A NZ Rail Renaissance?

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#1856768 1-Sep-2017 15:41

MikeAqua:

Linuxluver:

The regional rail plan is visionary. It should have been built 10 years ago. It's much more pleasant to ride on a train than drive.....especially if you have to do it a lot.

But even better.....rail is a lot cheaper and faster than roads....to build and maintain.

The thing I like about rail - CBD to CBD Transport. Brussels to Amsterdam was so fast and easy, reasonably priced and from memory less then 2 hours.

Compared to the hassle of airports ....

And getting to Bruges was easy too.

I'd have to admit I have never done a long distance train trip in NZ. Thinking about doing one in November. AKL - WLG

you have to really like to travel by train to go by rail. $120 by train AKL to WLG . $49 by air.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

wellygary

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#1856772 1-Sep-2017 15:44

MikeAqua:

The thing I like about rail - CBD to CBD Transport......

I'd have to admit I have never done a long distance train trip in NZ. Thinking about doing one in November. AKL - WLG

Get ready for a shock, The Northern Explorer's Auckland Terminus is the Strand, (so its not even possible to catch a local EMU, or bus to Britomart,)

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#1856830 1-Sep-2017 17:00

MikeAqua:

I'd have to admit I have never done a long distance train trip in NZ. Thinking about doing one in November. AKL - WLG

We recently rode the Northern Explorer Wellington-Auckland. Our in seat commentary was broken. The open air viewing platform was neat.
It was fun and quaint. But not fast or practical.

To commute longer distances regularly you need regular, fast, comfortable service.

You're not going to get that on NZ's winding, ancient narrow gauge track. It's almost good enough for decent freight services. A whole new high speed track needs to be laid for inter city services

old3eyes

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#1856904 1-Sep-2017 19:14

MikeAqua:
old3eyes:

From what I heard yesterday morning the trunking and used car importers were against the move and were really against any form of rail transport from the Northport.

I can understand that. Cars are close to a WCS for off and on loading. They have to be driven on. But ... there are trains that specialise in transporting cars in the world and those systems could be readily copied - for example the one under the English Channel.

I guess the issue is cars need to be distributed in their destination cities. Currently a car transport truck goes to multiple car dealers and they all unload there.

Perhaps they could just load car transport trailers onto wagons and hook onto a truck after uploading at the final destination and distribute that way.

The ironic thing is that Kiwi Rail Scrapped all it's double deck autoracks a couple of years ago and I suspect that they will not want to build more. Most likely will want the customer to supply their own rolling stock

Regards,

Old3eyes

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#1857142 2-Sep-2017 11:21

old3eyes:
The ironic thing is that Kiwi Rail Scrapped all it's double deck autoracks a couple of years ago and I suspect that they will not want to build more. Most likely will want the customer to supply their own rolling stock

Those old auto-racks were outdated and couldn't have been used on this run anyway. What'll be required – if rail can even be even used - is some type of 'lightweight' auto carrying flatcar to shuttle cars South 100 at a time.

I'm thinking Winston's announcement of this was cleverer than it looks at first glance. He seems to be able to sense which way the wind's blowing before it's even changed, and has virtually abandoned the National Party already.

It's looking like a Labour coalition's going to be in place after the election. If the Greens get the numbers their MOU settles who's the partner, otherwise it's him. If Labour cannibalizes the green vote, (to below 5% without an elected MP) they're gone.
What he needs is for them to leak (inner Auckland city) votes while he maintains his Northland MP status.

The problem is hard for him to deliver anything for urban Auckland and even harder to offer anything meaningful for Northland.

Labour's not yet rolled any porkbarrels in Northland's direction, even though Kelvin and Willow-Jean are Northlanders.
All the parties have made housing, health, education and employment noises but but nothing specific, and the issues up here are so intractable and chronic they can only apply band aids.
The National government's pork flavoured offers in the last few months include twinning the highway all the way down from Whangarei and bypassing the Brynderwyns (made my pulse race for a second when I thought it might actually happen).

The Port's a low hanging fruit that Winston laid a claim to in the 2015 by-election - he said he'd deliver on expanding Northport and having a port rail link constructed or we could vote him out in 2017.
It seemed outrageous then. Now he's doubling down on that. His - impossible to deliver - 'rock-solid' promise is mollified by his clever staging of the move in two parts.

