Coastal Pacific Cutback Announcement

[duddley]

I thought they would replace the charter fleet?

[Rail-it]

Probably use them for parts to keep the overlander going.

[Johnny T]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/new-zeala ... -transport

[geoff_184]

Coastal Pacific moves to winter timetable

KiwiRail Press Release
5 April 2012

From 11 May to 11 September, KiwiRail’s Coastal Pacific train service between Christchurch and Picton will operate a reduced winter timetable. The return service will run on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday only, which are typically the most popular days for travel.

“The Coastal Pacific service historically operates at a loss during the winter months, and since the Christchurch earthquake in February last year, Coastal Pacific passenger numbers have been on average 30 to 35 percent below what they usually are,” says KiwiRail’s General Manager of Passenger Services, Deborah Hume.

“The Overlander service between Wellington and Auckland already operates a reduced winter timetable to cater for the drop in passenger demand over the slower winter period (May to September), and KiwiRail will now be doing the same with the Coastal Pacific.

“The reduced passenger numbers on the Coastal Pacific has meant that it is commercially sensible to reduce services over the winter months, as we have done with the Overlander,” Ms Hume says.

While passenger numbers on the TranzAlpine service are still lower than they were prior to the Christchurch earthquake, passenger numbers are starting to build again for that service. The service is popular throughout both the summer and winter months, so will continue to run daily throughout the winter.

“As Christchurch recovers, hotel capacity is expanded, and more attractions become available, we fully expect to see more passengers travelling on TranzAlpine and the Coastal Pacific in the future,” says Ms Hume.

From September 11, the Coastal Pacific will return to daily operations.

ENDS

[Kalelovil]

http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/west-coast ... rs-recover
Tue, 15 May 2012

"Passenger numbers on the Tranz Alpine tourist train are not expected to fully recover until more hotel rooms become available in post-quake Christchurch.

With most of the major multi-storey hotels in the city either coming down or condemned for demolition, that could be up to two years away.

A week ago, the Tranz Alpine pulled away from the Greymouth Railway Station with just three carriages.

In March, 12,791 passengers rode the train, well ahead of the 8623 who used it the previous March, although after the February earthquake the service did not resume until March 7.

Last month, passenger numbers dropped back to 7272, compared to 8811 in April 2011.

Tranz Scenic manager Tom Evers-Swindell recognised that numbers had dropped off and was realistic about the future.

"Tranz Alpine numbers are still on average 30 to 35 percent below what they were prior to the Christchurch earthquake in February last year. We are not expecting demand to get back to pre-earthquake levels until Christchurch accommodation increases again.''

..."

[scooter]

Just coincidence that both services are running at "30-35 percent below" of the pre-February 22 quake numbers? Or just proof that both Evers-Swindell and Hume are singing from the same KiwiRail Corporate Comms songsheet?

[halogen]

On a related note...

Accorhotels
Yesterday
Announcement: New Zealand’s largest hotel group, Accor, announced today plans to open two of its four Christchurch hotels, which were closed following the earthquake in February 2011.

Hotel Ibis Christchurch is the first hotel scheduled to re-open with a target date of September 2012. Novotel Christchurch will follow, with a planned re-opening date of April 2013.

Decisions on the future of Accor’s two All Seasons hotels in Christchurch are still pending as access – particularly to the Cashel Street property – has been severely restricted by on-going demolition work in the area.

“When we re-open the Ibis and Novotel hotels they will be effectively new hotels,” said regional manager, Zayne Boon. “Both of the hotels were relatively new – the Ibis was built in 2007 and the Novotel 2010 – so they were built to very exacting standards and their structures received only minor damage during the earthquakes. The main problems were internal and required a complete re-fit of both hotels, so when they re-open they will have a very fresh and new feel to them.

“The heritage Warners Hotel wing of the Novotel had to be demolished, but the new part of the hotel survived the impact of the earthquake very well, despite being located right in the heart of Cathedral Square.

“There is a critical shortage of accommodation in Christchurch and the re-opening of these hotels will allow significant progress to be made in reviving Christchurch’s commercial and tourist fortunes. It will also provide employment and will help support the wider revival of Christchurch’s central business district.

“There are already encouraging signs, with permanent and temporary shopping precincts opening and more businesses returning to the city centre, but the city really needs the confidence boost of major international hotels re-opening to cater for domestic and overseas visitors. It will really help accelerate the re-vitalisation process.

“We are fully committed to the re-vitalising of Christchurch and believe that developments over the next 12 months will send a very positive signal to the rest of the world that the city is ready to welcome tourists back.”

[kaiwhara]

Yup, I was on the Tranz Alpine on Feb 22 2011, and got stranded over there. Reasonable load on that train - so much so myself and my partner took the last available hotel room in Greymouth - some passengers had to go as far as Punakaiki and Hokitika to find emergency accomodation - and that was on a slow day on the coast.

Much has changed since - of course...

