Today I accompanied a group of Norwegians on the 830am InterIslander ferry from Wellington. After a short stop Picton for lunch we boarded the Coastal Pacific bound for Christchurch at 1pm.
Without doubt the Coastal Pacific is a superb rail journey. Fantastic views of rolling green hills, snowy topped mountains, surf-swept beaches, and braided rivers avail themselves along the entire length of the trip.
The recently refurbished KiwiRail carriages were an unexpected but welcome treat – comfortable chairs, good lighting, wood paneled ceiling, and generous over-head luggage storage capacity. The outdoor viewing area was a relatively unique kiwi addition and provided not only fresh air but also reflection-free photo opportunities.The best innovation, in my humble opinion, were the extra windows incorporated into the ceilings of the carriages, which ensured we were bathed in copious amounts of natural light.
In my opinion, the worst part of the Coastal Pacific experience was navigating oneself from the ferry to the Picton Rail Station. To provide some sense of the navigation challenge facing your average traveler you should check out the station on Google Street View. I have inserted the general view as one approaches the station below.
Here we have what I call a “camo-station”, that is a train station that tries to hide from the world (Te Mahia in Auckland being the best example). It is not until you actually pass the vehicle entrance to the Picton Train Station that I could see a sign indicating the station itself – and this sign is somewhat ironically designed for vehicles.
Nonetheless, my overwhelmingly positive experience on the Coastal Pacific got me pondering (as one does) the future of passenger rail in New Zealand. Note that when I say “passenger rail” I am not referring to the urban rail networks that operate in Auckland and Wellington (which are the usual topic of conversation on this blog); instead I am referring to inter-city, long-distance rail journeys of the type that is more common in Europe.
New Zealand also confers some natural advantages to passenger rail. Our beautiful but tortured scenery makes driving difficult. Moreover, many visitors to these shores come from countries that drive on the right side of the road, for whom the thought of driving long distances a rather intimidating prospect. On the other hand, it’s important to acknowledge that passenger rail in New Zealand will rarely compete with cars and planes for short and long distance trips respectively. Moreover, outside of the upper half of the North Island our densities are generally too low to warrant considerable capital investment, of the type found overseas.
Passenger rail’s competitive advantage therefore seems to be for relatively scenic trips over distances that are sufficiently far that driving is onerous, but not so far that it’s worth the hassle of getting yourself to/from the nearest airport. And when you look at New Zealand’s existing passenger rail network (illustrated below), we find that the two most successful services, namely the Coastal Pacific (Picton-Christchurch) and Tranz Alpine (Christchurch-Greymouth), tick all of the aforementioned boxes. Both services offer spectacular scenery and take about 4-6 hours.
The recently re-launched Northern Explorer is actually the exception: It takes 12 hours to complete a trip between Auckland and Wellington. I have taken the Northern Explorer twice and both times were, shall we say, not particularly pleasant. The trip is long and not particularly scenic compared to the Coastal Pacific.
For this reason I’d like to suggest that KiwiRail consider terminating the Northern Explorer at National Park. The “leftover” service could then be reinvested into a new service that would operate between Auckland and Rotorua or Tauranga. Truncating the Northern Explorer at National Park and reinvesting the service in this way has several interesting implications:
- Doubles frequency between Auckland and Hamilton;
- Justifies re-opening Hamilton’s downtown/underground rail station (which sits under the current bus station); and
- Provide rail service to reasonably large and new rapidly growing cities in the Upper North Island.
The down-side is that locations between National Park and Waikanae receive no service. There is also a potential downside in terms of network structure: Abandoning service south of National Park effectively segregates New Zealand’s passenger rail networks in the North and South Islands.On the other hand I suspect few passengers actually travel through by rail from South to North Islands and the few that do might be convinced to use a bus and/or plane.
I’d be interested to know what others think about the merits of such a change. Is the new service a better option than the southern section of the Northern Explorer? It seems to me that the latter ties up a lot of passenger rail resources that could be better used elsewhere, but I’m happy to be corrected.
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I don’t like the suggestion at all to terminate an Auckland-Wellington service in National Park.
I would rather see a revival of passenger rail with Whangarei, Tauranga, Hamilton and Rotorua services out of Auckland, and the frequency upped on the Palmie to Welly route, plus a revival of the route south of Christchurch.
