Getting Te Huia moving faster

Te Huia is a great addtion to Aotearoa's rather limited longer-distance rail network. But it's half an hour slower than its predecessors. What can be done to fix this?

Introduction

While Te Huia is very well regarded by its customers with customer satisfaction ratings that are almost off the chart, it’s not the fastest train around. There are a bunch of reasons for this which I will go into as well as a number of suggestions about how incremental improvements could be made to get Te Huia closer to its predecessors which took just two hours to get between Kirikiriroa/ Hamilton and Tāmaki Makaurau/ Auckland.

Comparing speeds

But first, some comparisons with limited stops trains in Aotearoa and Australia:

Aotearoa - 105km/h top speed

Te Huia - Hamilton to Auckland
137.7 kms in 2 hours, 30 minutes at 55 km/h average speed

Waikato Connection (2000-2001) - Hamilton to Auckland
137.2 kms in 2 hours or 69 km/h average speed

Capital Connection - Wellington to Palmerston North
136.2 kms in 2 hours, 5 minutes at 65 km/h average speed

Queensland, Australia - 140 km/h top speed

Gold Coast Line, Brisbane to Varsity Lakes, Gold Coast
89.0 kms in 1 hour, 25 minutes at 63 km/h average speed

Victoria, Australia - 160 km/h top speed

V/Locity train Melbourne to Geelong
80.7 kms in 1 hour, 1 minute or 80 km/h average speed

Back in the day, it took between 2 hours 1 minute and 2 hours 7 minutes to get from Auckland to Hamilton. Now it takes 2 hours, 30 minutes.

What this tells us about the relationship between top speed and average speed is that it depends. Principally on the number of station stops and the distance between these stops which determines the amount of time a train can reach and maintain its top speed. By their very nature nature, regional trains need to stop in regional communities on the way, so average speed is more important than top speed.

The elephant in the room though is that Te Huia is nearly half an hour slower than the Waikato Connection, Kaimai Connection and Geyserland Express trains which plied the same route from 2000-2001. But the simple answer is that at the time urban trains in Auckland only ran every quarter an hour in the peak on the combined Eastern and Southern line section (then between Papakura and Ōtāhuhu), meaning that it was relatively easy to thread a faster regional train between not particularly frequent urban trains.

The situation is much different now as Tāmaki Makaurau/ Auckland has transformed its rail network from a sadly neglected network being prepared to be shut down entirely to a much more frequent all-day, every day network. And this network will become even more frequent with the opening of City Rail Link in 2026. This makes it much more challenging to thread a regional train through a very busy all-stops metropolitan rail network.

The challenge that this presents can be shown by comparing two sections of Te Huia:

1. Hamilton to Pukekohe - 86.4 kms in 1 hour, 20 minutes at 65 km/h

2. Pukekohe to Auckland - 51.3 kms in 1 hour, 3 minutes at 49 km/h

Let’s not blame Auckland for the fact that it is slower as this is simply a function of Auckland having a vastly better rail network in 2025 than it had at the turn of the century. Auckland’s rail transformation is something to be celebrated, not derided.

Making better use of Auckland’s Third Main track

The typical response to address conflicts between slower urban trains and freight and longer-distance passenger trains is either a peak freight curfew as is common in Australia and/ or to separate out urban passenger train operation from longer-distance passenger and freight services.

A freight curfew is not realistic as the investment to get freight out of Auckland after the afternoon peak and into Wellington before the morning peak the following morning is unlikely to be forthcoming in the short-term. The good news is that there is now a third main track in place for the very busy 11 kilometre section of track between Westfield and Wiri junctions in Auckland. This section of track has 380 freight services and 1,500 passenger services every week. The bad news is that the Third Main is only currently set up to be useful for freight services, not longer distance passenger trains.

To make the third main useful for passenger services would require the addition of a third platform face at Puhinui Station for longer-distance trains. This could be set up so that regional and long-distance trains are outside the paid area for urban services and would make the connection to frequent Airport Link buses to Auckland Airport step-free.

This additional platform would also significantly de-risk Auckland rail operation post-City Rail Link as longer than 90 second dwells by Te Huia at Puhinui Station - for example to deploy and retract Te Huia’s wheelchair lift or simply because of the number of passengers with luggage boarding and alighting - would not have the potential to have knock-on disruptions to Auckland urban rail services.

Recommendation 1: Te Huia to use third main track (with a third platform at Puhinui Station) to bypass the most congested part of the Auckland rail network.

The stranding of Te Huia at The Strand

At present, Te Huia terminates at Auckland Strand Station which itself was the old platform 7 at the former Auckland Station. Back in the day, this platform was connected by underpasses to the main station concourse on Beach Road. These underpasses still exist but are covered over. Reopening the underpass would reduce the walk distance from Strand Station to the city centre by 170 metres or over two minutes at average walking speed.

Auckland Station underpasses, Photo Credit: Archives New Zealand (CC BY 2.0)

While this would be useful, what is not useful is having a terminus station for regional and long-distance trains that is disconnected from Auckland’s urban rail network.

Recommendation 2: Reopen the underground passageways to decrease the walk distance between Auckland Strand Station and the core of Auckland City Centre.

