HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

KiwiRail Holdings Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise responsible for rail operations in New Zealand, and operates inter-island ferries. Trading as KiwiRail and headquartered in
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail transport operator in New Zealand. KiwiRail has business units of KiwiRail Freight, Great Journeys New Zealand and
Interislander Interislander is a road and rail ferry service across New Zealand's Cook Strait, between Wellington in the North Island and Picton in the South Island. It is owned and operated by state-owned rail operator KiwiRail. Three roll-on roll-off (R ...
. KiwiRail released a 10-Year Turn-around Plan in 2010 and has received significant government investment in support of this in an effort to make KiwiRail a viable long-term transport operator.


History


Background

Prior to the establishment of KiwiRail, rail transport in New Zealand has been under both
public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...
and private ownership. Government operators included the
Public Works Department This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure. See also * Public works * Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...
(1873–1880),
New Zealand Railways Department The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway ...
(1880–1982), and the
New Zealand Railways Corporation New Zealand Railways Corporation (NZRC) is the state-owned enterprise that owns the land beneath KiwiRail's railway network on behalf of the Crown. The Corporation has existed under a number of guises since 1982, when the old New Zealand Railway ...
(1982–1990). New Zealand Rail Limited was split off from the Railways Corporation (which continued to own the land beneath the rail network) in 1990, privatised in 1993 and then renamed in 1995 to
Tranz Rail Tranz Rail, formally Tranz Rail Holdings Limited (New Zealand Rail Limited until 1995), was the main rail operator in New Zealand from 1991 until it was purchased by Toll Holdings in 2003. History The New Zealand railway network was initially ...
. In 2004 Tranz Rail's rail, ferry and trucking operations were acquired by Toll Holdings and renamed
Toll NZ Toll Domestic Forwarding (TDF) is a division of the Toll Group specialising in freight forwarding by road, rail and sea within and between Australia and New Zealand. Toll is Australia’s largest mover of freight. Toll New Zealand is New ...
, with the central government buying back the rail network outside of Auckland for $1 (the Auckland metro rail network had already been purchased by the government in 2001). The rail network then came under the New Zealand Railways Corporation (trading as ONTRACK). As part of this acquisition, Toll agreed to pay ONTRACK "Track Access Charges" (TACs) in exchange for exclusive network access for 66 years, subject to a "use it or lose it clause": if freight and passenger volumes fell below their 2002-2004 average for three or more years, Toll would lose its exclusive access. The agreement set a base track access fee but left future track access fees open to negotiation between ONTRACK and Toll. After several years of negotiations, the two parties could not come to an agreement on the amount that Toll should pay.


Establishment of KiwiRail

On 1 July 2008, the government announced the purchase for $690 million of Toll Rail, the rail and ferry assets of Toll NZ, but not its trucking operation, which continued under the Toll brand. The new company was named KiwiRail and launched on 1 October 2008 at a ceremony at Wellington railway station. The New Zealand Railways Corporation then owned both KiwiRail and ONTRACK, with both companies merging to create one company that controls both rail and ferry operations and rail infrastructure. Jim Bolger became the first chair of the KiwiRail board, a position he held until 1 July 2010. A number of commentators, including
Winston Peters Winston Raymond Peters (born 11 April 1945) is a New Zealand politician serving as the leader of New Zealand First since its foundation in 1993. Peters served as the 13th deputy prime minister of New Zealand from 1996 to 1998 and 2017 to 2020, ...
, view this as ironic. In response, Bolger acknowledged his involvement in privatising New Zealand Rail, remarking that "my life is full of ironies," and added that "the world has changed."


Splitting of land and operations

In 2011, KiwiRail proposed splitting its land and rail corridor assets from its rail operation assets. On 27 June 2012 it was announced by the company that the value of the land and rail operations would be written down from NZ$7.8 billion to $1.3 billion, and KiwiRail would continue as the rail and ferry operator, while the New Zealand Railways Corporation would manage KiwiRail's land. The de-merger took effect on 31 December 2012.