I’d reinstate Whanganui and New Plymouth service out of Palmie, and a Napier Service out of Palmie.
I’d have the services all connecting, plus with connection to the ferries, a Nelson – Picton bus, and other connecting bus services. Then I’d phase it so there’d be south-north waves going up the country twice daily, and north-south waves going the other way twice daily. Where airports are near the railway lines e.g. in Dunedin, Palmie, Napier and more I’d build track deviations and build airport stations.
Then you could get on a service in any town and travel by surface transport to any other all with connecting services. i.e. Bluff to Kaitaia would be possible, and you could fly bits you don’t want to do by surface to save time and jump onto the earlier wave.
You’re talking about a massive expansion in service, whereas I’m talking about how we invest the current level of service. Different questions, which can only lead to different answers.
The question I’m posing is this: If we are to run the same level of service that we do currently, then how would National Park – Wellington (i.e. the southern leg of the Northern Explorer) compare to an Auckland – Tauranga service?
I think the latter would attract more passengers. What do you think?
In terms of tourists and scenary, IMHO absolutely not.
The best (read most scenic) part of the journey when I took it was essentially from Te Kuiti to Marton. Cutting the service at National Park would miss numerous major viaducts, views of Ruapehu and the fantastic Rangitikei River gorge.
Between Auckland and National Park there really is only the bit following the upper reaches of the Whanganui River after Taumarunui and the Raurimu Spiral.
To me, the most boring bits of the journey were between Auckland and Te Kuiti, and from Marton to Paekakariki.
Yes those parts are relatively impressive.
Note that I’m not just suggesting that we cut the Northern Explorer entirely and be done with it: I’m suggesting we reinvest that service into a new service, such as Auckland – Tauranga, which would offer different but also spectacular scenery, especially on the approach to Tauranga.
So we’re losing some scenery from the NE, but gaining some scenery elsewhere :). It’s about the scenery/demand trade-off and I don’t think the demand for travel between Auckland and Wellington is as high as say Auckland to Tauranga.
I guess what your asking is if we should be focussing on inter-regional rail strategies rather than national ‘tourist’ routes. The truth is we should be working on both and aiming for a harmonic network that is designed for everyone. We face a few problems on that front:
The current government clearly has no interest in the long term plan for our national network, their focus is to make Kiwi rail look attractive enough to privatise in the coming years. This means zoning in on the freight business while most likely spinning off the National passenger operations to a private buyer. Watch this space.
Since privatised in the early 90’s … the network and passenger services have seen little investment, infact they’ve been run into the ground and milked for all their worth by foreign corporates resulting in a steady decline into oblivion … having never used the former Kaimai and Geyserland services I cant say for sure why these where axed, but im guessing low service standards and high fares conspired to the inevitable closure of these routes. Privatisation has proven folly for passenger rail.
This government needs to wake up, we need a long term plan for our urban, regional and national networks. Yes it will cost money and A LOT of it… but not as much as it will in 20 or 50 years time when our roads, airports and seaports are congested and severely stifling economic growth. Rail is the true answer to a harmonious transport network linking our Cities with airports and seaports and the best way forward to develop our tourism and export industries.
A growing number of people are suggesting that the tracks, land and ‘infrastructure’ of the rail network should become an NZTA asset, with the freight business being the part which remains as “KiwiRail”. This way NZTA would have to think of the rail network as part of the country’s core infrastructure and would then be able to trade off whether improving a route by road or rail made the most sense.
How good an idea that is probably comes down to who is in government and what their opinion of rail is.
OI no terminating at National Park otherwise I would have needed to find alternative transport to Wellington. Rebekka and I have just returned from our Winter Holiday which included The Northern Explorer which was long but still great, The Ferries, and finally the Coastal Pacific (Trans Alpine is next year before driving to Nelson and flying back to Auckland last night.
Got the photos (well 1/3, computer is busy processing the rest) and there was some good scenery south of National Park. Also south of National Park we were carrying half load (not bad for prior to school holidays and only the second trip to Wellington of the new train consist at the time we went on that particular Thursday) to Wellington. How many going further south to the South Island – unknown as I did not ask so I would say demand is there especially in the holidays – just need a slick marketing campaign.
