Wellington has traditionally been Aotearoa's rail capital. But the city's growth is straining its rail network. Read on for what is needed to secure Wellington's rail future.
Aug 5, 2023·edited Aug 5, 2023Liked by Darren Davis
Interesting. How much of the required/planned upgrades and improvements are happening because of the planned improvements to the Wellington - Palmerston North and Wellington - Masterton (commuter) passenger services.
Most likely that these will occur because it is already committed to by this government and included in the National Party's moar roads transport announcement.
The future looks bleaker for Te Huia though despite it also running along a major development corridor.
Good question. Wellington's network runs, and is proposed to continued to run, on layered service patterns with a mix of express and all stops trains on the Hutt and Kāpiti lines. This requires very high levels of reliability to avoid cascading delays. For example, the Capital Connection has to clear Porirua by about 8am to not lose its slot and have to follow the 8:05am all stopping train from Porirua. The Plimmerton turnback, double-tracking North South Junction and the 2nd platform and approach to Waikanae Station are key moves to enable both more Kāpiti Line trains and more inter-regional, freight and long-distance trains.
But unfortunately, it doesn't go south of Bunny St and include the region's CBD, a quarter of the population, three quarters of the economic activity, the densest areas and important regional destinations like the main hospital and the airport. Every other main urban rail system in the world (as far as I can determine) provides an unbroken direct through service between the suburbs and satellite cities and through the dense core – the reason for Auckland's City Rail Link, for example. Providing a direct through service and eliminating the stub termination at the edge of the CBD would be a far more effective way to provide extra capacity, and incentivising passengers to use it, than simply improving the railway which will still stop short of the destinations typically sought by car commuters.
Plans to fix this anomaly in Wellington, using light rail/tram-train, have been around since 1878, as I outlined in a presentation to the NZ Rail 2014 conference in Auckland. I would attach it, but there seems no facility for us freeloaders to do so (and on a superannuitant's budget I am prevented by my manager from taking out a paid sub!!) But I will happily answer emails.
Yep, acknowledging that a weakness of Wellington's rail network is that it only touches the northern end of the city centre while many cities, Auckland included, are building cross city links putting the whole of the city centre within walking distance of rail. But my hunch is that this question along with questioning the layered service patterns on the Kāpiti and Hutt Valley lines were considered no-go areas for this particular piece of work.
Interesting. How much of the required/planned upgrades and improvements are happening because of the planned improvements to the Wellington - Palmerston North and Wellington - Masterton (commuter) passenger services.
Most likely that these will occur because it is already committed to by this government and included in the National Party's moar roads transport announcement.
The future looks bleaker for Te Huia though despite it also running along a major development corridor.
Good question. Wellington's network runs, and is proposed to continued to run, on layered service patterns with a mix of express and all stops trains on the Hutt and Kāpiti lines. This requires very high levels of reliability to avoid cascading delays. For example, the Capital Connection has to clear Porirua by about 8am to not lose its slot and have to follow the 8:05am all stopping train from Porirua. The Plimmerton turnback, double-tracking North South Junction and the 2nd platform and approach to Waikanae Station are key moves to enable both more Kāpiti Line trains and more inter-regional, freight and long-distance trains.
Great commentary, as far as it goes.
But unfortunately, it doesn't go south of Bunny St and include the region's CBD, a quarter of the population, three quarters of the economic activity, the densest areas and important regional destinations like the main hospital and the airport. Every other main urban rail system in the world (as far as I can determine) provides an unbroken direct through service between the suburbs and satellite cities and through the dense core – the reason for Auckland's City Rail Link, for example. Providing a direct through service and eliminating the stub termination at the edge of the CBD would be a far more effective way to provide extra capacity, and incentivising passengers to use it, than simply improving the railway which will still stop short of the destinations typically sought by car commuters.
Plans to fix this anomaly in Wellington, using light rail/tram-train, have been around since 1878, as I outlined in a presentation to the NZ Rail 2014 conference in Auckland. I would attach it, but there seems no facility for us freeloaders to do so (and on a superannuitant's budget I am prevented by my manager from taking out a paid sub!!) But I will happily answer emails.
Brent Efford, NZ Agent, Light Rail Transit Assn brent.efford@me.com
Yep, acknowledging that a weakness of Wellington's rail network is that it only touches the northern end of the city centre while many cities, Auckland included, are building cross city links putting the whole of the city centre within walking distance of rail. But my hunch is that this question along with questioning the layered service patterns on the Kāpiti and Hutt Valley lines were considered no-go areas for this particular piece of work.