because everyone wants to.

          I said before that technically parliamentary sovereignty means the government can change virtually anything and do things however they want if parliament is behind them. But one thing I didn’t make clear is I do agree they should generally be forced to do so. IMO all the consequences and pushback that entails making a major change in governance etc is a good thing whatever your views on the proposed change as e.g. happened with Three Waters or replacing the privy council with the Supreme Court.

          However I do think there is a balance here which relates to what we’re referring to. If we’re just talking about stopping planning for stuff that isn’t going to happen, I feel that even with good governance we have to ask whether it’s productive to continue spending time and money on stuff which we’re fairly sure is never going to happen even if technically things haven’t changed to stop this planning yet.

          IMO where it gets more complicated is when we’re talking about committing funding to construction e.g. the New Plymouth protected cycleway. In that case, I’m very unconvinced Waka Kotahi should just say, sorry but we’re sure the new government isn’t going to allow us to continue.

          IMO it’s fair for Waka Kotahi to continue with how things as they are now. If the minister wants to go down the route which will lead to cancelling already committed funding so be it, but make them do it properly.

    2. I don’t disagree that Waka Kotahi takes way to long to do some stuff, and this is at least partly reflective of harmful internal biases etc. But it seems to me complaining about how quickly they moved with this is missing the point. This was a very simple change based on a directive from the minister, it something which was easy to implement and while this being government, I’m sure there was still a bunch of stuff that needed to be done for it to happen, it likely wasn’t much.

      Most of the stuff people seem to keep comparing to where they feel Waka Kotahi is took way too long, including implementing the safer speeds policy in the first place AFAIK were far more complicated and while it is probably true they took way too long, it’s simple too flawed to compare the two. And indeed doing to IMO actually harms our goal of demonstrating Waka Kotahi ‘s internal biases etc since it’s fairly easy for people to see they’re not very comparable.

      A better example would be if if in the next few weeks Brown suddenly has an epiphany or the government somehow collapses completely in the next few months and is replaced by one with a far better transport policy and they say hey go back to as you were before I/Brown interfered. This would be a similar, simple change. I mean okay the long it is the slightly more complicated it will be since e.g. you can’t tell people in May hey you needed to have submitted your places by the end of March. Still provided it isn’t too long it’s simple enough that it is something they should implement fairly quickly.

      How Waka Kotahi handle whatever Brown actually does would IMO be more indicative of their biases. Especially since at least from what they’re saying it’s not a simple reversal but rather they’re proposing additional considerations like economics. They said, since it is IMO closer to what we’ve already done in the recent past, I also don’t think it’s unreasonable they’re able to deal with it faster than the initial safer speeds stuff since AFAIK a lot of that was fairly new to Waka Kotahi.

      I’ve said before I hope pushback gets the government to at least partially reverse course. And if not, at least evidence from elsewhere, other issues, and perhaps a new minister eventually gets something closer to what we have now, especially if as I think most of us expect, some form of National government lasts at least 6 years. But even if that doesn’t happen and we have to wait for a Labour or Labour-Green government, sometime down the road, it’s fair to say it should not take as long next time since again we already did some work now. Although the longer it takes for that reversal the more different things are likely to be so the fairer it will be IMO for it to take more time (although still not as long as it took the first time).

      Also it seems clear that the rest of the world is going to me moving ahead with this stuff. So the longer we wait the more examples there will be from elsewhere which will help guide us and so again the less time it IMO should take. (I’m sure some would argue with so many examples you then need to spend more time looking at what you can learn from each one but I don’t think that’s really right.)

      Reply

  10. “it’s incredibly frustrating that we have to have these closures every year”

    When else would you like this work done as efficiently and quickly as possible?

    Can’t complain about lack of repairs, maintenance, performance, and then also complain when you get it.

    When else should we shut down Papakura for 1-2 weeks to work on the OLE? Maybe we should just magic the new infrastructure into being.

    Reply

  12. “I’m surprised they didn’t add stairs in for more able bodied pedestrians.”

    Or lifts or escalators for less able bodied pedestrians.

    Reply

  13. Basically the ferry/supporting infrastructure procurement, design, cost escalation and now inevitable cancellation pretty much sums up the last government in a nut shell. A bunch over confident talking idiots who should never have had a bigger political career after student politics. Let’s hope the current rabble have at least half a clue as to what’s going on or NZ is in real trouble.