If you want that underground station open in Hamilton, try reinstate the Kaimai Express with the Rail Cars (Silver Fern) and see how that holds up…
They have got the trip on the northern explorer down to 10 hours.
Intending to take the trip to wellington myself and am looking forward to the new service.The scenery on the Northern explorer is very good especially between National Park and Palmie.
It would be great to see the services we once had like the ‘ endeavour’ ‘southerner’ kaimai and rotorua express.
I’m fairly confident they would be used well if the trains are like the new once they are introducing now.
That’s great – and as far as I understand the trip used to take 6 hours. Working to lift those speed restrictions could get us back to a competitive travel-time. If that were the case, then it may be worth maintaining the entire Auckland-Wellington service.
I doubt it was ever six hours Stu, that would be an *average* speed of 110km/h. My guess is about eight and a half hours would be about as good as it could get even if all the restrictions were lifted.
I thought the record was about 9 1/2 hours, either with the old SilverFern Railcars or what were then ‘new’ DX’s(?) in the early 70’s.
That’s interesting – I heard the 6.5 hour statistic from someone else, but never checked the fact. So it’s a track length of 660km?
Britomart is 682km from Wellington by railway measures
Paris to Marseille, 783km, 3 hours by train. One can but dream.
The 1960’s trial run with a standard railcar took about 8 hours. With the electrification track improvements a repeat trial today would probably be around 7.5 hours.
Let’s face it. For the time being, the Northern Explorer is for rail-curious Kiwis and foreign tourists (mostly Europeans, I’d wager) who are used to travelling by rail. Coming to NZ for the scenery and then traversing large tracts of the landscape by plane seems a bit silly to me, given the modest size of our country.
Your proposal has some merit, but the absence of Akl-Wlg service would have inconvenienced me personally when I bike-toured the country a few years ago. And if the coming Summer is drier I’ll be looking to take the train back up from Wellington for the return leg of my next cycle tour early next year.
I’ve ridden the Overlander 3 times, and haven’t found it to be unpleasant at all. It’s certainly a long journey, and one should take something good to read, but it’s very comfortable and I’ve enjoyed meeting and talking to fellow passengers, reading, staring out the window and riding in the observation car. One certainly feels that one has travelled some distance by the end of the journey!
Introduce a sleeper service from Auckland to Wellington and back. 8pm to 7am each way. Sleeper services are rare enough now to make it a tourist attraction in itself and it would attract more locals and business users.
In my experience sleeper services are horrible and completely lose the scenic angle. I don’t think they would be well-patronised.
sleepers services are great. I took plenty of them in europe before the low cost fly thing. You travel, you see sunset and sunrise, you meet new people and you save a night accommodation.
I do think sleepers can be great, especially for tourists. But the experience can vary greatly depending on the timing and facilities. On a recent trip I spent fifteen nights in sleeper trains, and about ten of those were great, and five awful. One was awful due to the standard of the train and the fact we had seven people and freight parcels in a four berth cabin. The other four were awful due to poor timing. A couple left too late (like 2am), one arrived too early (4.30am) and a couple were just too short to sleep properly.
In my opinion sleepers of about ten to twelve hours that leave after dinner and arrive just before breakfast are perfect. It gives you enough time to settle in and enjoy yourself for an hour or two, get a decent length sleep, and wake up with enough time to get your affairs in order at the other end.
In that regard Auckland to Wellington would be very well timed for a sleeper, although you’d miss most of the scenery. The problem would be the limited market. I’m sure there are tourists and others wanting to travel direct between the two centres overnight, but the niche is probably just too small.
There’s a big difference between Europe and NZ in terms of the quality of track and rolling stock, which you really notice on a sleeper service. Believe me – I caught the overnighter from Auckland to Wellington (before it was cut) and jeepers creepers what a nightmare; would never do it again.
Indeed Europe has some amazing sleepers, but actually most of my experience with them was in South East Asia (in Europe the high speed rail during the day is usually the way to go). In the likes of Thailand and Vietnam the rolling stock is well used, the gauge is narrower than ours and track not so fantastic.
And I was talking about real sleepers here, not simply trains that run at night where you ‘sleep’ in the regular coach seats. I do realise that means fitting out a set of carriages with convertible cabins though.