An addendum to the original Te Huia business case in 2023 evaluated a range of options for the continuation of Te Huia into Auckland post-City Rail Link but landed on the status quo, principally out of concern for the impact of other termination locations such as Parnell, Newmarket and Maungawhau on the Auckland rail network.

This, in my view, is a very unsatisfactory outcome for both Auckland and for inter-regional and long-distance train passengers. Maungawhau, as a City Rail Link station, always struck me as a workable option but some idiosyncrasies of the planned City Rail Link service patterns - particularly the Onehunga - West line not via City Rail Link - makes this option difficult if not impossible.

So it seems that Te Huia is going to be stranded at The Strand for the foreseeable future. Given this stranding, wouldn’t a connecting bus service from Auckland Strand to the City Centre be of use?

Recommendation 3: Auckland Transport to provide a connecting bus service to meet Te Huia and Northern Explorer arrivals into Auckland.

So where can things speed up?

At present, the ruling constraints are line speeds, capped at a maximum of 105 km/h but slower from Te Kauwhata through to Pukekohe, including the Whangamarino Swamp single-track section. Locomotives used for Te Huia have a top speed of 100 km/h and the number of level crossings en route that don’t have full active protection in place limit train speeds in places.

While speed is always good, it is better to have a slightly slower timetable that can be reliably delivered than a faster timetable that is rarely met in practice. Remembering that train time can be useful time for working or chilled out time relaxing, chatting to friends or just staring at the scenery out the window. Driving time is solely about concentrating on the road ahead and while the Waikato Expressway is fast with its largely 110 km/h speed limit, it is now a pretty dull drive.

Double-tracking

One opportunity to speed everything up is addressing the remaining single track section between Auckland and Hamilton through the Whangamarino Swamp (plus the single track Ngāruawāhia Bridge). A straighter double-track alignment would enable a lift in line speeds as well as significantly improve reliability and resilience.

The 2021-2024 Rail Network Investment Plan referenced this, saying that KiwiRail should do a business case in the 2021-2024 period¹. As far as I can tell, no such business case was done and the current 2024-2027 Rail Network Investment Plan has no mention of this.

Rail Network Investment Programme 2021-2024, Kiwirail, page 36

Level crossings

The biggest challenge with line speeds are the number of level crossings between Papakura and Hamilton. According to the Te Huia Inter-Regional Rail Access Post CRL Single Stage Business Case Addendum, published on 22 May 2023:

“Nineteen of the 40 level crossings on the Auckland to Hamilton (NIMT) route currently do not have half arm barriers installed, and twelve are uncontrolled. The higher risk crossings are currently being managed through permanent speed restrictions that apply when the service is driven from the SRV cab.²”

Translated into English, this means that when Te Huia is pushed (that is, the locomotive is at the back and the train is being driven from a driving cab at the front), it has permanent speed restrictions through high-risk level crossings.

To address this requires new Level Crossing Safety Impact Assessments and the likelihood of having to address at least the highest-risk level crossings that do not currently have half-arm barriers.

Electrification

It is likely that the biggest gains in travel speeds would come from electrification of the remaining roughly 86 kilometre section between Pukekohe and Te Rapa, just north of Hamilton. Electric trains accelerate and brake faster, meaning that they can stay at higher speeds for longer. This would be particularly importance if additional station stops are added to serve the fast growing areas of Te Kauwhata, Pōkeno and Tūākau.

Te Huia is under the wires at both ends of its journeys but the “missing middle” 86 kilometres of its journey is not yet electrified. Image credit: Darren Davis

In a speech to the Australasian Railways Association RailNZ 25 conference in Auckland on 29 May 2025, Minister of Rail Winston Peters stated that “We’re refurbishing the Hamilton-Palmerston North electric fleet, and planning is underway on electrifying the line to Mt Maunganui³.” This is promising talk which will hopefully lead to promising actions. A Golden Triangle electrification Detailed Business Case has been in the works for a while now so hopefully this will lead to a plugging of the electrification gap between Pukekohe and Hamilton on the North Island Main Trunk line.

Recommendation 4: Carry out a business case to double-track the remaining single-track sections between Auckland and Hamilton

Recommendation 5: Deliver Golden Triangle electrification between Pukekohe and Hamilton, and Hamilton to Mount Maunganui

Recommendation 6: Carry out updated Level Crossing Safety Impact Assessments for the remaining level crossings without full active protection and make improvements so that Te Huia can operate through all crossing in push mode at normal line speed.

Final thoughts

The reason that Hamilton to Auckland trains used to be so much faster 20 years ago is that there were very few trains in Auckland to get in their way back in the day. In the last 20 years, Auckland has undergone a huge rail renaissance and it’s now a much busier network. This is a good thing. That said, there are a bunch of opportunities to get some more speed into Te Huia but few of them are likely to be in the “quick wins” category. But all of them are worthwhile investments that would make the Upper North Island rail network more resilient, more useful and safer.

1. Rail Network Investment Programme 2021-2024, Kiwirail, page 36

2. Te Huia Inter-Regional Rail Access Post CRL Single Stage Business Case Addendum, Beca for Waikato Regional Council, 22 May 2023, page 52

3. Speech by Rt. Hon Winston Peters to the Australasian Railways Association RailNZ 25 conference, Beehive website, accessed on 29 August 2025.