10-year Turnaround plan

In 2010 KiwiRail released a 10-year turnaround plan and significant government investment in support of this in the years following. In support of the turn-around plan, from July 2008 to December 2016 KiwiRail received over $2.1 billion of Crown investment, which was mostly spent on infrastructure and new rolling stock. The focus of the Plan is to increase rail traffic volumes, revenue and productivity, modernise assets and separate out the commercial elements of the business from the non-commercial. The plan included the following points: * "Step change" on the Auckland – Wellington – Christchurch trunk route: ** Reduce transit time and improve reliability along the route by easing curves, removing speed restrictions, greater investment in renewal of bridges and sleepers and passing loops. An express freight train journey between Auckland and Wellington took thirteen and a half hours. KiwiRail aimed to reduce transit times to 11 hours. ** Improve exit and entry from Auckland and Wellington with improvements at terminals and on main lines to reduce transit times and conflicts with commuter services ** Increase ferry rail-freight capacity by extending the length of the '' Aratere'' (achieved 2011) and make the '' Kaitaki'' rail-capable (idea since abandoned) * Improve reliability, capacity and enabling investment: ** Increased renewals on "other key routes", including investment in sleeper replacement, bridge strengthening and track formation refurbishment. ** Improved IT systems and processes, equipment and facilities at terminals ** New locomotives (see DL class) (48 in service by 2017) and 3,000 new wagons (over 1,000 in service by 2017). * Review of minor lines (close or mothball if no anchor customers emerge): **
North Auckland Line The North Auckland Line (designation NAL) is a major section of New Zealand's national rail network, and is made up of the following parts: the portion of track that runs northward from Westfield Junction to Newmarket Station; from there, we ...
(partial mothball 2016) **
Stratford–Okahukura Line The Stratford–Okahukura Line (SOL) is a secondary railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, between the Marton - New Plymouth Line (MNPL) and the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) Railway, with 15 intermediate stations. It is long thr ...
(mothballed 2009) ** Napier – Gisborne Line (partial mothballed 2012) ** North Wairarapa line. * Clarify and assign costs associated with Auckland and Wellington metro services (resulting in Tranz Metro assets being transferred to the Greater Wellington Regional Council and contracts for running services being made "contestable", as in Auckland. Two of KiwiRail's major customers,
Mainfreight Mainfreight Limited is a New Zealand logistics and transport company headquartered in Auckland. Mainfreight commenced operations in Auckland in 1978 and is one of the largest freight companies in New Zealand. It has been listed on the New Zealan ...
and Fonterra, invested heavily in rail-related infrastructure in line with the Turnaround Plan. Mainfreight has allocated $60 million for investment in new railhead depots, while Fonterra has invested $130 million in a new rail hub complex in Hamilton and another in
Mosgiel Mosgiel (Māori: ''Te Konika o te Matamata'') is an urban satellite of Dunedin in Otago, New Zealand, fifteen kilometres west of the city's centre. Since the re-organisation of New Zealand local government in 1989 it has been inside the Dunedin ...
. The plan has had mixed success, with company Chairman John Spencer stating in 2013 that for its first three years, rail freight revenue had increased by over 25%. Similar progress in attaining new customers and increasing freight volumes has been made over the life of the Plan to date (other than with coal). Steady and at times rapid progress has been made on the enabling parts of the Turnaround Plan, such as new locomotives and wagons, lengthening of the rail ferry and track destressing, but not always effectively. The 10 Year Turnaround Plan was quickly undermined by a series of adverse events, including: * Earthquakes:
2010 Canterbury earthquake The 2010 Canterbury earthquake (also known as the Darfield earthquake) struck the South Island of New Zealand with a moment magnitude of 7.1 at on , and had a maximum perceived intensity of X (''Extreme'') on the Mercalli intensity scale. Som ...
,
2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. local time (23:51 UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the entire of the Canterbury region in the South Island, centred south-east ...
, and the
2016 Kaikoura earthquake Sixteen or 16 may refer to: *16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17 *one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016 Films * ''Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film * ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film d ...
, resulting in significant infrastructure damage and closure of the Christchurch to Picton line from November 2016 to 15 September 2017 * Lengthy severing of the rail ferry link between the North and South Islands when the ''Aratere'' lost a propeller in 2013 * Significant and lengthy problems with the new DL class locomotives * Pike River Mine disaster, leading to the mine's closure and the loss of revenue that had been anticipated from coal freight * International coal price collapse * Solid Energy, the largest NZ coal mining company, entering voluntary administration in 2015. This was the culmination of a downturn that had begun to appear in 2012–13: significantly less coal being moved from West Coast mines * Major rebuilding after fire damage and seven week closure of key freight route Midland line in 2017