Car imports by Ro-ro ships could be moved relatively easily. The main requirement is a flat area to park the cars that are unloaded by the thousands from each ship before being carted off to be entry processed and VINned.
The moving of the container part of Auckland Port – to anywhere, let alone Northland - would be a gigantic undertaking that's not going to happen. I can't see how both a multi-billion dollar Port build and a multi-billion dollar railway rebuild could possibly be financed.

The North Auckland track was started in the 1800's and built piecemeal, mostly by hand, with all the compromises on grades, curves and tunnels that entailed - and has remained that way since construction finished in the 1920's.
It takes a freight train over 6 hours to wobble it's way between Auckland - Whangarei.

For container freight I believe 6 tunnels need enlarging - including the Makarau tunnel which is too low to take standard High cubes, and the track can't handle the heavy axle loadings Port Tauranga – Hamilton- Auckland can.
A realignment of a lot of the route would be required. A whole new rail route to Northland would have to be considered.

But Labour does like trains, and car shipping's possible on the existing track
Like many of the pie in the sky promises and dream scenarios that pop up before elections, this is all going to end in compromise and salty tears.

Part of the Port of Auckland might move, and instead of backfilling the harbour for more car storage there'll likely be some type of public space on the waterfront.
A heavy freight 3rd rail track will be built through Auckland which will allow all those cars to be delivered to South Auckland for VIN'ing and sale.

And another election will be happening by the time any of this is completed.

Edit: spelt Brynderwyns correctly..

frankv

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#1857511 3-Sep-2017 10:35

I'm trying to see what significant benefit there is in moving the port from Auckland to Whangarei.

I can see the obvious benefit to Northland and Whangarei; jobs and the resulting economic stimulus. The benefit to Auckland is less clear to me; is it that CBD land will become available for other uses? That a large number of workers will move north, easing pressure on Auckland housing?

What's the benefit for the rest of us taxpayers who will be expected to pay for the railway and other construction? Will imported goods be a bit cheaper? Or will exporters save a bit on shipping? If so, how? Is Whangarei being a few hundred miles closer to China and North America and Europe really that important? Or, because land (and I assume rates) and wages are cheaper there, the Port company will be charging less?

Auckland (and the rest of us) would presumably get the same benefit from moving the port to Tauranga (where there's already a good railway) or New Plymouth (closer to Aussie and Europe, but no good rail to Auckland).

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#1857616 3-Sep-2017 14:19

frankv:
I'm trying to see what significant benefit there is in moving the port from Auckland to Whangarei.

I can see the obvious benefit to Northland and Whangarei; jobs and the resulting economic stimulus. The benefit to Auckland is less clear to me; is it that CBD land will become available for other uses? That a large number of workers will move north, easing pressure on Auckland housing?

There would be an obvious immediate and long term benefit to moving the port from Auckland to Whangarei. To be balanced against the huge immediate costs of such a move.
A nice side effect would be that CBD land will become available for other uses - allowing the waterfront revitalization Vancouver, Sydney, London, Baltimore, Shanghei and so many others have done.
Even assuming the whole port moved There wouldn't be a noticeable effect on housing or jobs overall in Auckland.

What's the benefit for the rest of us taxpayers who will be expected to pay for the railway and other construction? Will imported goods be a bit cheaper? Or will exporters save a bit on shipping? If so, how? Is Whangarei being a few hundred miles closer to China and North America and Europe really that important? Or, because land (and I assume rates) and wages are cheaper there, the Port company will be charging less?

Auckland (and the rest of us) would presumably get the same benefit from moving the port to Tauranga (where there's already a good railway) or New Plymouth (closer to Aussie and Europe, but no good rail to Auckland).

The benefit for taxpayers comes down to a confluence of factors.
Goods likely won't be cheaper or exporters save much on shipping.
Decreased distance from other countries will make very little difference.

Moving the port to Tauranga or New Plymouth's not possible physically or Politically.

New Zealand's an island, with the majority of our goods arriving and departing through our ports.

The efficiency, availability (port congestion) speed and costs of importing and export our goods is of huge importance for New Zealand - cargo pricing affects our global competitiveness and the cost of the goods we buy here.