What we really need is a seamless rail service running from Invercargill or Dunedin to Auckland … If we could remove speed restrictions to allow both the North and South Island legs to be under 10 hours then we would be able to deliver passengers from one end of the country to the other in less than 24 hours if need be. This could be our ultimate ‘Silver fern’ service with 2 or 3 trains running in each direction each day to offer frequency and flexibility, something that is currently placing a massive restriction on passenger services in this country. The trick is to make the seats ultra comfortable, ideal for daylight or overnight services, offer a cheap student/ backpacker option as well as a premium product (private cabins) with sleeping berths, a lounge and perhaps even a bar? Proper onboard catering options would cut the need for lunch stops etc.
A service like this would become a proper international attraction as well as provide the backbone to our national transport system. We could launch this service now if Kiwirail had their priorities straight … Dunedin to Christchurch (or the Southerner leg) is roughly 6 hours, the Coastal Pacific leg (on the Main north line) is another 5 hours or so to Picton, add 4 hours or so for the Interislander crossing then transfer to the Northern Explorer leg for the 10 hour haul north to Auckland on the North Island main trunk line. Thats about 25 hours… and that could be improved. Its not just about connecting the far ends of the country but also reinstating inter-regional travel between cities like Dunedin and Christchurch and the fair sized towns in between.
Make this service accessible and attractive to all New Zealanders … not just the international tourists. School groups, tertiary students and pensioners should be given discounted rates for the standard product, they would provide a year round lifeline. And offer a yearly pass option to establish loyalty to this service as well as any other feeder services such as the Tranzalpine, Surely it would be in the governments (and nations) best interest to establish a sustainable transportation system to carry us into the future to protect us from further oil shocks. We cant expect our roads to cope with our projected transport growth.
Our rail network could also work hand and hand with Air NZ not against it … backing each other up to clear back logs or disrupted passengers. Hell why not get Air NZ to run the passenger operations on Kiwirails behalf. Air NZ knows how to look after its real customers…
I thought us kiwis where supposed to be ingenious? Innovative and resourceful? We should be making our prison populations carry out the upgrade work required to bring our network into the future.
Was about to suggest that. 10 hour train ride (10pm to 8am) from Auckland CBD to Wellington CBD or vice versa. No need to pay for an overnight stay in a hotel, plus no need to take those “cheap” annoying 6am flights that require you to wake up at 4.30. Only place that you could really pick up passengers would be Hamilton or Palmy though (around the 12am mark), can’t imagine someone getting on at National Park at 3am
You suggest terminating at National Park but not from which direction. You could consider it 2 trains, one from auckalnd, one from Wellington, both termianting in National park.
The issue is National park is in the middle of nowhere (except during ski season) whereas most passengers want to go all the way.
Its a shame Taupo isn’t in the middle as that would be a great natural stop for tourists who could split the trip into two before carrying on to the south island.
Auckland to National Park would be maintained. I always assumed NP had good patronage, but if that were not the case then I’d support truncating it further north. Taupo’s not a bad idea and is a good place from where people can spread out to various other destinations.
I found that splitting the Overlander into two short legs with a night at the Chateau Tongariro and a spot of hiking made for a very pleasant trip. Not so easy to do now that it only runs three days a week.
I think that having a split ticket would be a great idea, with accommodation at either National Park/The Chateau or Ohakune.
Yes, I feel like because they’re trying to maintain the entire length of the trip they have had to make cuts in other areas, like span.
Wasn’t the last Auckland to Rotorua service transporting an average of 8 people a day before the last Labour government canned it? If so, I can’t imagine anyone being keen to try the idea again.
I don’t understand the attraction of rail tourism. I like to stop and look at things. That’s easy to do on a bicycle (which is my preferred mode of long distrance travel), and usually not difficult in a car. But by rail, the only things you get to see properly are railway stations. The business crowd fly, for reasons of speed and frequency of service. The backpackers take Kiwi Experience and similar services where they stop every few kilometers and kick everyone off the bus to walk in the bush, throw themselves off a bridge, or look at glow worms or something. Budget concious Kiwis without a vehicle take the intercity coaches which are cheap and frequent. Most people drive. Which leaves long distance trains for people who like to look out the window at things passing by while they sip tea and eat sandwiches, and are happy to pay a premium to do so… which is mainly the elderly.
