Yes there’s certainly going to be a massive rebound with CRL, the Wellington upgrades and the new lower North Island trains. But Te Huia might be in trouble, with a former Nat MP now elected mayor in Hamilton and a new bunch of Waikato regional councillors who beat the “low rates” drum.
But again, run Te Huia like a suburban train and not a “mini Great train Journey”.
Dropping Papakura out as a stop has certainly reduced uptake of pax. The Papakura/Takanini/Clevedon Valley represents one of the fastest growing populations in South Auckland. Te Huia is a great concept but probably needs re thinking. Maybe a replacement with one of the new hybrids?
Hopefully the new hybrid trains in Wellington will show a (presumably) faster journey time will pull in more passengers. On the Kapiti line , as well as the Wairarapa line. Maybe this could lead to some peak hour express trains , to counter the gully's time advantage. There is always the single track section to slow things down , but at least the 70 km/hr curves south of Pukerua bay could be eased to save a few extra minutes.
It would be helpful and numbers would have certainly been better if AT had not shut the service down for about 25% of the year “ for completion of CRL and additional line replacement and service improvement”. You can’t get bums on seats when you’ve no seats to put them on.
Yes there’s certainly going to be a massive rebound with CRL, the Wellington upgrades and the new lower North Island trains. But Te Huia might be in trouble, with a former Nat MP now elected mayor in Hamilton and a new bunch of Waikato regional councillors who beat the “low rates” drum.
But again, run Te Huia like a suburban train and not a “mini Great train Journey”.
Dropping Papakura out as a stop has certainly reduced uptake of pax. The Papakura/Takanini/Clevedon Valley represents one of the fastest growing populations in South Auckland. Te Huia is a great concept but probably needs re thinking. Maybe a replacement with one of the new hybrids?
Hopefully the new hybrid trains in Wellington will show a (presumably) faster journey time will pull in more passengers. On the Kapiti line , as well as the Wairarapa line. Maybe this could lead to some peak hour express trains , to counter the gully's time advantage. There is always the single track section to slow things down , but at least the 70 km/hr curves south of Pukerua bay could be eased to save a few extra minutes.
Glad I read through to the end - only the last couple of lines persuaded me to come down from the ledge...
Glad you made it back from the ledge. I'm trying to take a glass half full view of Aotearoa which can be challenging at times.
It would be helpful and numbers would have certainly been better if AT had not shut the service down for about 25% of the year “ for completion of CRL and additional line replacement and service improvement”. You can’t get bums on seats when you’ve no seats to put them on.