2017 update of the Turnaround Plan

Partially as a response to the events outlined above, in the 2017 budget the government announced a further $450 million in capital funding for KiwiRail, and that the company's operations would be placed under another major review, believed to relate to future funding models. The $450 million was earmarked for repairs following the
2016 Kaikoura earthquake Sixteen or 16 may refer to: *16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17 *one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016 Films * ''Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film * ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film d ...
and for further locomotive and rolling stock purchases. As part of the Turnaround Plan's agenda to standardise locomotives and wagons, in 2016 KiwiRail announced it would effectively switch off the NIMT electrification in late 2017 and replace the electric locomotives with an additional eight DL locomotives (additional to the 15 as reported in the 2016 Annual Report). On 30 October 2018 that capital funding was made available to by the new Labour-led Coalition government to refurbish 15 of the surviving 20 EF locomotives at the Hutt Workshops extending the service life by 10 years for their continued use, in line with the Governments energy and emissions policies, and while the government is also actively considering extending the North Island electrification for the first time since the 1980s. KiwiRail has made use of the Government's
Provincial Growth Fund Shane Geoffrey Jones (born 3 September 1959) is a New Zealand politician. He served as a New Zealand First list MP from 2017 to 2020 and was previously a Labour list MP from 2005 to 2014. Jones was a cabinet minister in the Fifth Labour Gove ...
(PGF). In 2019 KiwiRail signed an agreement with the
New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, or the New Zealand Transport Agency, (always abbreviated as NZTA), superseded by is a New Zealand Crown entity tasked with promoting safe and functional transport by land, including the responsibility for driver and vehicle licens ...
, Palmerston North City Council to construct a road, rail and air distribution centre in Palmerston North, following a $40 million allocation to KiwiRail from the PGF.


New Zealand Rail Plan

In 2019, the government began a "Future of Rail" review, and in December 2019 released a draft New Zealand Rail Plan, outlining changes it proposed making to the rail transport industry and KiwiRail specifically. The draft plan proposes a number of major changes, the most significant being future funding of the rail network through the National Land Transport Fund. A number of other projects are proposed under the draft plan. They include a new train control centre in Auckland, replacing two Interislander ferries and rolling stock. On 17 March 2020 KiwiRail released a tender for the supply of new mainline locomotives. 2021 New Zealand budget allocated NZD$722.7 million to purchase new mainline locomotives, shunt locomotives and wagons. In October 2021, Stadler Rail announced it had won the contract to supply 57 new locomotives for KiwiRail. Stadler Rail stated the contract was worth 228 million Euros, or NZD$403 million. The 2022 budget allocated $661.5 million to KiwiRail; $312.3 million for improving the national rail network and $349.2 million for completing the replacement "ageing" locomotives and freight wagons, including up to 29 new light-duty locomotives. The total government investment increases to $8.6 billion.


KiwiRail business units


Freight

KiwiRail Freight is the company's largest business unit, making up the majority of KiwiRail's revenue with $390 million in the financial year ended July 2016. In the same year, KiwiRail moved around 18 million tonnes of freight and carried about 16% of New Zealand's total freight task (tonnes-km). Freight types: Bulk commodities include coal, logs, milk ( dry and wet), IMEX (import/export intermodal) and domestic
intermodal freight Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation (e.g., rail, ship, aircraft, and truck), without any handling of the freight itself when changing ...
. Formerly large scale freight types such as petroleum products have entirely been withdrawn, and fertilizer has almost disappeared. The freight trading revenue by sector, as per the December 2016 Half Year Report is: * Domestic 27% * Bulk 19% * Forestry 15% * Import/Export 39% Rail freight depots: KiwiRail has a total of 17 rail freight depots. In the North Island, these are
Whangārei Whangārei () is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the regional capital of Northland Region. It is part of the Whangārei District, a local body created in 1989 from the former Whangārei City, Whangārei County and Hikurangi Town coun ...
, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Napier, Whanganui,
Palmerston North Palmerston North (; mi, Te Papa-i-Oea, known colloquially as Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatu Plains, the city is near the north bank of the ...
, Masterton and
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
. In the South Island they are Blenheim, Christchurch, Ashburton, Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin, and Invercargill. Inland Ports: KiwiRail serves a number of Inland Port yards, although does not own the tracks. These include Conlinxx (Wiri), Midland Port (Rolleston), Longburn International Freight Hub (Longburn, Palmerston North), Manawatu Inland Port (Palmerston North), MetroPort (Southdown in Auckland and Rolleston in Christchurch) and will include Ruakura (Hamilton) when it opens in 2019, and Ports of Auckland's site at Horotiu in Hamilton. Sea Ports: KiwiRail has major freight yards and sidings at Lyttelton port Company ( containers, logs,
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
), Port Chalmers (containers), Southport (Bluff), Timaru, Port of Tauranga (Mt Maunganui and Sulphur Point), Ports of Auckland, Centreport (Wellington), Port of Napier and New Plymouth. KiwiRail also has a joint venture with the Northland Regional Council to build a branch line (the Marsden Point Branch) to connect to Northport at Marsden Point. Anchor freight customers: Key anchor customers include Fonterra, Westland Dairy Products (Rolleston and Hokitika), Bathurst resources and the various freight forwarders including Mainfreight and port companies including Port of Tauranga. Freight wagons: KiwiRail operates 4,855 wagons. An additional 120 wagons were acquired in the year ending 2016, with over 1,000 new wagons added since 2008. One of KiwiRail's stated aims is to progressively move towards standardized wagons, with the container flat-top being overwhelmingly the dominant type (carrying curtain sided swap bodies, liquid containers, Log cradles and so on to meet almost all freight tasks). The Norwegian coupling is progressively being replaced with semi-automatic
Janney coupler Janney couplers are a semi-automatic form of railway coupling that allow rail cars and locomotives to be securely linked together without rail workers having to get between the vehicles. They are also known as American, AAR, APT, ARA, MCB, knuckl ...
on all wagons. Key freight routes: * Auckland – Christchurch: domestic general freight, mostly via 10 ft, 20 ft and 40 ft containers and curtain-siders or box wagons. * Auckland – Tauranga: Containerized and bulk export products * Kinleith/Murapara – Mount Maunganui: wood products only * Midland Line: Bulk export coal from north of Westport and Reefton, coal containers for Fonterra, dry and wet
milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...
between Westland Dairy plants at Hokitika and Rolleston, export dry milk from Fonterra at Darfield. * Edendale – Taieri – Port Chalmers: export
milk powder Powdered milk, also called milk powder, dried milk, or dry milk, is a manufactured dairy product made by evaporating milk to dryness. One purpose of drying milk is to preserve it; milk powder has a far longer shelf life than liquid milk and do ...
in containers. * Wairio – Invercargill: solely
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
in containers for Fonterra use. * Invercargill – Bluff: run as a 'shunt', sole freight is exports to Southport.