I was sitting enjoying a cold drink in Kakadu a few years ago when a coach pulled up and a whole lot of old people got out. The bus driver was lecturing them all about not climbing any rocks if they weren’t confident they could climb back down. Afterward he turned to me and said “I didn’t have to do that before the Ghan started to Darwin”.
Yes I think passenger rail has a tough niche in New Zealand – note Auckland-Rotorua just a suggestion, maybe Auckland-Tauranga would be better?
Lot’s of freight trains on a single track route, makes pathing of a passenger train difficult. The freights would get priority too.
KiwiRail isn’t interested in competing with buses or airlines, as there’s no money to be made from it. Passenger trains can only make a profit if they are filled with tourists who are willing to pay two or three times more than the cost of a bus ticket. The Northern Explorer stands a chance of attracting such users. Regional commuter trains do not.
To re-establish passenger rail as a mode of domestic travel would require a passenger-orientated business to gain fair access to the network. That means ending KiwiRail’s monopoly and separating the tracks from KiwiRail, which would remain as an operator only.
Service was not cannned by the government, Tranz Rail was privately owned at the time.
Any suggestion that the last remaining intercity passenger rail connection between Auckland and Wellington should be terminated should be stopped in its tracks right now! You may find the trip boring, but I assure you that many don’t. I try very hard not to fly; I think it’s an indulgence. I don’t drive a car and I loathe coach travel with a passion. I’d contend that the dismantling of the New Zealand passenger rail service was one of the greatest social and cultural disasters that has hit this country. It’s denuded the countryside and left a legacy of tarmac and reinforced the country’s dependence on imported oil and encouraged its a massive increase in its carbon outputs. I agree wholeheartedly with Matt’s suggestion that certain services should be revived. It’s about time we re-learned how to travel responsibly!
Sigh: This is not a post about whether we should run more service (personally I’d like us to have a lot more!). It’s a post about whether the current services are the most effective. I’d really appreciate it if you could please engage with the topic at hand, rather than change it.
National Park to Waiouru is the most scenic part of the journey when you can see the mountains. Stopping on the edge of it makes little sense to me. The journey is now 10.5 hours by the way, not 12 hours. Even this schedule could be made faster. A few days ago 200 departed NP half an hour late, but was on time into Auckland. The current train could probably do it in 9.5 hours. If they put a DXB on the front, then probably 9 hours flat.
The key to reinstating passenger trains (or for that matter getting more domestic freight onto rail) is to open up the network to other operators. KiwiRail is never going to do it.
Interesting point about opening up services to other operators – do you think others are interested? Surely KR could not stop them? That would be anti-competitive behaviour, I would have thought.
I don’t think running the Northern Explorer only as far as National Park is a good idea. I think there is a lot of potential for tourist focused passenger trains. These should be in addition to existing trains. I agree with Geoff the only way to build rail is to open to it other operators. KR seams only interested in bulk haulage.
Stu, you’re sounding uncharacteristically negative about the Auck-Welly trip here, in a very subjective sort of way. What’s up?
– “..both times were, shall we say, not particularly pleasant”
– “The trip is long and not particularly scenic compared to the Coastal Pacific”,
– “I suspect few passengers actually travel through by rail from South to North Islands and the few that do might be convinced to use a bus and/or plane”,
– “In my experience sleeper services are horrible and completely lose the scenic angle. I don’t think they would be well-patronised.”
Others here, including me, do not agree with you on any of these counts.
Have you paused to consider the level of rail service that your Norwegian friends are able to enjoy back home? Several trains per day on routes not dissimilar to New Zealand’s. In fact the whole country has many similarilties. Population about the same, largely concentrated at one end, just like ours. Geographical shape long and thin with mountainous terrain. Overall length and area comparable. The only thing we have that they don’t is a Cook Strait dividing the land in two. I am convinced that what holds back passenger rail in New Zealand is ATTITUDE, not only on the part of politicians and decision-makers, but also among a large slice of an ignorant public. As a country we take no pride in our national rail system, unlike the Scandinavians and Swiss. Could it be that our low opinion has helped bring about the dismal reality we now face? I often hear Kiwis knocking rail, often from ignorance, but in a way which would convey a very negative message to prospective visitors keen to try it out. We rubbish it and assume a “can’t do” stance to any suggested expansion – “Nah, won’t work mate! Can’t be done. No-one would use it.” I cringe when I hear Tranz-Scenic managers pompously declaring that “no-one wants to use trains as a means of getting around anymore”. What an absolutely ignorant and crappy generalisation that fails to consider a whole raft of significant factors. I think we have basically ‘talked’ our rail system down to its present low ebb, and given politicians such as those in office at the moment, the very ammunition they need to resist any pressure for something better. As a nation of knockers we have, in effect, the rail system we deserve. Or put another way, rail is too good for most kiwis. They don’t appreciate what they have got, and are blind to its potential.