These volumes are increasing-fast and all projections are for that increase to speed up. The majority of this increase in both imports and exports are through the upper North Island ports.
Not only containerised but (Roll on/off) car imports are increasing, along with our exports, both containerised and bulk (eg. raw logs).

Because containerisation dominates shipping worldwide the most important import metric for anything other than bulk cargo is TEU's (a TEU is equivalent to a standard 20' container).

In a worldwide trend, the size of cargo ships is increasing – mainly for reasons of economy and fuel efficiency.
Companies like Maersk are already running fleets of 18,000TEU ships that are the future standard. Importantly they produce 50 percent less CO2 per container moved than the ships now coming to NZ.

The biggest problem for Auckland's port is it's constrained for growth in three important directions, depth of channel, number of berths, and storage for both containers and cars.
The port can't physically expand to accept it's share of this increasing volume of freight without filling in more of the harbour. And can't take the new, more efficient ships.

Tauranga's the only New Zealand port to be “big ship capable”
It's (with new dredging completed) now able to take new, larger, more efficient 9500TEU (and up to 1100TEU) container ships.
They've widened and deepened the shipping channels from 12.9m to 14.5m inside the harbour and 15.8m outside the harbour to allow this.

Port of Auckland can take max. 5000 to 6000 TEU ships (up to 13.9m draft - but only at high tide) without further dredging.
Hundreds of millions of dollars will be required to match Tauranga's 'big ship' size if it's even finacially and environmentally possible (undewater blasting in the Rangitoto channel anyone?).

Port Tauranga's already New Zealand's busiest Port, with overall imports continuing to grow at roughly 10% a year. It has no room to accept Auckland's cargo.
Container growth (number of TEUs) is increasing by 15% yearly – to over a million TEUs this year through the one port.

Log exports are on a boom, they're a bulk cargo (like cars) requiring large areas portside for cargo storage.
Both Tauranga and Whangarei (among others) have facilities for bulk log loading, but while Tauranga's feeling the squeeze, Whangarei's got the only port with a large under-utilised area for easy future expansion, and an already deep, easily deepened channel.

Like Ro-ro car ships, the Handysize and Handymax bulk carriers logs are now shipped in don't require these deep channels. Marsden point's refinery is also serviced by (Aframax) ships of this size.

But there's already a case to deepen Whangarei's channel to allow more efficient Suezmax size oil tankers and in turn larger more efficient log carriers.

I reckon there's a case to do this, and move the Ro-ro auto imports up there as well as long as there's a viable way of moving the cars South.
I can't see the cost of moving the container port being justified, but something will need to be done long term.

Jase2985

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#1857677 3-Sep-2017 17:53

were is a port the size of auckland going to go at whangerai?

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#1857846 4-Sep-2017 08:14

Jase2985:

were is a port the size of auckland going to go at whangerai?

As a layman visiting the port it seemed to me there's space to expand both back towards the refinery and down harbour towards One Tree Point.
I don't think the area available's going to be the near-future constraint on expansion.

I can see moving car imports there but I don't think there's the political will or the money to move Auckland's container services to Whangarei.
That would include a gigantic rail build – as opposed to a big rail build/rebuild for cars.

It's likely it will all be put off until the need becomes overwhelming, constraining imports and exports enough that the costs stack up to build somewhere else.

Northport says it has consented plans which include increasing its three existing berths - at 570 meters - by another 270 meters for another full berth, and bumping it's its hardstand area to 50 hectares.
They've got a total of 1.4 kilometres of berthage planned, which will bring the Port 'footprint' up to 70 hectares. With only one mobile container crane it's certainly not configured as a container port now
There's 180 hectares of immediately-available ‘green field’ commercially-zoned land adjacent to the port boundary

In comparison Port Tauranga – NZ's largest port – has 2km of berth total with 90 hectares of land 'available' but built on - on the Mt Maunganui side.
There's their tanker berth, and on the Tauranga side at Sulphur point the container operation has 770m of wharf, (3 berths) with seven container cranes and around 40 hectares of paved container yard.
But they're constrained all around by the city and the extent of their deep channel and have pretty much reached maximum port there.

