Why is rail such a poor relation in NZ?

[Riggles]

Well for my business trips at least I leave from the office and generally go to another office in the middle of whatever city I'm visiting.

So if your flying down to Wellington for the day you would still head into your office first? Sounds like you tend to forget something before going home the night before.

For non work trips a station like Britomart is a hell of a lot easier to get to than the airport, for me and for anyone who doesn't live in South Auckland.

Most parts of the city can get to the airport rather easily, I would think it would be harder making your way to the CBD with peak hour traffic than heading the other direction. I still don't know what your plans are once you get to your destination though, is it running, taxi, bus or rental car?

[john-ston]

We have a lot of national air travel

We don't have that much national air travel - basically, the only places where you see a lot of air travel is between Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown.

[Nick R]

I usually work the morning, travel late afternoon and stay overnight before starting. Granted its not a good example because I never do work trips of just one day.

I still don't know what your plans are once you get to your destination though, is it running, taxi, bus or rental car?

Yes one of those, exactly the same options if I flew instead. Except I wouldn't run in a suit, so walk would be more appropriate!

Having said that, while I did used to do work or Air NZ actually inside airports, there are precious few places for most people to walk to from any airport. Rail terminals tend to be downtown so walking is an option, I used to do that on work trips from Melbourne to Ballarat, the train station was about a block away from where I was headed.

[Riggles]

Walking would only be an option if you were going to same place close to the railway station, so in the case of most cities and towns in NZ it would only be any use if you were going to the city centre or maybe a freight yard in some industrial area.

So anyway from what it seems, you would be rather happy to take the train into the city (or busway I assume it is for you), train down to Tauranga, and then take another train off to the Mount. All of which pretty much supports my theory that if the cities you are linking have extensive rail systems (or some other RTN) people would be much more likely to take rail rather than drive which is what we see over most of Europe.

[williamn]

To be honest, Tauranga isn't huge, so you could get most places by foot/bus/taxi and it's not going to add much to your journey. If the train is to compete though, for business travellers it has to offer something the car/plane can't - an environment you can work in, so that means having Wifi on board - this is pretty much universal on long distance UK trains. The train to Edinburgh takes 4.5 hours, compared to an hour on the plane, but it still has about 40% of the market, because its a more pleasant way to travel, and is city centre to city centre.

[rail_up]

I note an underlying issue in most of the preceding comments, and it's one of 'speed' - i.e. which service can get you there the fastest?

We are unlikely to ever see long straight flat tracks in this country that can support high speed trains, such as in Japan and Germany etc. On that basis, rail is never going to be an option if you are putting it up against air travel.
Against road travel, the relative times *may* parallel in some situations. I am sure you could have a non-stop rail service from Auckland to Hamilton that would do the trip in just over an hour, but in general, rail is going to be the 'less stress', slower means of traveling.
As for access to and from the railway station, this is a flow-on effect of the demise of passenger rail in NZ. Because the passenger services dried up, the buses/taxis/trams servicing the railway stations also disappeared.
Geoff hit it right from the start when he said that the public transport systems in NZ pretty much died when private cars took over. We are a nation that loves its cars.

[williamn]

But why did the car cause rail to die more in NZ than in other places? The coming of the car had a big effect everywhere, but rail networks didn't die completely, and rail has made quite comeback in recent years in many places.

[locost_bryan]

Most parts of the city can get to the airport rather easily

In Auckland? Yeah, right! Certainly not from north or west, nor the CBD at the end of the day.

[richard]

I think williamn one reason must be the spread nature of our low population and our narrow gauge making trains slow by international standards. Tilt trains in Aus can do 150 kph on the 3' 6" gauge but this is still not the norm.and certainly wasn't when cars were taking over in the 50's With good track and standard Gauge a fairly ordinary train could do Auckland to Hamilton in an hour.

Another factor I believe was the NZR were hopeless at marketing and didn't seem to want passengers so they operated the largest bus company in the country NZ Road Services and competed with themselves eventually putting themselves out of business. The railcar didn't connect with the Railways ferry at Picton by half an hour we found on one occasion so the option was to wait to the next day for the next train or catch a Newman's coach which we of course did.

Because of these factors the general public consider the train in the same vein as riding a horse......antiquated. The NZer is dumbfounded when they go to Europe and travel on a TGV or ICE at 300kph.....only aeroplanes and Ferrari's go that fast surely?!

[Riggles]

I don't think rail gauge really has all the big of a difference on the performance limitations of the rail system, the difference in gauge sizes mainly came through intentional incompatibility and cost. You would most likely be able to run a train at 300km/h quite easily using our rail gauge provided the construction quality of the track was up to scratch.

