Toll NZ Wins Major Rail Award

13 December 2005

Toll NZ Wins Major Rail Award

Toll NZ has been recognized in the 2005 Australasian Railway Association Annual Rail Industry awards.

The company won the Corporate Award for Excellence, and the awards are aimed overall at recognizing individuals and corporation promoting improvements in the rail industry.

The entry came from Toll Rail Professional Services Group( Wellington) lead by Michael McKeon and was for their push - pull train designed to provide greatly improved capacity for Auckland's commuter rail network and to operate from Auckland's new underground Britomart Station. It achieved its aim of moving increased passenger demand sooner than any other solution could.

Toll's PSG's experience with a wide range of other passenger projects over 20 years was able to be put to good use in delivery of this project.

While passenger train push-pull operation is common in the northern hemisphere, it is a new operating concept in New Zealand.

The SA-SD train sets have proved so successful and with demand continuing to increase, the initial order was extended through a number of stages from 4 trains to 14 (currently 52 cars and 14 locomotives)

Deserving of acknowledgement on the project are Michael Mc Keon, Barry Fryer, and Albert Bossward all from Toll PSG, Rajendren Kallath, who was the project Manager and all the staff and management at Hillside Engineering Dunedin where the train sets were built, Winton Houghton from Toll, Westfield Depot (Auckland) and Lloyd Major GM Engineering Toll Rail.

Special thanks also to Angus Garabara the rail project leader at the Auckland Region Council/Auckland Regional Transport Authority ("ARTA") for the overall support that allowed the project to proceed in the first place.

Leveraging off this project Toll NZ has now won an order, by competitive international tender, for 18 similar cars from the Greater Wellington Regional Council, valued at approximately NZ24 million.

ENDS

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