rail between Auckland, Bay of Plenty and the Waikato

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#1848374 18-Aug-2017 09:57

There's a 7am bus from Hamilton Central to Auckland Central for $17 arrives 9am. Hard to see any train beating the economy of that. Stops at Huntly, Pokeno and Manukau.

frankv

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#1848375 18-Aug-2017 09:57

surfisup1000:

Imagine being able to live in Tauranga, and work in the auckland CBD with a 35 minute train commute each way.

Ain't gonna happen... too many stops between Tauranga and Auckland.

Also, the practicality of inter-city rail depends on intra-city public transport. It's all very well going from Auckland to Hamilton in 20 minutes (which also ain't gonna happen for the above reason), but then you need to get from the railway station to your actual destination. Hamilton's university, hospital, CBD, industrial parks are quite spread out, let alone residential. If you need a car when you get to your destination, then you might as well drive all the way, rather than fluff around with parking at the railway station and railway timetables and transferring luggage and so on.

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#1848376 18-Aug-2017 10:01

kryptonjohn:

There's a 7am bus from Hamilton Central to Auckland Central for $17 arrives 9am. Hard to see any train beating the economy of that. Stops at Huntly, Pokeno and Manukau.

How many passengers on a bus compared to a train? also light freight and vehicles off the road?

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#1848381 18-Aug-2017 10:11

kryptonjohn:

There's a 7am bus from Hamilton Central to Auckland Central for $17 arrives 9am. Hard to see any train beating the economy of that. Stops at Huntly, Pokeno and Manukau.

I cam't see how it can do that in 2 hours and stopping at Manukau.

Regards,

Old3eyes

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#1848382 18-Aug-2017 10:11

About 45 or up to 90 on the double deckers. But it doesn't matter you can send 10 buses if need be, at 10 minute intervals even better. That's not going to dent the road traffic. You can figure on about 250 on a commuter train and that can't easily be increased with only one track in each direction and limitation on platform size. No room or logistical capacity for light freight on the passenger trains!

surfisup1000

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#1848385 18-Aug-2017 10:16

frankv:

surfisup1000:

Imagine being able to live in Tauranga, and work in the auckland CBD with a 35 minute train commute each way.

Ain't gonna happen... too many stops between Tauranga and Auckland.

Also, the practicality of inter-city rail depends on intra-city public transport. It's all very well going from Auckland to Hamilton in 20 minutes (which also ain't gonna happen for the above reason), but then you need to get from the railway station to your actual destination. Hamilton's university, hospital, CBD, industrial parks are quite spread out, let alone residential. If you need a car when you get to your destination, then you might as well drive all the way, rather than fluff around with parking at the railway station and railway timetables and transferring luggage and so on.

This is esentially a CBD-CBD service, no stops, or 1 at most.

Local connections would be changed to cater for changed needs.

I get it will not happen, but , would be nice.

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kryptonjohn

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#1848386 18-Aug-2017 10:16

old3eyes:

kryptonjohn:

There's a 7am bus from Hamilton Central to Auckland Central for $17 arrives 9am. Hard to see any train beating the economy of that. Stops at Huntly, Pokeno and Manukau.

I cam't see how it can do that in 2 hours and stopping at Manukau.

Helps that it can scoot along the bus lanes.

https://www.intercity.co.nz/travel-info/timetable/lookup/6202

Stops only for pre-booked passengers. Wifi included!

Rikkitic

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#1848387 18-Aug-2017 10:17

Build it and they will come? This kind of thing seems to work well enough in Europe. Kiwis really seem to like thinking of reasons why something won't work.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#1848388 18-Aug-2017 10:17

MikeB4: We need to see more info and studies before it gets written off. The idea may work, slow Aucklands hunger for expansion and get vehicles off the road. The trains could move light freight at the same time especially from Port Tauranga.

Isn't some freight already moved by rail from the Port of Tauranga?