Or you could say that I’m being optimistic about an Auckland to Tauranga trip? Or an Auckland to Hamilton trip? What I’m trying to say is that I see more demand for those services, than I see for Auckland – Wellington, that’s all. In an ideal world I’d fund them both.
I understand full well the level of service that is funded overseas. This post is not about the quantum of service – it’s about spending the service we do have in the most effective way possible. I’m not convinced Auckland to Wellington is that effective as a rail trip, compared to other options – but I may be wrong. Just floating the idea …
KiwiRail’s interest in passenger trains does not lie with where the population is, but rather it lies with where the tourists are. So high population centres like Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga are not a market they are interested in.
I wouldnt like to see the Auck-Wlg service cut back any more than it has been already. I travelled on it recently, and found Auckland to National Park the less interesting half of the trip. The big viaducts and pretty stretch along the coastline are all between National Park and Wellington I think.
I’d like to see a Wellington (or maybe Palmy) to Gisborne train. There is some fantastic scenery between Napier and Gisborne. Not sure if there is a big enough tourist market there to warrant it though. Thats assuming National/Kiwirail fix the rail line damage between Gisborne and Napier, which they won’t.
I see what you’re trying to achieve here Stu, but I just think that most of the demand is currently for the whole trip so your proposal would, unfortunately, probably not work.
I’d like to see Friday & Sunday night trains between Auckland & National Park in winter for people wanting to go skiing for the weekend. Leaving Auckland at say 4pm on Friday, get back to Auckland at say 10pm Sunday.
Good to know – in my two trips (large sample I know!) I observed most of the train emptying at National Park (yes it was winter) and so got the impression that not much happened south of there.
If this was Overlander days (rather than Northern Explorer) my suspicion is that those getting out at National Park were on a day trip from Auckland and would be catching the opposite service back to Auckland. That is a market that will be lost with Northern Explorer, but KiwiRail has not got enough spare new carriages to operate the same service as the Overlander (one each way on the days it runs). Your suggestion would retain those day trips but lose the through trips.
The drawback with terminating the service from my point of view is that my opportunity to travel on the Trans Coastal and the Overlander was as one through journey with the ferry en route in order to catch a plane at Auckland, and I adjusted my days of travel to suit the train availability. Remove the through journey opportunity and I doubt I would have done any of the legs of the journey. I have no doubt that other tourists wanting to finish off a trip (or start if going the other way) use the railway for that purpose, and that rail market would be lost without the through journey. There are some people don’t mind going the scenic and slow route from A to B as a means of getting from A to B that would never consider the trip for the trip’s sake.
The Govt has just been investing a reasonable amount of money into developing and promoting a number of cycle trails around the country; that includes a few connected by the Overlander route, e.g. the Mountains to the Sea route (out of Nat’l Park) and the Forgotten Highway route (out of Taumarunui). Most people won’t want to bike to the trail itself, so public transport provides a key connection to get there. Buses can be hit’n’miss in regards to bike carriage, whereas the train is a reliable option. So removing a connection from Wellington or Auckland to these hinterland locations would make it that much harder for these trails to be a success.
I hope you’re right and the numbers justify keeping the entire service.
Scary thing is – haven’t they cut the service to Taumarunui?
Thanks for all your comments people – I’m formulating another post to summarise how my thinking has been shifted in response to the feedback.
Hey Stu, Thanks for your post and hope you don’t take all the comments negatively – looks like this is just a wider subject that people are into discussing and readers went beyond your original suggestion which was meant in a limited scope. I for one had no idea about the Picton > Christchurch train link and it sounds wonderful. I’d be interested in knowing what relationship there is (if any) between national long-distance rail and commuter rail (CRL, etc). Would it be possible, for example to funnel interest and income from the latter into the former?
