Recently commuter Tamsyn Parker complained of her 90minute commute from Kumeu.

Her complaint fell on deaf ears.

However, since 2015 the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has been campaigning for a shuttle train from Swanson to Huapai. This has been blocked consistently by both AT and KiwiRail who are colluding to prevent the metro rail system expanding further whether there are people to use it or not.

PTUA chairman Niall Robertson says, “These two governmental bureaucratic organisations have mandarins that feel they know what is best for the people of Auckland, but have demonstrated time and again that they have no understanding of what the people want from them. If they were politicians, they would have been voted out of office by now, but the people of Auckland have been stuck with them since the creation of the super-city in 2010”. Robertson says that maybe they have done some good, such as developing the Eastern AMETI project, but this is tarnished by their decision to dump 40 residents out of their houses in Burswood and take some land off 30 more home owners to avoid litigation with businesses with deeper pockets than these residents.

As for Tamsyn Parker’s plight in the Northwest, the PTUA point out that she is travelling in and out of Kumeu on a two lane road that carries 37,000 vehicles every day. That is 1000 more that Transmission Gully, 16,000 more that the Waikato expressway and 12,000 more than the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway! To add to this, as the area has no high school, parents are having to drive their children to a variety of other Auckland schools, most of which are on the Western Line route, but become a great disruption to the parents commute.

Further, the PTUA has helped to broker a deal with a private developer and a private railway organisation to run a shuttle train from Swanson to Huapai at NO COST to the ratepayer, but AT and KiwiRail are blocking this by claiming that the line needs upgrading for this to occur.

However KiwiRail claim that despite the line being closed for over two years in total for rebuilding and Cyclone Gabrielle repairs that, ”… Unfortunately, there was a list of track items that were identified in the recent track inspection up to Helensville that required resolution before we could consider permitting passenger rail vehicles on the route”. KiwiRail are also currently unaware of the cost to complete these repairs or timelines for any funding for them. KiwiRail also talk of the Waitakere Tunnel as a “major hurdle” to running passenger trains, yet it is a short tunnel at 247m and compares well with the distance between evacuation tunnels in the CRL at 325m!

KiwiRail also claim that the stations en route were, “…non-compliant and unsafe for use”, but nothing has changed since they were last used. KiwiRail say, “Once these items and potentially any unknowns that may crop up as part of the above process are resolved, (KiwiRail) see no reason not to change the lines designation for passenger rail vehicles.

The PTUA believe that the line is already fit for purpose and can be used as is, through a variety of mitigation processes which are normal practice on the system. However, the PTUA concede that some improvements may be preferable, such as upgrading the Waitakere yard to allow freight trains to pass, but that these could be done for not much more than $9.2m and should be done over the next year to enable these trains to be ready for the North Western commuters as soon as possible.

Robertson says, “However, whenever you quote figures to KiwiRail they inevitably gold plate the sums to make it impossible to complete simple solutions in a timely fashion. Also it seems that they are pathologically afraid of being expected to extend the metro system to Helensville”.

This has developed further in recent times, as the Helensville Railway Trust want to celebrate the sequicenntenial of the station. They asked KiwiRail to participate by showing off some of their locomotives and other equipment, and show off their NAL rebuild. This was to be complemented by a series of heritage train rides to Swanson from Helensville using a Glenbrook Vintage Railway (GVR) locomotive and GVR carriages.

PTUA National Coordinator, Jon Reeves says, “This is being prevented from happening currently by the KiwiRail ‘Professional Head of Track’ for a lot of vague reasons that are not even costed”.

Reeves adds, “Community events like this are important and KiwiRail has a responsibility to keep rail in a condition to enable community events and community access for heritage trains so that these events can happen, and I question why KiwiRail has not allocated some of the many millions of dollars from the NAL upgrade to this area where rail heritage is going to be the most active?”

Robertson says that things like the claim that the stations were “unsafe” are new findings. He adds, “We have campaigned since 2015, so why has there been no notification until now the platforms are allegedly unsafe?” Robertson knows that the platforms performed well when in use and nothing has changed since then, so has doubts about this claim and will be seeking independent assessments.

Robertson says, “When you see the plight of those in the North West, the stress of their commute, the lack of any functional public transport, the need to transport children to out-of-area schools and combine that with the rates that these citizens still have to pay, one can only say it’s a disgrace that both AT and KiwiRail have conspired to block any train services beyond Swanson for fear of demand to go beyond Huapai and for no other good reason!”

This is also starting to affect community activities and preventing important community celebrations which is added hurt to the area.

© Scoop Media