Future of Northland Rail

[Jonthekiwi]

Rumour has it that this Thursday 23rd of December Kiwirail, under huge pressure from the Minister of Trucking Lobby(Steven Joyce), will announce the closure of Northlands Railway network in 2011.

KiwiRail will be using the line (excuse the pun) " it loses $7 million per annum". This is creative accounting on its part to appease the Minister of Trucking Lobby. The $7 million p.a. most likely comes from the costs of catching up on the delayed maintenance by Tranzrail from 1995 to 2004 for things such as brige replacement, re-sleepering sections etc...

At present the Northland Auckland railway network removes around 39,000 truck journeys off Northland State Highways and local roads.

Could the the closure of the Northland Rail Network (north of Helensville, including the line to Whangarei, Otiria and Dargaville branches) be designed to help the benefits of his Northland white elephant the $2 billion Holiday Highway from Puhoi to Wellsford?

The Road Transport Forum (trucking lobby) will be very pleased...will they make a larger donation to the National Party for next years election campaign?

[pcuser42]

Anyone up for a protest?

[Rolls-Royce]

It is a pitty Labour didn't get the Marsden Point rail link started while they were in power. Connecting the rail network to this port would be a real life line for this line. Looks like it might be too late now? If the rumour is true hopefully the line will only be mothballed and there is still potential for the Marsden Point connection to go ahead and for the line to be reopened again under a Labour led government in the future.

[Rolls-Royce]

Another way to possibly look at this situation, if oil prices continue to rise and stay high, rail may very well become attractive again. If the North Shore line goes ahead, perhaps an extension of this line as a new line from Orewa to Kaipara Flats (and onwards to Marsden Point and Whangarei) could be considered?

[Andrew]

Minister's response to $2 petrol: close rail, build motorways?!

[john-ston]

KiwiRail will be using the line (excuse the pun) " it loses $7 million per annum". This is creative accounting on its part to appease the Minister of Trucking Lobby. The $7 million p.a. most likely comes from the costs of catching up on the delayed maintenance by Tranzrail from 1995 to 2004 for things such as brige replacement, re-sleepering sections etc...

And to think that Kiwi Rail have just wasted precious millions on replacing bridges on that route.

At present the Northland Auckland railway network removes around 39,000 truck journeys off Northland State Highways and local roads.

Per what? Per day? Per year? Per century?

Could the the closure of the Northland Rail Network (north of Helensville, including the line to Whangarei, Otiria and Dargaville branches) be designed to help the benefits of his Northland white elephant the $2 billion Holiday Highway from Puhoi to Wellsford?

I doubt it - the North Auckland Line at best has between twenty and thirty freight trains a week and the amount of freight is unlikely to increase without the Marsden Point line, and that would require spending a fortune in tunnel expansion. Also, the benefits for the Puhoi to Wellsford Highway would only increase by about 0.001.

The Road Transport Forum (trucking lobby) will be very pleased...will they make a larger donation to the National Party for next years election campaign?

Are you willing to make a bet - as soon as I have made sufficient money (perhaps $500,000), I would donate it to the National Party and prove to you that the Road Transport Forums money does not influence policy.

[Meadowbank Station]

This line wont be closed. The Labour government had an abysmal ability to negotiate with big commercial interests . That is why the taxpayers paid so much for something that Toll wanted to get rid of . They could have got a bargain at a fraction of the price. Look at our new navy bathtubs. The army Lav and the job they did to get rid of the Sky hawks and MAC trainers. National have only been in 5 minutes and so far the network continues to be improved.

[Chris Randal.]

Are you willing to make a bet - as soon as I have made sufficient money (perhaps $500,000), I would donate it to the National Party and prove to you that the Road Transport Forums money does not influence policy.

The ultimate in naivety!

[Jonthekiwi]

I do hope, for JJ's sake, that was a joke otherwise his age is really showing through with a statement like that.

[john-ston]

I do hope, for JJ's sake, that was a joke otherwise his age is really showing through with a statement like that.

Yes it was, my point being that I don't think that money alone influences policy. Even if the Road Transport Forum didn't donate money to the National Party, I don't think that they would be as pro rail as you would want them to be.

[Jonthekiwi]

JJ - when you've been in a number of international businesses overseas as I have you will learn one thing - money influences. You'll just have to get out of Uni and into the real world of business to realise that. Of course, you are welcome to dream that that is not true.

[Matt L]

I doubt it - the North Auckland Line at best has between twenty and thirty freight trains a week and the amount of freight is unlikely to increase without the Marsden Point line, and that would require spending a fortune in tunnel expansion. Also, the benefits for the Puhoi to Wellsford Highway would only increase by about 0.001.

I think I remember reading it was about $80mil for the link to the port and another $40 odd mil for the tunnel work

[john-ston]

JJ - when you've been in a number of international businesses overseas as I have you will learn one thing - money influences. You'll just have to get out of Uni and into the real world of business to realise that. Of course, you are welcome to dream that that is not true.

Jon, if money had so much influence, then there would be no point in engaging in lobbying activities of the sort that the Campaign for Better Transport (and others) engage in - all you would need to do is raise the money, write the cheque to the politicians, and voila, you get what you want. Money might have some influence around the margins, but let us be honest, no amount of money will turn the National Party into a bunch of socialists, and no amount of money will turn the Labour Party into a bunch of conservatives.

