North Auckland Line Thread

[eurokiwi78]

Yeah my list came from a paper written by gareth Morgan advocating improvements to the nal and marsden point branch being constructed.

Hmph. I thought Gareth Morgan would be more of an anti-rail sort of guy...

Yes I must admit I was somewhat suprised by his opinion in this case.

[KiwiRail-Trainee-08]

OP - in response to your 1st post, In order to have a fully operational & succuessiful NAL, alot of trach work has to be done. The speed restrictions are tereble

[geoff_184]

Been many years since I was familiar with NAL schedules. What times did 124 & 126 head north, and what were the times for 125 & 129 south? Are we talking a reduction to 1 service each way daily?

124 - 2305 to 0528 Mon-Thu.
125 - 0705 to 1355 Mon-Fri.
126 - 0906 to 1615 Mon-Fri.
129 - 2045 to 0324 Mon-Fri.
130 - 1815 to 2351 Sun.

From Tuesday:

125RR - 0705 to 1355.
126RR - 0906 to 1615.
127 - 1630 to 2256 Mon-Fri.
128 - 1850 to 0108 Mon-Thu.
130 - 1815 to 2351 Sun.

This will be for a couple of months to enable a night time block of line at New Lynn after 2230hrs, and because the night freight is running earlier, the opportunity can be taken to add the logs off 125 to 127 as well, as it gets to Westfield in time to connect with 323, whereas 129 used to miss it.

If tonnage is too much for one train, 125RR will run.

[Gibbo]

Been many years since I was familiar with NAL schedules. What times did 124 & 126 head north, and what were the times for 125 & 129 south? Are we talking a reduction to 1 service each way daily?

124 - 2305 to 0528 Mon-Thu.
125 - 0705 to 1355 Mon-Fri.
126 - 0906 to 1615 Mon-Fri.
129 - 2045 to 0324 Mon-Fri.
130 - 1815 to 2351 Sun.

From Tuesday:

125RR - 0705 to 1355.
126RR - 0906 to 1615.
127 - 1630 to 2256 Mon-Fri.
128 - 1850 to 0108 Mon-Thu.
130 - 1815 to 2351 Sun.

This will be for a couple of months to enable a night time block of line at New Lynn after 2230hrs, and because the night freight is running earlier, the opportunity can be taken to add the logs off 125 to 127 as well, as it gets to Westfield in time to connect with 323, whereas 129 used to miss it.

If tonnage is too much for one train, 125RR will run.

Thx for that. Does the NAL also perhaps see less Fonterra traffic in thre 'dry season'!?!

[royce]

Geof is right and Jonston is wrong wrong wrong. As long as the train can deliver its ZL of LCL freight overnight it doesnt matter wether it takes four hours or six. I wonder how much of a backload they are getting. One thing I would question is why these wagons are suddenly availible for the NAL. My guess is because of a downturn in Auckland Christchuch freight caused by the world wide recession. Watch these wagons being taken away as soon as things pickup. This is an old NZR, Tranzrail and Toll trick. It would be good if Mainfreight could get access to a rail siding in Whangerai as well then we might see some real progress in making the line viable. In my view this sort of traffic is the lines best hope.
As for the other freight the coal from Huntly here teenage animal is right it comes from Westland and has more to do with quality and avaiibilty than rails freight charges from Huntly to Portland versus barging charges from Westport to Whangerai. Of course the railway would never be able to compete railing it from Westland to Whangerai via the cook strait ferrys.
The fertiliser wagons were taking off Ballance for use on westcoast coal trains. So that is a railway fault for loosing this traffic.It only went to Wellsford anyway which is why the probably did it.
The chinia clay is dense so it doesnt need high cube containers. It however was lost because the gantry at Otiria was could only lift 18 tonnes they probably weigh in at about 25 tonnes. Gotta have the lifting gear. Same thing is happening at Gisborne as well. I think the demise of this traffic and the meat from AFFCO Moerewa works happened during the Beard era probably because they did not want to man Otiria.
So you see most of the fault for the demise of traffic on this line can be sheeted back to the railway itself.

