Capital Connection 'new' rolling stock. Could it be better?

'New' interim rolling stock for the Capital Connection train is now running from Palmerston North to Wellington. But how could it be made even better?

This morning (Monday 31st July 2023) saw the first Capital Connection service from Palmerston North to Wellington operated by ‘new’ interim rolling stock. This is in the form of ex-British Mark 2 carriages, previously repurposed as interim rolling stock for Auckland suburban service and now re-re-purposed as new regional rolling stock.

While it has been 51 years since Aotearoa had actual new long-distance passenger rolling stock (in the form of the Silver Star railcars introduced in 1972), the refurbished carriages for the Capital Connection, which are nearly identical to Te Huia, make for a very high quality regional train product.

To get a sense of the quality of the on-board experience, I recommend watching this YouTube video by Adam Joyce on Te Huia.

While Aotearoa does a good job in providing comfortable regional trains, the same cannot be said for the frequency of the service they offer. $26 million has been invested in the interim Capital Connection rolling stock to give exactly the same lack of service, running just one peak train per direction, five days a week and not at all at weekends, public holidays and for an extended shut down over the Christmas New Year period.

According to Radio New Zealand, “Five carriages have been upgraded with a sixth carriage set to be added in September to support an anticipated increase in passengers. More carriages are currently being upgraded locally at KiwiRail's Hutt Workshops with 11 in total eventually able be to be used¹.

New Capital Connection rolling stock crossing the Paremata Inlet. Credit KiwiRail

But, according to Transport Minister David Parker, the Capital Connection will only be improved once new tri-mode rolling stock is ready in four to five years’ time. This means that it is likely that only six out of eleven carriages are likely to see any form of regular use, which is not a good use of a significant proportion of $26 million in public investment.

There are 8,760 hours in a year and the Capital Connection runs in just 960 of those hours. With one train set, the Capital Connection is idle 89% of the time. With two train sets, the Capital Connection will be idle 94% of the time.

Meanwhile, in the Upper North Island…

In the Upper North Island, Te Huia has $98 million in capex and opex funding up to 30 June 20024. This currently provides for two return trips from Hamilton to Auckland on weekdays and a single return trip on Saturday. In addition, once KiwiRail is able to source sufficient drivers, there will be on third return trip on Thursdays and Fridays and a second return trip on Saturday. At this stage, this is expected to take place in April 2024.

Te Huia has two possible configurations of three train sets of four carriages or two train sets of five carriages with two locomotives and one spare locomotive available².

The original Te Huia service plan had three return trips on weekdays, two return trips on Saturday and a single return trip on Sundays. But, due to Waka Kotahi refusing to rephase already committed Te Huia investment, the service improvements able to be funded from the Waikato’s local share funding is an additional return trip on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

So, as with the Capital Connection, the issue isn’t the lack of rolling stock, it’s the lack of use of the rolling stock available. And as I’ve said previously:

So here’s the rub:
We do a great job at quality refurbishments to create great regional trains,
then we make very little use of those trains to provide improved train service.

Seven ways to improve the Capital Connection

Here are seven ways that could sweat the asset and make best use of the sunk cost of the interim Capital Connection rolling stock (as it will be replaced in four to five years by the long-term tri-mode rolling stock solution). These include:

1. Sort out Shannon Soon: Platforms at Ōtaki, Levin, Shannon and Palmerston North needed to be raised to match the ‘new’ interim rolling stock but, according to KiwiRail: “Unfortunately, there has been a delay in carrying out the Shannon platform work. The height difference between the new carriages and the existing platform is a safety risk, so until we can raise the platform level the Capital Connection will not stop at Shannon. We are putting on a bus to transport the relatively small number of people who get on and off the train at Shannon through to Levin Station....We expect to have the Shannon work completed in the next few months.³”
   
   Apparently, the issue has to do with the heritage Shannon Station station building. But Shannon passengers are the losers here. This makes it impossible for people to travel between Palmerston North and Shannon as the bus only goes from Shannon to Levin. And there is no information about the Capital Connection not stopping in Shannon on the KiwiRail Capital Connection web page. In fact, it says the opposite, “The train leaves Palmerston North at  6.15 am, stopping at Shannon, Levin, Otaki, Waikanae, Paraparaumu and arriving into Wellington at 8.20 am.”⁴" Nor is there any information about not stopping at Shannon on board the train itself. This really is not good enough!