Interislander

Re-branded along with KiwiRail Scenic Journeys as the single brand The Great Journeys of New Zealand in 2017, The Interislander is the company's second largest business unit. It operates ferry services across
Cook Strait Cook Strait ( mi, Te Moana-o-Raukawa) separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The strait connects the Tasman Sea on the northwest with the South Pacific Ocean on the southeast. It is wide at its narrowest point,McLintock, A ...
between Wellington in the North Island and Picton in the South Island. In the financial year 2012, $123.9M of KiwiRail's revenue came from the Interislander, with the majority of the Interislander's revenue coming from rail and road freight transport.


Property and Corporate

KiwiRail is a major land owner in New Zealand, and manages over 18 thousand hectares of land, has in excess of 1,500 property assets with a combined value of over $965 million (Annual Report 2016). Increasingly, KiwiRail is pursuing a commercial approach to asset management, and in the 2016 financial year received over $18 million from property sales.


Great Journeys New Zealand

Re-branded along with
Interislander Interislander is a road and rail ferry service across New Zealand's Cook Strait, between Wellington in the North Island and Picton in the South Island. It is owned and operated by state-owned rail operator KiwiRail. Three roll-on roll-off (R ...
as the single brand The Great Journeys of New Zealand in 2017, it is the long-distance passenger transport subsidiary of KiwiRail, operating the ''
Northern Explorer The ''Northern Explorer'' is a long-distance passenger train operated by The Great Journeys of New Zealand division of KiwiRail between Auckland and Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand, along the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT). Thre ...
'',''
TranzAlpine The TranzAlpine is a passenger train operated by The Great Journeys of New Zealand in the South Island of New Zealand over the Midland Line; often regarded to be one of the world's great train journeys for the scenery through which it passes ...
'' and ''
Coastal Pacific The ''Coastal Pacific'' is a long-distance passenger train that runs between Picton and Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand. It is operated by The Great Journeys of New Zealand division of KiwiRail. It was called the ''TranzCoa ...
''. The passenger trains are predominantly patronised by tourists to NZ, with the exception of the Capital Connection, which is a commuter train. In 2012, KiwiRail attempted to sell
Tranz Scenic Great Journeys New Zealand is the tourism division of KiwiRail that operate its three Scenic train services ( TranzAlpine, Northern Explorer and Coastal Pacific). The new division was launched in May 2017 and replaced the former tourism bran ...
, but was unsuccessful, and KiwiRail continues to run these services. The division is now experiencing rapid double-digit annual growth, due to the growth of Chinese tourism to New Zealand, so much so that KiwiRail in 2017 may purchase an additional eight carriages to the 17 AK carriages purchased in 2012. In 2021, following a decline in tourism during the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, KiwiRail announced the suspension of the Coastal Pacific and Northern Explorer as part of Project Restart '22. While it is currently, as of January 2022, unclear what direction KiwiRail intends to take, Project Restart suggests a shift to multi-day land-cruises, a form of Experiential tourism. This decision, or potential decision, has been seen by many New Zealand-based transport advocacy groups as an abandonment of interregional rail by KiwiRail. Campaign for Better Transport described it as the "latest stage in the decline of what was once an extensive passenger rail service which serviced most of New Zealand". An announcement is expected by July 2022.