I have a vested interest - a container port in Northland and a decent heavy rail link to Auckland would suit me just fine.
My containers arrive in Tauranga, are offloaded quickly and seamlessly to rail, whisked to Auckland - then crawl their way up through Auckland and Northland on Swinglift trucks along what passes as State Highway 1 – burning diesel, holding up traffic and costing me time and money.

Jase2985

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#1858311 4-Sep-2017 16:59

@sidestep got any link to information on their expansion?

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#1858377 4-Sep-2017 19:18

Jase2985:

@sidestep got any link to information on their expansion?

http://northport.co.nz/node/8156

http://northport.co.nz/sites/default/files/NP040_0.pdf

http://marsdenmaritime.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMH-12-Page-Promo.pdf (see pg. 6 for diagram of the consented expansion)

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#1858400 4-Sep-2017 20:05

wellygary:

Get ready for a shock, The Northern Explorer's Auckland Terminus is the Strand, (so its not even possible to catch a local EMU, or bus to Britomart,)

You can still catch a local EMU or bus to Middlemore(?) and Papakura. Not ideal for people travelling from stations on the Western Line though I'll admit.

- James

Jase2985

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#1858431 4-Sep-2017 20:46

Sidestep:

Jase2985:

@sidestep got any link to information on their expansion?

http://northport.co.nz/node/8156

http://northport.co.nz/sites/default/files/NP040_0.pdf

http://marsdenmaritime.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMH-12-Page-Promo.pdf (see pg. 6 for diagram of the consented expansion)

Thanks for that

I can see the small extensions but where would the extensions go to enable 1.4km of berth space? im guessing between the fuel wharf and the current wharf?

Devonport naval base has just shy or 1200m of wharf space if you dont count the berth space outside the dry dock. 1400m odd if you count that. That will be increased in the new 2-5 year to take the new ships that are on their way.

POAL has about 3000m, not including any space for cruise ships, so queens wharf west, and not counting the 450m wharf at the silo wharf.

Linuxluver

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#1858498 4-Sep-2017 21:32

MikeAqua:

Linuxluver:

The regional rail plan is visionary. It should have been built 10 years ago. It's much more pleasant to ride on a train than drive.....especially if you have to do it a lot.

But even better.....rail is a lot cheaper and faster than roads....to build and maintain.

The thing I like about rail - CBD to CBD Transport. Brussels to Amsterdam was so fast and easy, reasonably priced and from memory less then 2 hours.

Compared to the hassle of airports ....

And getting to Bruges was easy too.

I'd have to admit I have never done a long distance train trip in NZ. Thinking about doing one in November. AKL - WLG

It's a nice day trip. Leaves around 08:30 and arrives around 20:30.

I did it twice back when they had sleeper cars. I had done sleepers on Canadian trains and really enjoyed them.

In Canada, then, the beds were parallel to the path of travel and you slept with your feet to the front of the train. The bed itself was really comfortable and I slept really well the 4 nights it took to get from Toronto to Vancouver.

The NZ trains, however, have a much narrower gauge and the cars are not as wide and spacious as the Canadian trains. We had cabins....and the beds on the NZ trains were across the path of travel.....and too short for tall me. It was basically a leather couch with a sheet on it. Not comfortable at all.

Not long after that they stopped the sleeper cars because demand was low. Demand is always going to be low for an inferior service. People won't pay for a sleeper you can't sleep in.

For 20 years they ran overnight trains, but the boozy sports culture meant there were frequent messes to clean up, security was required, and other passengers were disturbed and no one got any sleep anyway. So demand fell and the overnight service was canned completely.

The pattern has been consistent: do a thing badly because you won't fund doing it properly..... then cancel it.

But the daytime train is still there and popular with tourists....and much better than taking the bus. Note that in Auckland, it currently leaves from the Strand Station...well outside and away from Britomart.

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#1858500 4-Sep-2017 21:36

wellygary:

MikeAqua:

The thing I like about rail - CBD to CBD Transport......

I'd have to admit I have never done a long distance train trip in NZ. Thinking about doing one in November. AKL - WLG

Get ready for a shock, The Northern Explorer's Auckland Terminus is the Strand, (so its not even possible to catch a local EMU, or bus to Britomart,)

Uber.

At any time of day or night there are about half a dozen Uber drivers parked near the Z Station on Beach Rd. You'll have a ride in seconds.

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