First, the interior of the new carriages looks stunning!
Second, all train rides in NZ are very scenic by international standards. Nothing less scenic than being on a high speed train next to a Autobahn. Wait, it is cool to overtake all the beamers and Porsches with a ICE going 300 and just a suggestion for the Auckland to Hamilton stretch.
Third, it is an improvement that trains don’t need 12 hours for Auckland to Wellington any more.
When I lived in Palmy, I caught only few times a train, because the frequency was/is so bad or non-existing (no Capital Connection on the weekends!). The trips were always scenic, the staff always nice, prices ok and travel time are comparable to a car trip, but in need of some improvement.
The main problem is Kiwirails marketing: It is a disaster!
Why needs Kiwirail to have 6 different brands to market their train services (Tranz Metro, Tranz Scenic, Northern Explorer, Tranz Alpine, Coastal Pacific, Capital Connection)?? I’m pretty sure SNCF or DB need less brands and than services actually differ (in speed). Why not just Kiwirail or something even more generic to include the InterIslander services?
Additionally the trains seem to be marketed solely as a tourist attraction for the age group 60+.
It should be easy to attract other groups like youngsters (under 26) and backpackers using a weekly or monthly pass, similar to InterRail in Europe (mainly the kiwi experience target group). This would need some degree of “integrated ticketing” (again!!), allowing to use regional trains/buses at least in Wellington, Christchurch or Auckland to get around the cities or region (Kapiti coast/ Wairarapa) and to the international airports. Likely some tour operators or regional councils are happy to jump on such a scheme, when it is done well. The biggest advantage of this group should be, that they are more susceptible to lower prices in the off-season.
For oversees traveller with limited time a daily service between Auckland and Wellington is necessary. A night train as suggested from around 9pm to 7am, could give some much needed additional options for commuters on the Capital connection. Of course the most important user group – daily commuters – shouldn’t be punished for using a different service.
There’s two brands, not six. Tranz Metro for urban passenger trains, and Tranz Scenic for tourist trains. The other names are individual train names, like Amtrak does in America (has a different name for every train).
Sorry I wouldn’t accept cutting of Auckland- Wellington to National Park.
How about adding wagons on the back of passenger trains that can carry your car? Then can travel longer distances by rail without having to get rental car at the other end. A land version of the Cook Strait ferry.
Aside from it being counted as freight, which is the role of the freight division, not passenger, the cost would too high. Even in Australia where they add a car wagon, they get maybe two or three cars out of the few hundred passengers onboard. I can’t imagine anyone paying $500 to $1000 to take a car from Auckland to Wellington, when they could drive it there faster for just $180 petrol cost.
Record runs on the NIMT from Auckland to Wellington were the 1960 Moohan Rocket (train) of 11 hours 34 minutes in 1960, and the Standard railcar time of 9 hours 26 minutes (running time 8 hours 42 minutes) in 1967.
Today 10hrs 35mins and $198
Intercity Bus Wellington – Auckland time 11 hours +15mins at peak times cost $35-$70
Drive – 8 hrs 27mins + parking time
Fly – 1 hour + 30min check in + 2x 30mins travel to/from centre of city = 2hrs 30mins, cost of air ticket $70-$244
Maybe NZrail should use Pahiatua rail Society 1938 RM31 (Standard) on the Wellington to Auckland run, at least it will have similar travel time as driving when parking time is included.
Stu the carriages are brand new, not refurbished! Run in on the Chch to Picton run for a couple of months
Agree, some great scenery south of National Park, Rangatiki, Raurimu spiral and the Kapiti Coast
Sorry but AKL v Welly should stay as the back bone service, daily would be good
Viz: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/13/rail-network-investment-cameron-clegg
If we were Switzerland they would probably bore a high speed tunnel from Wellington to Auckland for high speed passenger and 160kph freight rail, and leave the existing lines for dinky tourist trains.
Oh to dream. But reality is passenger rail is dead in NZ unless time-competitve with car, so long distance its high speed or nothing. In the cities commuter rail can be competitive as road congestion worsens etc.
Passenger rail doesn’t have to match car times, but it does need to be run by a passenger-focussed company, not a freight company.