[geoff_184]

I don't think rail gauge really has all the big of a difference on the performance limitations of the rail system, the difference in gauge sizes mainly came through intentional incompatibility and cost. You would most likely be able to run a train at 300km/h quite easily using our rail gauge provided the construction quality of the track was up to scratch.

I'm not so sure about that, as the narrower the track gauge, the greater the "wobble" of the rolling stock. A 2700mm wide carriage on 1067mm gauge track is less stable than on 1435mm track. The 160km/h they allow in Queensland is about as fast as you'll get on our gauge. But we really don't need anything faster, and as I understand it KR don't want anything over 110km/h on their network anyway (one of the reasons the Auckland EMU specs were dropped from 130km/h to 110km/h).

[c46andc47]

I don't think rail gauge really has all the big of a difference on the performance limitations of the rail system, the difference in gauge sizes mainly came through intentional incompatibility and cost. You would most likely be able to run a train at 300km/h quite easily using our rail gauge provided the construction quality of the track was up to scratch.

I'm not so sure about that, as the narrower the track gauge, the greater the "wobble" of the rolling stock. A 2700mm wide carriage on 1067mm gauge track is less stable than on 1435mm track. The 160km/h they allow in Queensland is about as fast as you'll get on our gauge. But we really don't need anything faster, and as I understand it KR don't want anything over 110km/h on their network anyway (one of the reasons the Auckland EMU specs were dropped from 130km/h to 110km/h).

Do you have any evidence of the first statement? Surely it depends on how well the track is maintained?

With regard to the final sentance I believe that the Matangis achieved their design maximum speed of 121kph. When you are running an all-stops service with a relatively short station spacing there comes a time when increasing the maximum speed adds cost but does not provide any benefit - the trains spend so little time at top speed (if at all) that the time saving is miniscule.

[geoff_184]

It's simple physics, the narrower the track, the more the train will wobble from side to side, unless you make the trains proportionately narrower. You could run 300km/h trains on 1067mm gauge if they were say five feet wide. Single row seating either side of the aisle anyone?

The Matangi's are not allowed to exceed 100km/h, as that's the maximum track speed.

[eurokiwi78]

I believe wear and tear on the track itself is signifigantly reduced by lowering the max speed for freight trains from 80km/h to 70km/h.

[EssJay]

I don't think rail gauge really has all the big of a difference on the performance limitations of the rail system, the difference in gauge sizes mainly came through intentional incompatibility and cost. You would most likely be able to run a train at 300km/h quite easily using our rail gauge provided the construction quality of the track was up to scratch.

Disagree -Japan has the same 1,067 mm gauge as we do for everything EXCEPT the shinkansen which is standard 1,435 mm

[john-ston]

Against road travel, the relative times *may* parallel in some situations. I am sure you could have a non-stop rail service from Auckland to Hamilton that would do the trip in just over an hour, but in general, rail is going to be the 'less stress', slower means of traveling.

A bit slower than the car might have been acceptable, but services were extremely slow in the immediate post war period. A Fiat railcar took nearly six hours to get from Auckland to Tauranga, and I suspect that a car might have been able to do that same trip in four or five.

Of course, there was that seven year period after World War II where cars were slowly taking over, and train timetables were still at war economy levels.

Geoff hit it right from the start when he said that the public transport systems in NZ pretty much died when private cars took over. We are a nation that loves its cars.

We only grew to love our cars because the alternative was so poor. Had NZR aimed to speed up their services from the 1920s onwards, cars might not have taken off so quickly. The other issue is that in the major centres, growth had extended beyond the limits of the tram network by the 1930s - for instance, in Auckland, we saw development in Mangere Bridge, Orakei and Takapuna during that period.

But why did the car cause rail to die more in NZ than in other places? The coming of the car had a big effect everywhere, but rail networks didn't die completely, and rail has made quite comeback in recent years in many places.

Simply put, NZR was run by bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats were more worried about finding ways to waste money than to actually create an organisation responsive to the needs of its customers.

[duddley]

Wasn't the NZR more worried about providing jobs for everyone to keep them off the dole?.

[Riggles]

Wasn't the NZR more worried about providing jobs for everyone to keep them off the dole?.

That was one of their jobs, apparently they had over 50,000 people in their workforce and now I don't know if they even have over 1,000

[Chris Randal.]

Wasn't the NZR more worried about providing jobs for everyone to keep them off the dole?.

No - the Government wanted NZR and P&T to provide jobs to keep people off the dole.

[locost_bryan]

Wasn't the NZR more worried about providing jobs for everyone to keep them off the dole?.

No - the Government wanted NZR and P&T to provide jobs to keep people off the dole.

They were also the countries largest trade training organisations ((alongside the Ministry of Works and Electricity Dept). NZR Road Services was also the largest bus and coach operator.