we need to look ahead for the next 30 years, and upgrade all the lines and extend the electric link

“KiwiRail is increasing revenues in its core operations and growing its share of the domestic freight market, and we expect that to continue. It was always clear that taking the business to financial self-sustainability was going to be a huge challenge.”
“The cost of rail to the taxpayer since being renationalised in 2008 is a whopping $12.2 billion dollars and it’s likely to need more.  $12.2 billion is equivalent to over $2,700 per taxpayer nearly enough buy every Kiwi a return flight to London. Per household, the amount is $6,900 enough to buy a good, reliable second hand car.”
“Taxpayers should not be burdened with bringing dead rats to life. Not only has KiwiRail been so heavily devalued, columbus travel utah it is being propped up with massive taxpayer funding in a futile attempt to make it economically sustainable” says Williams. “The Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee has acknowledged that financial self-sustainability was always going to be a huge challenge and questions have to be asked whether such a challenge is still worth pursuing.”
Alternate Thinking, Scrap the Cook Straight ferries as we know them, let private enterprise run fast ferries columbus travel utah (Mana to Picton or NELSON) and also establish bigger airports at Nelson and Blenheim, allow competition and encourage cheaper fares. The ferries can then sink or float on their own merits, not on continual taxpayer handouts.
Previous governments (before John Key), allowed columbus travel utah rail to deteriorate to the point of being a few rusty lines. It now needs to be brought back to the standard where we have an efficient tourist and freight service between main centres in the North and South Islands.
Why don t they just put a dust sheet over the carriages columbus travel utah for 10 years and people will forget about it. It is probably not worth selling so putting good money after bad seems contrary to the fine economic sense the National Party usually shows.
Perhaps Stuart Nash should join the Gisborne moaners. About all he is good for is running around in a fire engine, putting up no amalgamation signs, and supporting a clapped out railway. Another socialist loser.
Hmm. A few thoughts here. Government (politics aside) columbus travel utah should never have brought it back. Toll has basically set it up for sale for years. Infrastructure was on the brink of collapse, collective agreements had been signed with extremely liberal terms and assets of the company were all over the place. As a frequent user of both the trains and ships, kiwirail has come a bloody columbus travel utah long way. New trains, usually running on time. Better columbus travel utah service overall and actually have to say that I now happily pay for what I get.
The ships have suffered a lot due to underinvestment over the years,they columbus travel utah said the aratere was supposed to be the first step in looking to the future of the rail ferries. The ships still floats, will be back at some stage and the biggest bleater in that sector is Winston. We all know what that means! I ll keep using all their services because at least they now have direction. They have come a long way since the Canadians stripped it all and once the investment is complete i think it will be worth it. That s just from a frequent user of the trains and ferries, can t speak for the freight side but even that would pay its divide to I reckon if they stick to viable lines.
The real problems go back several decades when rail had complete monopoly for moving freight around NZ. Consequently neither rail or road was developed or even maintained properly. Now NZ is playing catch up with both rail and road and having to invest heavily in both. Call it the legacy of the Polish shipyard mentality up to the 60 s. Trying to flog off rail won t work even if the buyer is not smart enough to recognise a white elephant at purchase time they soon find out later (neither buyers were very smart when buying but wised up when selling) Self drive cars are probably not very good at moving coal, logs and bulk milk etc so there is little connection there. Never mind our rail problems -who wants to own up to the platform problem with new trains in France. columbus travel utah They won t fit!!
just about every country world wide is investing in rail as they have finally seen that this is the most cost effective way to ship goods 1 driver with 1000 tons behind him The road system is a joke, most trucks columbus travel utah are running 2 books, working columbus travel utah 14 hour days and they say they paying their way , if most trucking companies had to pay up all their road user charges and bring their trucks right up to WOF standard overnight they would shut down
in europe if it is going 200 k or more it has to go by rail and they are low flat wagons that the trucks drive on to and the driver gets into the sleeping car attached to end of train and away they go from holland to italy overnight and train pulls in to milan and the driver gets out of carriage and drives the truck to the local customer
The cook strait rail ferries have done well but now to small and need to be longer and then the tunnels columbus travel utah between picton and christchurch need to be lowered so the trucks can drive on to ferry off at picton on to low flat wagons and loco leaves 20 mins after ferry docks
10 days after Feb 22nd they had cleared the massive slip south of kaikoura columbus travel utah then 14 trains rolled into christchurch in the next 24 hours loaded columbus travel utah with food and urgently needed supplies you show me trucks that can shift that amount of freight in 24 hours
we need to look ahead for the next 30 years, columbus travel utah and upgrade all the lines and extend the electric link from wgtn to auckland as those green efficent locos draw when going up hill and charge back on down hill again very low cost operation that many other countries are using. and then electrify columbus travel utah the south island main line where the power is plenty and return the electric to the arthurs pass route to haul coal with heavy electric locos like russia, Germany and usa do
Scrap the railways as we know it, put in a super truck highway between Wellington and Whangarei Double lanes each way, staging points columbus travel utah every 100 km or so to switch columbus travel utah containers columbus travel utah and reload plus fuel, food and servicing. Trucks can travel at 120 kmh on most of the highway with 2 trailers and the right specification truck / trailers and 110 km with 3 trailers. You get the drift!! The funds expended on out ancient and outdated snail rAil system in the last 10 years could have paid for the Super Truck highway alreAdy. Then there is the savings on road maintenance where trucks over 10 ton are banned for journeys over 100 km. This would reduce accidents and efficiency would improve in NZ s transport industry.
columbus travel utah It was asset-fleeced by Fay, Richwhite and others. Maintenance was constantly deferred so they could take money out. When Toll brought it it wasnt long before they sold the network columbus travel utah back to the Govt (for $1 I think)
The maintenance put in has returned journey times to where they were in the late-80s. Hamilton-Tauranga was over 4 hours, now its down to 2 1/2. And thats with the nonsense of KR largely having to self-fund it, rather than the heavy subsidisation of the roads
Id much rather the freight volumes columbus travel utah going Auckland-Tauranga and Auckland-Christchurch, plus the bulk milk to Taranaki and coal from the West Coast to Lyttleton, went by rail and not clog up the roading system unnecessarily with trucks.
The $s earmarked for future rail investment would be better invested in Len Brown s train set (except for the airport link) as much as I hate to admit it. The key in Auckland is to get as many people off the roads as possible and in a few years with all the new links coming on stream we would have a city that it s possible to travel across.
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