It's always busy when I've been up there (usually summertime) and quite often you'll have to stop for trains when driving Totara St to get to the bridge from Mt Maunganui town\shops

EDIT: Added link to 2015 Tauranga rail movements news story

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=11452984

surfisup1000

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#1848389 18-Aug-2017 10:17

sbiddle:

surfisup1000:

Imagine being able to live in Tauranga, and work in the auckland CBD with a 35 minute train commute each way.

But that's simply never going to happen any time soon so not even worth dreaming about.

Always worth dreaming, don't give up hope big guy.

kiwicam

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#1848391 18-Aug-2017 10:25

kryptonjohn:

caminham:

Thanks to Auckland's housing market - people already do this. A lot from Hamilton, but I also know of a few going a few times a week from Tauranga. If you're up early enough its 90 minutes from Hamilton to Auckland by car - not too different from the commute from Howick some days.

Have they done their sums? An extra 45,000k per year (over a CBD commute from say, Manukau) on your car, even ignoring the loss of time, is more than $30,000 at standard accounting rates for overall cost of driving.

That's enough to pay the mortgage on the average Auckland house.

I'm not sure what average Auckland Mortgage you have in mind but a $800'000 mortgage (an average house in Auckland is over $1 million now and this assumes you can get a %20 deposit - well done!). Repayments on that are $4,437 per month, or $53'244 per year (https://www.bnz.co.nz/personal-banking/home-loans/calculators/home-loan-calculator).

A commute from Flat Bush for example ($1,040,300 median house price https://www.qv.co.nz/suburb/flat-bush-auckland/8694):

Parking $12 per day (if you're lucky)
50km of travel (based on 15l/100km and $2 per litre): $30 per day
Total cost: $42 per day or $10'920 per year

The average house price in Hamilton in Jan was $534,860. Using the same mortgage calculator as above and a 20% deposit repayments are $2,373 per month, or $28'476 per year.

So if commuting from Hamilton by train:

you save at least $3'120 per year on parking
you save $24'768 per year on your smaller mortgage
So if the train can be done for less than $107.26 return each day - you're winning based on mortgage, parking and travel costs.

Using the same fuel figures as above the 125km trip costs $75 per day plus $12 for parking so they're still better off financially by driving.

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MikeB4

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#1848393 18-Aug-2017 10:27

Rikkitic:

Build it and they will come? This kind of thing seems to work well enough in Europe. Kiwis really seem to like thinking of reasons why something won't work.

yep accentuate the positive. We need to think differently and long term

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Technofreak

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#1848394 18-Aug-2017 10:27

I wonder if the proponents of this scheme have sat down and looked at other parts of the world to see where a similar thing has been done over similar distances and topography and then compared the population base and the financials of that system?

Generally our population base is too sparse for this sort of thing.

We couldn't successfully run one passenger train each way between Hamilton and Auckland each day, what makes them think one every 15 minutes is ever going to be a success.

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kingdragonfly

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#1848395 18-Aug-2017 10:28

Note: the following post is all tongue-in-cheek.

Perhaps Elon Musk will buy a "bolthole" in New Zealand, with a quick and easy New Zealand citizenship thrown in for a reasonable price.

If you're thinking high-speed rail, why not go to the whole enchilada with a 1200 KPH hyper loop?

It would certainly get New Zealand on the map.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-14/why-musk-s-superfast-hyperloop-may-arrive-slowly-quicktake-q-a

WyleECoyoteNZ

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#1848401 18-Aug-2017 10:37

I suspect there's a snowballs chance in hell of this ever happening. 2 reasons.

1) The rail gauge of the current line isn't wide enough to support Japanese style 'bullet' trains. Bullet trains use a wide (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) gauge, whereas NZ rail is 3ft 6in. In Japan they have both, but they move freight only and some passenger on the narrow gauge. This was also raised on Radio Live talkback this morning as well.

2) To run high speed rail from Tauranga to Auckland and not impact existing freight movements, you need another tunnel through the kaimai's. The existing tunnel is 8850 metres. And if the Auckland waterview tunnel was $1.8Bn for a third of the length required to go through the Kaimai range...it doesn't sound like a good investment

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