Guest Blog: Jeremy Harris On Why We Need Electric Trains

Reader Jeremy Harris explains: Why rail?  What’s so great about electrification?

The case for rail is mainly around capacity. A lane of motorway in New Zealand can handle about 2,400 cars per hour, with the average car in New Zealand containing 1.4 people, this means about 3,360 people per hour can move through a lane of motorway. A heavy railway can move 25,000 – 40,000 people when good trains and infrastructure are in place. A railway occupies roughly the same amount of land as a lane of motorway.
This capacity advantage becomes very important when we look at the development of Auckland’s transport infrastructure. As we can see from the massive cost of the new Waterview Connection ($1.4 billion dollars) it becomes clear that we are running out of room for roads and we have two options; firstly we can build a city that sprawls from Hamilton to Whangarei filled with cars, motorways and strip malls or secondly we can build upwards with a rail based transport solution.

When we consider the looming potential problems of peak oil and carbon pricing and the negative health and environmental (amongst other) problems with sprawl and car dependence it becomes clear the latter option should be preferred.

So why is electrification the best option for Auckland’s rail system, what is its advantages?

In the first instance we need to look at state of Auckland’s rolling stock (trains). When Perth decided to electrify their rail system in the early 90s their decision was driven in part by the fact that their trains were so old that if they needed to be replaced they might as well upgrade them. Auckland brought these clapped out trains and many are still running on our system! Essentially we face the same choice Perth faced almost twenty years ago, our trains need to be replaced (many would argue they have needed to be a long time ago) and we had to decide between buying new diesel trains or upgrading our system and buying new electric trains.

Electric trains come into their own when utilised on heavily travelled tracks such as suburban commuter rail systems (Auckland is such a system), this is for many reasons; they are quieter than diesels, they emit no diesel fumes (which allow them to run in tunnels easier), if run on renewable power they are carbon neutral, they have lower running costs than diesels and due to the fewer number of running parts lower maintenance costs.

Hopefully this has answered a few questions.