[royce]

I forgot about the Kaitaia veener. This used to go by rail but it goes to Gisborne and tranzrail used to send it via Palmerston North too. Shows why a east coast link would be handy. Dont know why it couldnt go by barge though. I see Kaitaia transport trucks with green taupalins taking it. However Juken Nissho had had it up to here with Tranzrail over their poor performance carting resin from New Plymouth and Mount Mauganui. Too many junctions and missed connections. Now that is time sensitive freight especially as they only just had enough wagons if everything went right which it seldom did and the wagons needed to be returned empty. I expect that if the Z wagons on this latest Toll traffic dont happen to return quickly enough what happens is that another two or four wagons are borrowed from the pool something that couldnt be done with the resin wagons.

[eurokiwi78]

That veneer sure took a circuitous route. Not suprised it went to road altho if the mill had been nearer a rail line I'd say rail it to taneatua and truck it from there.

[geoff_184]

This morning's freight train to Whangarei:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvv8BLqMA7A

[Riggles]

I have started having a look at potential places to put a rail line in the northshore. This is based on preliminary data but I'll look to update things once I get some contour data in.

For now I have the Northern Loop. This has about 2km of tunnel all up even though the route is some 25km in length from Smales Station to were it ties into the western line just west of Henderson.

Although the grand plan is to get to the Albany then onto Orewa this is a base to get things running ang get a good catchment on the shore.

Of note were the jobs runs next to the SH18 Hobsonville Deviation, all this area is getting zoned for development so although nothing now could have huge potential in the Futrue such as the Hobsonville Land Development and the Massey North Development.



This is my fist go at drawing in google earth so it is pretty average.

[royce]

I am assuming that no train ran North from Auckland over the long weekend which makes Geofs train not what it seems. The wagons have probably being sitting around at Westfield Hamilton and Mount Maunganui all weekend. They probably all got together at Westfield this morning. You have probably got two normal trains combined into one because of the long weekend. Anyway it was impressive. I thought I saw a bulk product container in the mix I wonder if it was fertiliser. Now of course Kiwirail has a problem because they will need to do five days work in four days. This is why they always failed every long weekend if any of the wagons needed to return to be refilled. A north band train on Sunday noght may have helped and would have been essential if customers facility were workin seven days.

[geoff_184]

The train in the video actually departed on Monday night, but had to stop at Waitakere and return to Westfield (no driver north of Waitakere). It departed for the second time this morning, as seen in the video.

No freight could go north over the long weekend because of the Avondale track works.

[geoff_184]

A couple of videos of this morning's southbound NAL freight, with the locos working hard, especially in the second clip....

At Matua Rd near Waimauku:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3KWPMy5UVM

Approaching the Waitakere tunnel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmtnE2UFgL8

Radio Test Van on the rear, this time with tail lights blinking.

[royce]

I heard last week that the FWP Particle board plant at Kumeu is to close. My guess that means there will be at least one hundred tonnes of pulp logs per annum which will have to go somewhere else presumably eithier Portland, Kawerau or Kinlieth.
The mill also use to burn large volumes of forestry waste to produce process heat. Much of it was generated on site but some was trucked in. Bark shavings etc. Anyway I know that Golden Bay Cement uses wood waste to supplement coal in its cement making operation. Anyway I suppose the upshot of all this is there maybe some opportunity for Kiwirail. Particularly the logs but I suppose the wood waste as well as the Portland cement works has a rail siding for coal which could presumably take wood waste. They would need bottom dumping wagons as containers would have to come of the wagons to be tipped which would destroy any rail ecomony over road. Dont suppose there are any spare ones though.
Also I see the Kaitaia transport trucks have been rebanded Toll Kaitaia.So with Toll having brought Unitied as well it seems as they own the North now which is probably why Kiwirail has providied the Z wagons and presumably good rates for the Whangerai Southdown traffic.

[Gibbo]

Northbound 128 was impressive length tonight, but a lot of empties for filling up North so not a lot of traffic at the moment. Let's hope NorthPort get a strategy in place for a rail link!?!

DFT & 2 x DC's on 128 - in my day DC's couldn't head north - what was done (& when) to allow them through the Makerau tunnel?

[geoff_184]

Not sure what they did to achieve it, but DC's started running through Makerau in 1998. DBR's had already been going through for a number of years, and supposedly they have the same cab dimensions. Not all DC's are authorised to go through it though. There's about 25 that are - the rest are still prohibited.

40 wagons on 128 tonight. 20 wagons on 127 the other way.