NZ First’s 2014 “Railways of National Importance” policy platform [1] This has been reproduced here as a reference point for a wider discussion about the context of these policies in light of ongoing campaigning by the party transport spokesman. The platform appears to be a naked attempt to grab votes from the railfan community, many of whom would vote without thinking for such an ambitious platform – even though it stood very little chance of being implemented in a substantial form. The platform is in sections in italics with my comments in plain text between each section. New Zealand First will ensure that none of New Zealand’s railway lines and other strategic railways infrastructure will be privatised, and will remain under state control and ownership to ensure that public service rather than commercial objectives is the paramount consideration. New Zealand First’s vision includes passenger train services along all rail routes between the main centres, with connecting coach services linking outlying areas or running services between centres which dont have a railway line. These services would provide a mixture of accommodation standards and fares to make rail services more affordable for New Zealanders to use e.g. half the carriages to be high standard premium fare similar to that provided on current KiwiRail tourist focussed trains such as the Northern Explorer and Tranz Alpine services, and the other half of the carriages being basic, affordable economy fare intercity market, e.g. railcars would have one premium carriage and one economy carriage. The Silver Fern railcars, former Overlander carriages and Silver Star carriages could be appropriately refurbished and upgraded locally in railway workshops to operate daytime regional Intercity services. Fast modern railcars and new carriages, New Zealand built where possible, could later be purchased for certain routes. As a state-owned enterprise, KiwiRail is currently heavily constrained because it is required to pay for the maintenance, renewal and upgrade of rail infrastructure through the revenue generated from its freight and other businesses. New Zealand’s rail network is a national asset that must be developed to optimise its long term role in support of New Zealand’s economy and of an efficient and cost effective multi-modal and well integrated transport system. New Zealand First will develop a programme of railways of national importance (RONI) to ensure that better use of our railway network and services are achieved, with improvements and extensions where there is opportunity to significantly reduce dependence on the roading network, especially for heavy freight and bulk freight services, but also where passenger services can be redeveloped to attract sufficient demand over time. To this end New Zealand First will not require the whole cost of development of new railway tracks and services, and of electric reticulation, to be met by revenue generated by railway service charges; and these will instead be met in whole or in part by a combination of Land Transport Fund funding and crown grants. The Land Transport Fund funding will be achieved by reallocating funding from the current RONS $12 billion plus programme. An initial budget of $400 million would be created by reprioritising Roads of National Significance (RONS) projects that have low or marginal benefits. The rail routes listed below would form the basis of the core transport network between the main centres with daily passenger and freight services, and with the tracks being upgraded or new lines built as required, together with new transport interchanges between trains and buses, and freight hubs in all the main centres: Auckland-Whangarei-Opua Auckland-Pokeno-Paeroa-Te Aroha-Tauranga-Whakatane Auckland-Hamilton-Tokoroa-Rotorua-Taupo Auckland-Wellington Wellington-New Plymouth Wellington-Gisborne (via the Wairarapa line) Nelson-Blenheim Christchurch-Greymouth Picton-Christchurch-Dunedin-Invercargill. Well that was an interesting opener but it loses credibility at this point by claiming there are insufficient passenger and freight services offered on rail in these areas. Most of those lines (the ones that currently exist) do have existing freight centres but some of them do not have passenger services, mostly because of intense competition from budget coach operators and/or air services. This is hardly a new trend but a fact that has been going on nationwide for the past 50 years. Many of the routes mentioned, for example, had railcar services until the mid 1970s when many of those services were discontinued because they were losing money. It doesn’t take much research to discover the true facts of the situation. The other major issue is the lines on the above list that don’t actually exist now: Whangarei-Opua (from Otiria-Opua is partly lifted with the rest a heritage line); Pokeno-Paeroa-Te Aroha (mostly a line of the 1930s that was never completed beyond formation works and a part of a line that was lifted between 1978 and 1995); Rotorua-Taupo (many proposals and a few earthworks but no substantial progress ever made, except for the TTT Co’s bush tramway line to Mokai); and Nelson-Blenheim (never got any further than some earthworks at Nelson in 1960). Technically the Pokeno-Paeroa-Te Aroha line would have to continue on to Waitoa where it would join the existing Kiwirail network. To develop any of these lines would require billions of dollars and would be difficult to juggle with other important public spending commitments for any government which is probably why no one else has made such a serious campaign of this type since, I would guess, 1960. In the second article I will continue looking at the in depth statements about particular routes and lines.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 09:04:19 +0000
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