[Rail-it]

Yup, I was on the Tranz Alpine on Feb 22 2011, and got stranded over there. Reasonable load on that train - so much so myself and my partner took the last available hotel room in Greymouth - some passengers had to go as far as Punakaiki and Hokitika to find emergency accomodation - and that was on a slow day on the coast.

Much has changed since - of course...

They could have at least taken the train to down to Hokitika. lol.

[kaiwhara]

Would have been nice - except at that stage and for the next 6 hours, the entire South Island Rail Network was closed!

[roger lascelles]

The Coastal Pacific is a slow, infrequent, struggling service.
Its only salvation lies in the outrageously overdue completion of the SI Main Trunk from Picton for 64 kms west to Nelson Wth three tunnels, using new generation Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) which can cope with such work with remakable ease.

Tunnel lengths would be approx 4.5ms immediately west of Picton, about 1.5 kms east of Havelock and about 5.5kms under the Maungatapu Saddle.
With a completed line from ChCh to Nelson, and with relatively frequent, fast services with DMUs, (No more of those ghastly, time-expired,
heavy,sluggish loco-hauled 'expresses' success would be assured, Nelson would come alive and the profits would roll in.
Target speed should be say 100 kms/hr. A speed of about 50-60 kms hr is one of the 19th century.
The DMUs should also have proper catering standards - Which NZ Railways have NEVER had, because they lacked both imagination and abllity.

Construction is best tackled incrementally. One step at a time. In annual, short-distance contracts.
We start with the tunnel west of Picton (In Year One) and begin the westward creep thereafter.
NZ cannot afford 'one bite' contracts for work on this scale. We simply don't have the money.
But with a litle tenacity the job could be mopped up within 5 years and we would have a completely new and sucessful situation to hand.

The South Island needs two key services on its Main Trunk line from ChCh viz:
(1) A frequent fast DMU service SOUTH to Dunedin
(2) Ditto NORTH to Nelson

Until we have both of these, and an awareness both by our Ministers of Transport and by KiwiRaIl that they are needed, the future is bleak indeed.

We spend $2,250 million p.a. on our roads, and it is time we had a combined transport account (as in Sweden) wth10% of expendikture going to the railways.

Roger Lascelles, London.

[geoff_184]

You do realise most rail and road traffic heading north from Christchurch is going to Picton, not Nelson?

Nelson would support a couple of freight trains a day, and maybe a passenger train, but that's it. The operation would never recover the billions it would cost to put in place. Would probably wreck KiwiRail's financial viability.

Nice suggestion, but totally unrealistic in the New Zealand context.

[Chris Randal.]

Nice suggestion, but totally unrealistic in the New Zealand context.

Agreed!

[john-ston]

Incidentally, you are probably more likely to get rail to Nelson by following the original planned route rather than anything from Picton. Consider that the Otira Tunnel would have hit capacity by now had it not been for the Pike River Disaster. Even electrification would only increase capacity by so much before you have to consider either a second Otira Tunnel or a new route altogether.

You do realise most rail and road traffic heading north from Christchurch is going to Picton, not Nelson?

Geoff, no ****, there is no railway going to Nelson, so ergo, most rail traffic heading north from Christchurch is going to Picton.

[eurokiwi78]

I wonder how much a second one would cost nowadays.

[geoff_184]

Geoff, no ****, there is no railway going to Nelson, so ergo, most rail traffic heading north from Christchurch is going to Picton.

Railway traffic does go to Nelson, which is why KiwiRail have a freight depot there (their only one away from the rail network). It gets transferred to truck at Spring Creek.

[roger lascelles]

The long term answer to the Coastal Pacific is not to cut it back, but to complete it
through from Picton for the 64 kms west to Nelson.
At the moment it is like having built a line from New York to Nevada but failing to reach California.

The inevitable question will be asked "Where is the money coming from?"
The answer to this is to build it INCREMENTALLY in short-distance annual contracts easily funded.
In Year One we bore the 4.5 km tunnel immediately west of Picton - and so on.

I perceive it as a grave error of judgement not to have built it through to Nelson in the first place,
but maybe this was, in part, due to the less than satisfactory tunnelling techniques of the time.
But these problems have been resolved with the new cutting discs, and nowadays, at the huge Innotrans
Exhibition held in Berlin in September each even-numbered year, there has been a surge of interest
in tunnelling as TOCs realise that it is so easy now.

It is notoriously difficult to have successful operations on a cul-de-sac line running to a secondary town
like Picton or Gisborne, but extension beyond, to a significant waypoint, assures success.

The situation CRIES OUT for the extension to Nelson. It is possible, reasonable and feasible.
Just think of modern, lightweight DMUs shuttling reciprocally between ChCh and Nelson!!
Think of the buses and trucks that would disappear from SH1. Think too of the reduction in deaths!
Think of WiFi and decent catering on a DMU service. Bliss!!

Roger Lascelles,London

[john-ston]

I perceive it as a grave error of judgement not to have built it through to Nelson in the first place,
but maybe this was, in part, due to the less than satisfactory tunnelling techniques of the time.