2. Run a weekday interpeak return trip. Similar to how Te Huia between Hamilton and Auckland operates, a single train set can run two return journeys a day. The Capital Connection is stabled for nearly nine hours at Wellington Station during the day. This is more than enough time for a trip to Palmerston North and back.

3. Run the Capital Connection on weekends and public holidays, including between Christmas and New Year when Kiwis are most likely to be travelling. Back in the day, on Christmas Eve in 1938, 16 express trains swept more than 11,000 travellers out of Wellington in a single day. Nowadays, that figure is likely in the very low hundreds and only if Christmas Eve falls on a weekday.

4. Extend the Capital Connection to Feilding. This was one of the recommendations of the Inquiry into the future of inter-regional passenger rail in New Zealand. It is just under 17 kilometres between Palmerston North and Feilding, where a rail platform directly connected to the street is still in place. This could be an interim step towards extending the service to Whanganui in the future.

Nothing quite says friendly like a train station with no train service. Credit: Manawatūnz CC BY-SA 3.0

5. Integrate the Capital Connection into the national public transport ticketing solution. Currently neither the regional Bee Card nor Wellington’s Snapper is accepted on the Capital Connection. Ticketing is still old school cardboard tickets and passes. This is the twenty-first century folks. But it is unclear if the Capital Connection is in scope for the national public transport ticketing solution, due to be rolled out in stages between 2024 and 2026.

6. Fair fares for the Capital Connection.  The end to end adult journey from Palmerston North to Wellington costs $35 or 26 cents per kilometre. By comparison, Te Huia for a similar distance between Hamilton and Auckland is a $12 adult fare (on a Bee Card) or 9 cents per kilometre. That is just over a third of the per kilometre cost to travel on the Capital Connection. On a quarterly pass, it would cost an adult (25-64 years old) an eye-watering $9,620 over the course of a year to commute from Palmerston North to Wellington.
   
   More positively though, the Government-announced fare changes mean that for the Capital Connection, children 13 and under travel for free, and 14-24 year olds and over 65s travel for half price, as do Community Service and Total Mobility card holders.

Capital Connection Quarterly Pass Fares. Source: Great Journeys of NZ website

7. Feeder bus connection at Palmerston North Station. Waikato Regional Council has implemented earlier bus services and retimed other services to ensure timed connections between Te Huia and the Orbiter bus at Rotokauri Station. There is no reason that Horizons Regional Council could not do the same for the Capital Connection, with a service linking to and from Palmerston North City Centre and then on to Massey University. The Capital Connection arrival and departure times are such that there are spare existing buses available to operate these services.

Final thoughts

As I said earlier in the piece, “The best way to recover the capital cost of … rolling stock is to sweat the asset by actually using the trains to run actual service for actual customers.” We aren’t doing this with Te Huia. We aren’t doing this with the Capital Connection. And there is a big risk that we won’t do this once the Wairarapa Line upgrade is complete in 2025.

And the sunk cost is not only in the rolling stock, but all of the other infrastructure costs associated with it. Public transport is only as good as the quality, frequency, reliability and speed of the services that operate on it. The infrastructure and rolling stock is only a means to an end, not the end itself, which is the service provided.

There is a great opportunity here to make the most of the $26 million cost sunk into the ‘new’ interim Capital Connection rolling stock. There is only 4-5 years to make use of that investment before the long-term tri-mode rolling stock is ready to roll. The time to act is now!

1. Major upgrade for Capital Connection train service between Palmerston North and Wellington, Radio New Zealand

2. Te Huia article on Wikipedia

3. KiwiRail media release, 26th July 2023

4. Capital Connection website