[cbtadmin]

It would be helpful if we could keep this thread to the topic in hand. With a view to building up a press release, let's start by objectively identifying:

• How much has been spent on this line in the last year?
• How much freight is actually moved on this line?
• What is the equivalent number of trucks that would be required to move this freight, per day / month year?
• What is the current status of the Marsden Point rail link and what will happen to the designation?
• When will the closure take effect from? Do we know this yet, or is this up for "consultation"
• Is the line actually losing money?
• What is the cost of outstanding repairs?
• How much would it cost to mothball?
• How much additional damage be done to SH1 as a result of the increase in logging trucks on the road?

We aren't going to know the answers to all these questions, but if we could start putting them down in an objective way that would be a constructive way to build up the argument to keeping it open.

[royce]

As far as I can work out the line is carrying Dairy containers from Kauri to the Port of Auckland about 50 per week. Chip Containers to Kawerau about 40 per week and log wagons to Kinlieth about the same. It is also carrying pulp logs from Otiria, Wellsford and Dargaville to the Portland chip mill. And that is about it.
Given that 7000 TEU ships will most likely be going to Tauranga then I think we can say that sooner or later the Dairy containers will not be going to Auckland but to Tauranga. So any evaluation of the line should take into account the loss of revenue which would occur on the other routes if the NAL traffic is lost. I think you can more or less write of any notion that freight will be roaded to Westfield and then placed on rail for the trip to Tauranga, Kawerau or Kinlieth. It has never happened in past branch line closures and will probably not happen in this case as well. Once it is on the truck that is it it stays on the truck no matter what general managers and politicians try to make out in their announcments.
A barge service from the old wharf in Whangerai to Tauranga with onward delivery on rail to Kawerau and Kinlieth might make a bit of sense. This gives a bit of a back load for the forestry traffic from the mills. I believe the logs which are going to Kinlieth are loaded at Wellsford so if the line was going to be left open to Helensville maybe the logs could be trucked straight from the forest to Helensville then placed onto rail there. Another factor that could be taken into account would be without that restrictive tunnel wood chip containers could have hungary boards attached which would considerably increase their payload. But I still dont see Kiwirail wanting to compete.
It sounds as though it is probably to late for this but two things which could make the present arrangements more economic would be to cut out the shunting at Westfield , Hamilton and Mount Maunganui. Those wagons just spend an awfull lot of their time sitting around.

[Rail-it]

It will be a BIG boo boo if National close the NAL north of Swanson.

[Matt L]

I wonder if someone has just picked up on this and ran a little with it, SJ is meant to be answering a question that day from Gareth Hughes as to when the consultation will begin.

http://www.interest.co.nz/news/northlan ... ew-next-ye

[Matt L]

Here is some info from AKT on the costs, these were given by Kiwirail in September for the Northland Regional Councils 30 year transport plan. $80m for the Marsden point link and $200m for the NAL upgrade but if that was done the line would be self supporting. I imagine that if the port link and tunnels were done then the rest of the maintenance could be done over a period of time and surely $200m spend on the rail line and $300m on SH1 would give a better return both financially, socially and environmentally than spending $2b on a motorway just to Wellsford.

KiwiRail estimates it would cost $80 million to build a Marsden Point train line.
The cost of upgrading the North Auckland line would be $200 million.
These official estimates emerged during hearings in connection with Northland Regional Council’s 30 year transport plan.
KiwiRail told the council it would be better to build the Marsden Point line first and get a significant volume of Northland freight back onto rail.
KiwiRail indicated to the council that if this occurred, it would be economically viable to operate and maintain the rail line within Northland- “Then as soon as possible upgrade the Northland line.”
The hearings report concludes that discussions should begin immediately on potential funding because of the substantial cost but agreed with KiwiRail that Marsden should have first priority.
But the hearings committee did not think passenger rail would happen in the next 30 years so should not be part of its 30 year plan.
ARC’s regional transport committee had submitted that it supports initiatives to maintain an operational rail link between Whangarei and Auckland and supported any feasibility study for the upgrading of the North Auckland line.

http://www.aucklandtrains.co.nz/2010/09 ... oint-line/

[robincole]

The Northland line carries more freight in a day than the Gisborne line carries in a week, yet it seems to be in the same category.It would seem, judging from the number of trains per week, that they carry the equivalent of 39,000 truckloads per year. That would be a lot more than Johnston's .001% of road traffic. I think the NAL's poblem is more a lack of maintenance
than a lack of freight.Having said that quite a lot of work has done recently.

[john-ston]

The Northland line carries more freight in a day than the Gisborne line carries in a week, yet it seems to be in the same category.

How did the Northland line compare with the Stratford to Okahukura Line.

It would seem, judging from the number of trains per week, that they carry the equivalent of 39,000 truckloads per year. That would be a lot more than Johnston's .001% of road traffic.

I didn't say anything about percentage of road traffic - I mentioned about it only adding 0.001 to the BCR as a sarcastic remark. Removing 39,000 truckloads in one year isn't all that of a big deal when you consider that nearly a thousand trucks a day are found on the quietest part of State Highway One between Auckland and Whangarei - you would only be increasing that figure by about 10%.

I think the NAL's poblem is more a lack of maintenance than a lack of freight.Having said that quite a lot of work has done recently.

I think there are other issues. The alignment is the most significant one, although there are others. I believe that North Auckland Line trains need two staff on board due to safety requirements or something like that (someone correct me if I am wrong). There is that limitation of a thousand tonnes to a train that was referred to in last year. Also, you have a Mexican Standoff of sorts with Marsden Point.