It was more to do with bad luck. Nelson's railway got to within a hundred or so kilometres of Inangahua Junction; but construction stopped partly because of the Murchison Earthquake, and partly because of the Great Depression. When railway construction restarted under the First Labour Government, the bigger priorities were the construction of the line to Gisborne, connecting Westport into the national network and finishing the line between Parnassus and Wharanui.

It is notoriously difficult to have successful operations on a cul-de-sac line running to a secondary town
like Picton or Gisborne, but extension beyond, to a significant waypoint, assures success.

In this case though, you don't really have a cul de sac line. Think of Christchurch to Picton as really the Christchurch to Wellington line, with the section between Picton and Wellington done by ship as opposed to train. Ideally, I would be constructing a port at Clifford Bay and having the ferries run to there (for one thing, it would be possible to have fast ferries without the not in my backyarders complaining).

The situation CRIES OUT for the extension to Nelson. It is possible, reasonable and feasible.
Just think of modern, lightweight DMUs shuttling reciprocally between ChCh and Nelson!!
Think of the buses and trucks that would disappear from SH1. Think too of the reduction in deaths!
Think of WiFi and decent catering on a DMU service. Bliss!!

Roger Lascelles,London

Apparently Google suggests using State Highway 7, then State Highway 65, then State Highway 6 to get from Christchurch to Nelson.

[geoff_184]

The long term answer to the Coastal Pacific is not to cut it back, but to complete it
through from Picton for the 64 kms west to Nelson.
At the moment it is like having built a line from New York to Nevada but failing to reach California.

What you are still failing to understand is that there are many more people going to Picton than there are to Nelson. So if Picton can't do it, what makes you think Nelson would? Even if it could support a passenger train (and it might support one, but it would be for Wellington-Nelson passengers, not Christchurch-Nelson), that one train a day will not recover the multi-billion dollar price tag of building the line.

You need to grasp that this is not the UK, with 65 million people, next to a 200 million person Europe.

In Year One we bore the 4.5 km tunnel immediately west of Picton - and so on.

In other words, in year one KiwiRail will be financially ruined, in the pursuit of trying to establish a once a day passenger train that wouldn't make any money anyway. The fact that you're proposing these outlandish unrealistic ideas while not saying anything of ideas that could be considered realistic (like double tracking the ECMT, or linking in Marsden Point) tells me you're intentionally looking for the "outlandish".

It is notoriously difficult to have successful operations on a cul-de-sac line running to a secondary town
like Picton

Picton is not a cul-de-sac. You do understand that it's on the Auckland-Invercargill trunk route right? One of the busiest railways in New Zealand, and our State Highway 1? You are proposing to cut the trunk route in the middle and divert trains to a dead-end in Nelson. That would just put all the freight on the roads.

The situation CRIES OUT for the extension to Nelson. It is possible, reasonable and feasible.

Possible, if money grew on trees and you didn't care that you are building a white elephant, but not reasonable, nor feasible.

Just think of modern, lightweight DMUs shuttling reciprocally between ChCh and Nelson!!

Carrying the equivalent of a bus load a day! Please explain how a couple of dozen people a day will pay for this line and the trains.

Think of the buses and trucks that would disappear from SH1

Since the trains are all carrying North Island freight to Picton, then shifting the railway to Nelson instead would result in a lot more trucks on SH1. I think you know this, but are just trolling. Admittedly I'm taking the bait!

Andrew, time for a moderator decision perhaps?

[duddley]

Why do this when for a fraction of the cost you could build Clifford Bay and reduce fuel usage and travel times. You would probably save the same amount of fuel in a day that a "modern, lighweight DMU" would save in a year.

The long term answer to the Coastal Pacific is not to cut it back, but to complete it
through from Picton for the 64 kms west to Nelson.
At the moment it is like having built a line from New York to Nevada but failing to reach California.

The inevitable question will be asked "Where is the money coming from?"
The answer to this is to build it INCREMENTALLY in short-distance annual contracts easily funded.
In Year One we bore the 4.5 km tunnel immediately west of Picton - and so on.

I perceive it as a grave error of judgement not to have built it through to Nelson in the first place,
but maybe this was, in part, due to the less than satisfactory tunnelling techniques of the time.
But these problems have been resolved with the new cutting discs, and nowadays, at the huge Innotrans
Exhibition held in Berlin in September each even-numbered year, there has been a surge of interest
in tunnelling as TOCs realise that it is so easy now.

It is notoriously difficult to have successful operations on a cul-de-sac line running to a secondary town
like Picton or Gisborne, but extension beyond, to a significant waypoint, assures success.

The situation CRIES OUT for the extension to Nelson. It is possible, reasonable and feasible.
Just think of modern, lightweight DMUs shuttling reciprocally between ChCh and Nelson!!
Think of the buses and trucks that would disappear from SH1. Think too of the reduction in deaths!
Think of WiFi and decent catering on a DMU service. Bliss!!

Roger Lascelles,London