New funding recognises rail's importance to NZ economy

By Jennifer Perry

“The new locomotives will enable us to make considerable efficiency gains on key freight routes such as Auckland-Tauranga-Murupara and on the ‘Coal Route’ between the West Coast coal mines and Port of Lyttelton,” Bolger said.
“The key to lifting KiwiRail’s revenue and profitability is improving customer service.
“We have locomotives that are at or near retirement age and we also have a contractual obligation to supply locomotives to Auckland Regional Transport Authority later in the year.
“The new locomotives will be more powerful and reliable than those in our existing fleet and in some cases, will be able to do the work of two existing locomotives.”
A KiwiRail spokesperson told Rail Express that delivery lead time was a key factor for KiwiRail.
As well as needing to release seven high horsepower locomotives for use by the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, increasing West Coast volumes would also require more locomotives, the spokesperson said.
The contract for the locomotives was awarded to CNR Loric Import and Export Corporation, China, with the 2700kW locomotives to be manufactured by CNR Dalian Locomotive and Rolling Stock.
“We looked closely at the merits of building the locomotives locally but on cost performance and importantly, delivery time, the Chinese option was superior,” KiwiRail’s chief executive Jim Quinn said.
The new locomotives will be fitted with a German-built engine that is approximately six tonnes lighter than those fitted on locomotives in the current fleet and will provide operational benefits in the form of two cabs, superior fuel economy, compliance with EU III emission standards, improving running times and arguably lower maintenance and ownership costs.
“The Chinese locomotives will enable a two for one replacement on many services that run in the Auckland through to Murapara corridors,” the spokesperson said.
“They’ll also be used in the lower North Island and in both cases, will allow existing locomotives to be redeployed.
“Effectively, services that require two ‘back-to-back’ locomotives will be replaced with one locomotive with two cabs, high tractive effort and the 2700kW engine.”
Quinn said the 17 new passenger carriages had been allocated to the South Island services, the Tranz Alpine and Tranz Coastal because they were the more heavily used and tourism oriented trains.
“We have a number of options available to us for the Overlander and we are actively looking at these, including mounting a business case for new carriages,” Quinn said.
With the passenger carriages to be built in New Zealand, Quinn said this will provide a fillip to Hillside Engineering in Dunedin who will carry out the work in conjunction with a large number of New Zealand suppliers.
Bolger said he was encouraged that the government understood where rail can make the most effective contribution to the economy.
“Apart from tourist rail experiences, it [rail] has a fundamental role in carrying bulk goods, containers to and from ports and urban passengers in large cities,” he said.
“We firmly believe that investment in rail significantly reduces the amount of money that would need to be spent on roads to achieve the same result.”