Wairarapa Commuters To Remain On ‘Knife-Edge’ For Months Yet

Tuesday, 25 March 2025, 7:48 pm
Article: Emily Ireland - Local Democracy Reporter

A staffing crisis at Transdev means Wairarapa's train service will remain on “knife-edge for a few months”, the operator told Wairarapa leaders on Tuesday.

Wairarapa commuters have faced ongoing cancellations, delays and bus replacements, with one ex-commuter creating the “Train Pain Email Campaign” to pressure political leaders.

Transdev’s managing director for Wellington Tonia Haskell fronted questions from Wairarapa mayors at Greater Wellington Regional Council’s Wairarapa Committee on Tuesday.

It was clear Wairarapa commuters would not get any reprieve soon.

Haskell, who was previously the chief executive of Wellington Water and began at Transdev in November, said there was a shortage of licenced train managers for Wairarapa.

Seven separate licences were required for the role and previous attempts to train staff had not been enough to plug the gap, she said.

Of a pool of twelve Wairarapa staff, four were on long-term sick or injury leave, she said.

Seven were required to run a regular train service on weekdays which left little room for sick or holiday leave for the remaining staff.

Haskell said a daily “standup” was done to ensure all staff on duty were well enough to safely run the service.

Commuter services took priority over non-peak or weekend services, Haskell said.

Another training school round for qualified staff was running in April with a June testing date.

This followed a round of training this year where two of the three trainees failed the shunting test.

Shunting was the process of moving and sorting individual railcars or groups of cars to form trains, or moving them to different tracks within a railway yard or depot.

Physiological and physical tests would now be done at the start of training.

Masterton Mayor Gary Caffell said “in a nutshell, are you saying that until the staffing sitaution is sorted out, these problems are going to stay?”

Haskell replied that it would “stay pretty knife edge for a few months”.

She offered up an apology to all those impacted by the poor service and said Transdev was working with Greater Wellington Regional Council on “how we can improve”.

“This isn’t how we want a train service to run,” Haskell said.

“I didn’t join up to be providing this level of service.

“I’d just like to acknowledge the frustration of the commuters here.

“It is a lifeline from home to work for many people and we want to make sure that is restored as soon as possible.”

Caffell said the problems must have been foreseeable and asked Haskell whether the problems had come as a surprise.

She said the issues had been “building for a while”, but described the situation as “a slow surprise”.

“When you have a small group of highly qualified people, your resilience is lessened when even one comes off the roster,” she said.

A recent letter to Greater Wellington Regional Council from Transdev’s chief operating officer Peter Lensink said Transdev was doing “everything within our control to recover performance on the Wairarapa Line”.

“Broader contractual and financial constraints, long the subject of discussion with your team, continue to have significant influence.

“For example, additional leave entitlements for sick leave and the Matariki public holiday, while necessary, remain unfunded.

“This places us in the difficult position of being unable to provide the level of staffing and service that Wellington’s rail customers expect.

“While we are proactively working to mitigate these impacts on the Wairarapa Line, we cannot guarantee similar challenges won’t arise elsewhere on the network while we devote our resources to this task.”

Transdev’s contract to run Wellington’s rail services was renewed in 2023 until 2031.

South Wairarapa Mayor Martin Connelly was concerned there were a lack of penalties on Transdev for not upholding a reliable train service as per its contract.

It was revealed that although performance measures were included in Metlink’s contract with Transdev to run the rail contract, a bus replacement was considered to be a service running.

“When you describe a bus replacement as a train, it’s starting to get a bit like Lewis Carroll,” Connelly said.

“How much worse does Transdev have to get before penalties apply?”

Metlink group manager Samantha Gain said punctuality and reliability was a multipronged measure which was affected by speed restrictions and work on the rail which was out of Transdev’s control.

Connelly said Metlink should change its timetables to reflect sustained delays such as those caused by rail work, so at least commuters could plan for a consistently longer travel time, but Gain said this was not possible.

This week, all 3.38pm train services from Masterton to Wellington and the 6.18pm services from Wellington to Masterton have been replaced by bus services due to staff shortages.

Buses would also replace trains, and some services would run at reduced frequencies as KiwiRail made improvements to the rail network over the Easter and ANZAC weekends.

From February 10, after rail services resumed following major track works, only 17% of rail services were on time, according to a Metlink dashboard.

It does not factor bus replacement services.

-LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air

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