KiwiRail is once again embarrassed by the failure of key equipment and infrastructure due to decades of neglect and underinvestment. The current speed restrictions on the Wellington system is due to the failure of the one track evaluation car that Kiwirail own which is 43 years old. If they had simply invested in a second one to service the South Island, then one could cover for the other, but the major shareholder of KiwiRail, the government, has funded on a “minimum needed” basis for far too long.

National Coordinator of TRAC, Niall Robertson says, “The current government faced huge deficits in investment in KiwiRail when they came to office and has had to put $5 billion into the system to catch up on that neglect, which thankfully includes new rail ferries, but this is still not enough”.

Robertson says, “There are many KiwiRail failures currently evident, including highly unreliable Cook Strait ferries, the track evaluation vehicle, the long term closure of the North Auckland Line due to one slip and the current inability to grow rail services in many regions such as the Hawkes Bay and Taranaki due to a lack of rolling stock”.

Although not altogether due to the current government which has quite properly invested a lot in KiwiRail and come up with more appropriate ways of funding rail through the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), Robertson says that this is still not enough to bring rail up to scratch.

Robertson suggests, “...the government looks outside the box a little and invites more private investment into the wider New Zealand rail system. Short line operators could run trains in the peripheral parts of the system utilising their own locomotives and possibly rolling stock. Short line operators work well in the United States and Australia leaving the larger companies to invest in the more profitable routes”. Robertson says that smaller local operators have “skin in the game” and will chase business in their local area, possibly on contract to KiwiRail.

Robertson says, “It’s time that the government took total control of the below wheel railway system and managed it through a separate agency similar to Waka Kotahi. This would allow the government to have more money to invest in another track evaluation car and for KiwiRail to invest in more locomotives and rolling stock.

Robertson says, “This all comes down to reducing road deaths, road maintenance, road congestion and ensuring a functional railway for better public transport and reducing New Zealand’s current shameful Greenhouse gas output”.

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