Kiwi Rail 2023-24 Plan for the Waikato and Te Huia
The rail network in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty has avoided 397,867 truck trips, saving 32.7million litres of fuel and avoiding the emission of 87,949 tonnes of CO2 (from Image below). The CO2 reduction is equivalent to removing half the current numbers of petrol-fuelled cars from Hamilton’s* streets for a year. KiwiRail recently updated the Waikato Regional Transport Committee (Monday18 September 2023) on the state of the Waikato and Bay of Plenty rail network: KiwiRail now has ‘all bridges on the Auckland - Tauranga route ready for future axle-load increase’, and has planned business cases for double-tracking the Whangamarino Swamp and Ngaruawahia Bridge as traffic increases. It is also commencing a design and business case for electrification of the Golden Triangle. Note: the business cases come under the heading Longer term, with no dates, but I think it would be sensible for these projects be part of a continuation of the Papakura to Pukekohe rail project, so New Zealand maintains a local rail infrastructure work force.
*Hamilton’s 2018/19 emissions were calculated at 1,000,995 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (tCO2e): of that 65% (650,646 tCO2e) was transport and of that 28% (182,180 tCO2e) was from petrol cars. – From – HCC ‘Our climate future: te pae tawhiti o kirikiriroa our strategy to respond to climate change’ page 7
KiwiRail’s planned spending for years 2022-2024 on rail lines east of Hamilton (including the Hamilton to Tauranga route, which has the highest train density single track section on the freight network) is $49.58m, which is small change when compared to just the repairs to the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway, which are costing near double that**.
**Stuff - From new expressway to major repair job in under a decade 17:23, Oct 17, 2022
Good news for Te Huia users: ‘Regulatory approvals are now in place to shift to a carriage-led train’***, which frees up a locomotive, allowing KiwiRail and Waikato Regional Council to start discussions about additional services.
Assets Te Huia has available: Of the 11 (SA and SD) carriages refurbished for the Te Huia service, there are 5 x SR (each with 50 seats and toilet), 3 x SRC (with 20 seats, servery and toilet) and 3 x SRV (28 seats and driving cab). In normal service it was planned to have 2 x SR, 1 x SRV and 1 x SVR. This leaves 1 x SR, 1 x SDR and 1 x SVR, which could form a 98-seat train set for a third service. - From KiwiRail blog ‘A look at KiwiRail’s new regional commuter train’.