    Reply

  14. The annual shutdown for our COMMUTER rail focused system because the commuters are on holiday. What about the people on holiday that may want to use the rail system – tough? Does Auckland want to be a liveable city with sustainable travel options?

    Another issue, can somebody tell me why Kiwirail and the operators of the rail network manage to run trains late to Papakura from Britomart in the evenings when the frequency of the passenger trains are less and although there may be the odd freight train, there is capacity on the network, but still the passenger trains run at least 5 minutes late when they get to Papakura?

    Reply

    2. You have answered your own question.

      The odd freight train can be managed safely when working on the adjacent main. People and gear move out of the way. Passenger trains every 5-10min you’d spend all time standing down and no time working.

      Would love all the armchair experts on this forum to apply for a job and show the teams sweating out there how to do it better.

      Reply

    3. PS

      Unfortunate no one has told me how to do it better instead of having a christmas shutdown.

      Don’t do any maintenance catch ups?
      Do night work only so costs 4x as much and takes 4x as long?
      Keep trains running slowly for years to coming?
      Tell the crews to that they have to adjust/maintain the OLE while it’s live?

      Just waiting for all the brilliant ideas to come out.

      Reply

      1. If only there was a way to avoid Christmas shutdowns, but as we know, this happens on every railway in the world and Auckland is obviously not a massive outlier. So clearly there is no other way. Right?

        Reply

        1. There is, it’s called consistent maintenance and upgrades over many decades. Auckland did exactly the opposite from the 1950s to 2004.
          Now the Moas have come home to roost.

        2. Does not happen here in the UK unless a new line is built or a washout happens.

          Maintenance done at night or on weekends only.

      2. We are a outlier here when it comes to rail maintence practices, as I have lived in the UK and did not experience the level of repetive annual rail maintence shut downs over a large geographical area. It’s like Transport for the North shut the Greater Manchester Rail Network over the summer for three weeks. It would not happen. Rail maintence shutdowns are selected in extent i.e. I experienced a rail maintence shutdown for works between Par and St Austell on the Cornish Mainline , a distance of 4 miles The Cornish Mainline is a distance of 75 miles between Penzance and Plymouth. The trains were run up to St Austell and the passengers were bussed around the shutdown to resume their rail journey at Par. If this happened out here, the whole line of 75 miles would be shutdown.
        Freight trains out here still run, on the whole, when there is a shut down, as Kiwi Rail are happy to find a work around i.e. wrong line running, but passenger services – no.
        Yes, there is a lot of over night work for rail maintenance in the UK, but then the motorways over here are shut over night for maintenance work, but nobody questions the cost, so why is rail any different?

        Reply

        2. Yes I’m sure Auckland/NZ could do better on this. I think it’s partly just “this has how we have always done it in recent decades” but a lot to do with big catchup. Could be just a matter of money, but do the contractors actaully work on the Christmas stat days? Any saving of operational train staff not working on stats would be off-set by this. It’s nice all the staff can have their Christmas break at the “right time” but what about these contractors?
          In saying that there are some cities where there is a lot more redundancy, eg Paris so can shut lines on and off for years of upgrade as passengers have work arounds for not much time penalty.
          We have a smaller network, but have some redundancy with Southern/Eastern line.
          This video I just watched last night is kind of related, though has a click bait type title, the story develops in to more of a general talk about several things & is very good, one being the Paris redundancy due to not just having a radial line system that so many cities have traditionally had.
          https://youtu.be/nDXsVhFG7TE?si=_Y_dZtscD1Q0OsDq

    4. Hey No Trains Pukekohe

      Have you ever stopped to wonder about all the residents living near the rail lines when there is all this work going on over the holidays 24/7 ?

      Some are putting up with more than your inconvenience. Get an Uber.

      Reply

      1. But the motorways are closed overnight for maintenance works and people live near motorways, so what is the difference? Imagine if Auckland’s motorways were closed every year for three weeks over Christmas and the New Year for maintenance because it was necessary and it saved on the costs of unsocial hours working, there would be an outcry. It would never happen.

        On the issue of an electrified railway and maintenance. Sections of an electrified railway can be isolated to undertake maintenance in limited locations, thereby avoiding turning the whole electrified rail network off.

        Reply

  16. worth mentioning that during that period also buses will be affected. Running on weekends (some on Sundays) timetable and some won’t be running at all. Because if AT staff go on holidays that automatically means all Aucklanders have the same privilege. Pathetic

    Reply

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