Transportblog is now nearly six years old and there are now over 4,000 published posts by many people. One of the downsides is that often it seems like some great posts get lost over time in the archives that are still relevant to us today and useful to shed some light on again. In order to do so, we’re establishing a semi-regular feature that will go back into the archives and dig up a post that occurred “On this day…” in a previous year. We’ll then add some comment to the bottom of the post that provides a bit of hindsight to the previous post and what relevance there might be. It should be an interesting feature.
This “on this day” post comes from 2010:
Within a rather interesting NZ Herald article on what rail works have been progressed during the holiday period, there’s also mention of a rather important upcoming milestone in the rail electrification project – the signing of the contract for the main electrification works. Here’s the relevant parts:
Transport Minister Steven Joyce will announce a key contract for the region’s $1 billion electrification project on Thursday, as well as formally opening Newmarket’s $35 million replacement station, ready for trains to start using it the following Monday…
… The contract to be announced by Mr Joyce next week will be for the supply and installation of train traction wires and their masts within a $500 million Government funding envelope for electrification infrastructure, from which $90 million was committed last year for track signalling.
A further $500 million of government money has been allocated for electric trains, for which KiwiRail is finalising specifications before inviting bids from international suppliers.
The electrification project will begin in stages between now and 2013, starting on the sections of railway between Otahuhu and Britomart, and between Newmarket and Morningside.
For a long time the pessimistic part of my brain could not believe that electrification would happen until I saw the signing of the contract for the wires to go up. That happens Thursday – so there’s definitely no turning back now!
Update:
Back in 2010 this point in time seemed like a long way away but here we are. The milestone for completing the electrification works passed pretty quietly towards the end of last year and while it was late, it does not appear as though the electrification works have held back the rollout of electric trains which have been happening since April last year.
2015 will be an exciting year for Auckland’s rail system, as electric trains are introduced to the two “big lines” of the system, the Southern and the Western. I suspect we will continue to see rapid patronage growth throughout the year.
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[electrification starting] “between Newmarket and Morningside.”
haha, more like finishing with morningside, only been wires there for a couple months.
Indeed, the poles sat there untouched for years.
Sad to see that the beautiful Point Resolution overbridge has already been vandalised by scratching the lovely glasswork sides with a sharp instrument – so unnecessary. Suggest bringing back the stocks for all graffiti vandals caught etc. etc!