Where The Wire Things Are: Blogging From Wellington’s Electric Trains
Posted by Jon C in WellingtonNov 26th, 2009 | 12 responses
Hyped by the news that Auckland’s at last getting electric trains, I decided to pop down to where the wire things already are – Wellington – to see the state of their electric train service and get a taste of electric!
So here I am joining the busy rush hour on Wellington’s suburban trains to see how the capital’s service is going and talk to passengers.
Blogging from the main Welington station, sadly, the early signs are that the capital’s train system is broken. Already the last two services from / to Taita have been cancelled due to a “mechanical fault.”
The main platform looks grotty- note the holes and chewing gum
New trains are on the way and, as with Auckland, improvements are being made to lines, tunnels, overheard wire and stations, but passengers are deserting the service in droves.
They’re protesting with their feet.
The stations look busy enough and people as grumpy as you expect first thing in the morning trying to get to work.
But the facts are grim:
- In September patronage crashed over 8.5% compared to the previous month – around 3000 fewer tickets were sold at peak hour
- In October, at least one in ten trains ran late
- Kiwirail’s performance targets are for 95% of services to arrive and leave on time or no more than three minutes late. They didn’t achieve that in August, in September and in October.
Wellington railway station's ticket place
The regional council this week calculated that a year of dissatisfaction and problems on the line including breakdowns and cancellations – especially bad in the last few months- and the subsequent fall off in customers will mean that the region’s rail operations expenditure will be $2.5m over budget. That’s a tab ratepayers will have to cover in some way.
Wellington’s passenger train service, called TranzMetro is operated by KiwiRail , under contract to Greater Wellington Regional Council. Like Auckland, KiwiRail/ Ontrack maintains the 4000km of railway tracks, bridges and tunnels, and signals.
So it’s the council that has to cover any such loss.
The council bought 48 2-car train units for $235m, the first to arrive about June. About $300m has been spent of the $500m upgrading the system but most significant work won’t finish for probably another year.
Until then, the system is bleeding passengers with local media labelling it “third world” and at one stage during the winter breakdowns, telling people to give up and carpoool.
It seems they took the advice.
So I have my tickets and am sitting here on the train ready to spend the day exploring the lines and service.
I’ll blog later in the day with some comparisons with Auckland’s present pre-electric service.
The 1937 neo-Georgian station, former railway dept HQ, is historic but a shock after Britomart
12 Responses to “Where The Wire Things Are: Blogging From Wellington’s Electric Trains”
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I began this as a diary about catching an Auckland train & to create an online record of rail & motorway development. Now it's called AKT as it covers news & views from rail to motorways, the Auckland harbour crossing debate & cycle trails.
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Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
No, no, no, I cannot put up with that sort of spin – the significant investment is about to revolutionise rail passenger services in Wellington. The dawn of a new era, so to speak.
Most of the photos in your blog could, and should have positive captions – the lead photo shows a stack of overhead structures that have gone in over recent months. Key infrastructure in the shape of new turnouts and third main track formation has gone in, which can be viewed from exactly the same spot.
I’m very tempted to rewrite the article and put the positive side of recent improvements – hey, we’re leap years ahead of Auckland in terms of a “sustainable city”…
Go the train!
@muzza299
Gosh, only been in town a few hours and already the hostile natives are turning on me. LOL Hugh.
I think Wellingtonians will return when the upgrades are complete, they’ll have an excellent system (better once again than Auckland’s, even after our electrification) once again shame on the last Labour government, this should have happened early in their 9 years…
I would like to see the platforms at Wellington Central upgraded too…
Part of the problem I think is Wellingtonians are used to a good service and now the system is falling apart a bit they give up easily, Aucklanders expect our trains to break down..!
Dear Jon. Firstly congratulations on your page, is excellent, it offers a lot of information and great stories. However, as an ex Aucklander myself, I ahve to agree with Hugh’s comment. WLG train services are years ahead of AKL’s ones. I do appreciate some of our services are running not to standards, but in general I think we are getting there. Especially on the new Wairarapa Services, the ex BR Mark 2 carriages are very comfortable, well designed and clean. Keep the blog up, is a pleasure to read it. Diego.
Its a shame that lack of investment has brought the appearance of a once great system to its current state.
@Hugh McCracken – very good to hear that the upcoming investment is going to make such improvements. We’re interested to see how the overhead wiring looks – we don’t have any in Auckland.
@Jon C – Nice photo showing the queues on the motorway beside a train travelling un-impeded and electric-powered!
Diego, thanks for your comments. The Wairarapa service sounds wonderful – it is what we had hoped the Waikato service would have been like.
You are welcome Jon…yes I also think Hamilton to AKL and vv should have a system similar to our Wairarapa services. Cross your fingers ( I am) hoping to see it one day.
Just one small point.the 8.5% dcline is over Setmber last yearcompaed t Septembe this year, not Septmbr comared to August. And that deline needs to be considered against svera other factors. Firstly, bus patronage in Wellington area is also down aroun the same amount…as point nicely overlooke by the media. And, that puts it back a about the level of September 2007. Who can reall petrol prices in the closig half of last year. Petrol down, PT use down!
The on time stats also need to be kept in perspective. Yes they are poor, but there a bus replacements on all lines 5 nights a week, and at least one line each weekend. And ever weekday on the Kapiti line off peak while the McKays to Waikane project is happeing. And at least one weekend every month ALL lines both days. Its getting around to 8% of services every week are transhipping somewhere. So that is on time performance shot down to 92, before you even start.
Grant, good point. Thanks for the clarification.
For me I view it as the PT equavilent of road works, a roads capacity goes down and people will use other modes or roads while the works are on but after the road is fixed, greater traffic than before..!
Wellington’s train network is undergoing road works..!
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we might have 30 million passengers per year between the networks by 2015 – 2016…
Hope you have lots of fun in Welly Jon, don’t forget the SE set with the EO electric locos is a must.
Make the effort to see the good work of the Rimutaka Incline Railway (Maymorn way) and have a look at the excellent website which I believe was created by Hugh
http://www.rimutaka-incline-railway.org.nz/
Hi, Nigel from KiwiRail here.
Although there has been a fall off in Wellington passenger numbers, there are a number of reasons for this and the picture is not as ‘grim’ as described (the reports were very selective and not a true reflection of the whole picture).
We have seen a drop in passenger numbers and some of this is down to bus replacements and disruptions. It is not possible to run every scheduled service and still carry out the current upgrades, so there are frequent bus replacements during evenings and weekends.
Upgrades have also affected some of the services we do run, for example slowing down trains through work sites can cause a delay of a few minutes.
The September figure may have been chosen as it was high, other months have been much less (and in one month an increase).
Another explanation is that, just over a year ago, there was a big jump in the price of petrol. TranzMetro saw a jump in passenger numbers at that time. The numbers carried now are similar to those carried before the petrol price hike.
We know things need to improve, and we are working hard in Wellington to achieve that. It will inevitably take some time as the programme continues.