For example, to run the Capital Connection, KiwiRail is charged $688,639 per year to hire a loco off KiwiRail. KiwiRail charges itself this huge figure, because that’s what the loco would otherwise earn if used on a freight train.
A passenger operator with its own trains would not apply this charge to itself. Indeed, when NZ Rail started the Capital Connection, they did not apply this artificial charge to the service.
KiwiRail applies these artificial charges to all its passenger trains, so they now all struggle to make money, whereas in NZ Rail days they could cover their costs.
The Hamilton train proposal had hugely inflated costs for the same reason. KiwiRail wanted to charge themselves commercial rates for various things, including overnight stabling in Hamilton.
It’s a bit like charging yourself $50 to mow the lawns, finding you can’t afford it, then leaving the lawns unmowed.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We need an open access network, and new operators. Until then, you’re right. Passenger rail is dead.
How much does it cost to buy a loco?!
Agree comparing it to what it would otherwise earn isn’t ideal.
What it should be charged is an amount that returns a commercial return. Monopolies typically earn 7-9% on assets so that is what should be charged. If a service makes a loss with this charge then it is not a commercial run. That doesn’t mean it should be stopped as there are wider considerations but you do need to start with a commercial number, then you can determine if the ‘subsidy’ on a loss making run makes sense when factoring in other considerations.
$688,639 per year is a big sum. My comment in response to separating freight and passenger, as has happened with commuter rail is that ultimately chopping and changing the organisational structure of a company achieves extra layers of management. The UK is the stand-out example of this where costs have gone up hugely since privatisation and the talk is all about re-integrating. This balkanisation of rail is perhaps less of an issue in the UK then New Zealand where the marginal nature of the overall operation in a thinly populated country has in the past allowed for economies of operation that have allowed for example, shared operation of freight and passenger services including locomotives, workshops and a rail engineering team that could multi-task.
The real issue is (I suspect) “high level” directives being placed upon Kiwirail management to charge “full allocated costs”. This is a different set-up to what has happened in the past for passenger rail where just the “marginal costs”, or, only the specific extra costs required to run an occasional passenger train on a freight railway, were charged. As Geoff has pointed out, this is how the Capital Connection has teleported from being profitable to a very threatened loss-maker. This also helps explain the extremely high fares being charged on the Northern Explorer.
Coming back to the Capital Connection, whether Kiwirail operate the train or Greater Wellington, that cost issue of high charges set by the government for locomotive hire and track user charges is going to remain. The only way the issue is going to go away is through a change in government policy. It is time for lobbyists to talk to their local politicians about how places like Ireland, Finland and Norway run happily subsidised regional commuter and long distance passenger rail. These countries have a similar population to New Zealand, but the government attitude to funding regional commuter and long distance passenger rail is hugely different. This difference in attitude results in for example, a very different quality of track allowing for higher and more competitive speeds, greater frequencies and as a consequence much higher community support.
That’s fascinating and of course only Kiwirail could come up with such a hair brained scheme. Of course the obvious flaw with their self-charging is that without the capital connection, that loco would likely be sitting around doing nothing and not earning anything on the capital invested in it. Same with the rails, it is not like the network is so congested with freight that running a passenger train diverts needed capacity agway from freight.
Full costs for the CC as follows:
Staff costs $264,315.00
Fuel & Traction Electricity $9,552.00
External Services $79,874.00
Lease and Rentals $23,817.00
Materials & Supplies $85,659.00
Incidents, Casualties & Insurance $4,655.00
Other Expenses $9,137.00
Track Access $192,258.00
Hook & Tow (loco hire) $688,639.00
Mechanical $323,878.00
Allocated Costs* $312,528.00
TOTAL EXPENDITURE $1,994,312.00
Depreciation $207,920.00
Regarding the old overlander service. Sometimes we locals don’t realise what we have.
http://seat61.com/Overlander.htm
“It’s one of the world’s great railway journeys, and one of my favourites. And all this costs from NZ$ 79 (£42 or US$64). This is one of my favourite train journeys anywhere, you’d be crazy to waste the opportunity, so ditch that domestic flight to Wellington and take the train!”
I remember reading this on perhaps the most popular train-travel related website, the man in seat 61. His updated comments (in red box) are very much on point.