Tranz Metro

Until 2016, KiwiRail division Tranz Metro had the contract to operate the Wellington services but lost a bid to renew this contract in 2015. KiwiRail is sub-contracted by Transdev Wellington to provide and operate the diesel locomotives required to haul the
Wairarapa Connection The Wairarapa Connection is a New Zealand interurban commuter rail service along the Wairarapa Line between Masterton, the largest town in the Wairarapa, and Wellington. It is operated by Wellington suburban operator Transdev (with KiwiRai ...
service. Suburban rail passenger operations in Auckland and Wellington are contracted by their respective local governments and not operated by KiwiRail. In Auckland rolling stock is owned by
Auckland Transport Auckland Transport (AT) is the council-controlled organisation (CCO) of Auckland Council responsible for transport projects and services. It was established by section 38 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, and operates under ...
which has contracted operation to
Auckland One Rail Auckland One Rail is a train operator that commenced operating services under contract to Auckland Transport in January 2022. It is a 50/50 joint venture owned by Singapore-based ComfortDelGro and Australian-based UGL Rail. The operation is th ...
, while in Wellington rolling stock is owned by Greater Wellington Regional Council which has contracted operation to Transdev Wellington.


Infrastructure and Asset Management

The KiwiRail Infrastructure and Engineering division, formerly known as ONTRACK, has three main areas of operation: * Development, maintenance and operation of all of New Zealand's main-line rail infrastructure (see
List of New Zealand railway lines The railway network in New Zealand consists of four main lines, six secondary lines and numerous short branch lines in almost every region. It links all major urban centres except Nelson, Taupo, Queenstown, Whakatane and (since 2012) Gisbo ...
). * Provides rail operators with access to the rail network in return for the payment of track access charges. * Rail network controller, providing services such as train control and signalling. The network it is responsible for consists of: * Route length: * Tunnels: 149 * Bridges: 1,700 *
Electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...
: 95 km at 1.5 kV DC (Wellington area), 411 km at 25 kV 50 Hz AC ( NIMT central section)


Engineering

The Engineering division provides mechanical assistance to the Freight and Passenger businesses, as well as to Auckland Transport. Engineering maintains, refurbishes and occasionally builds rolling stock for the network. In 2012, KiwiRail announced it was putting its
Hillside Engineering Hillside Engineering Group is a trading division of the rail operator KiwiRail in Dunedin, New Zealand. Most of its work is related to KiwiRail, but it also does work for the marine industry in Dunedin. On 19 April 2012 KiwiRail announced it was ...
division on the market. and subsequently sold part of the division and transferred remaining work to Hutt workshops. KiwiRail now operates the
Hutt Workshops The Hutt Railway Workshops is a major railway engineering facility in the Lower Hutt suburb of Gracefield in the Wellington region of New Zealand's North Island. It is state-owned enterprise KiwiRail's only workshops, and was opened in 1930. ...
in the
Hutt Valley The Hutt Valley (or 'The Hutt') is the large area of fairly flat land in the Hutt River valley in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Like the river that flows through it, it takes its name from Sir William Hutt, a director of the New Zeala ...
of
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
, along with a number of small wagon maintenance depots, for example, at Addington (Christchurch) and Frankton.


Stabling yards

Most rail operations are a 'there and back' service with motive power being held in a few key strategic locations. Motive power stabling yards are as follows: * Westfield (Auckland) * Frankton (Hamilton) * Palmerston North * Thorndon (Wellington) * Middleton (Christchurch) * Dunedin


Yards and facilities

Some of the more prominent rail facilities used by KiwiRail include: * Westfield, Auckland (adjacent to the closed Westfield station and near
Westfield Junction Westfield Junction is a railway switching junction on the Auckland railway network in New Zealand. It is north of Otahuhu station and is surrounded by the industrial area of Westfield. Westfield Junction defines the southernmost extremity ...
) * Southdown, Auckland * Te Rapa, Fonterra bulk store yard, Hamilton * Mount Maunganui *
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
* Picton, Marlborough (solely used for marshaling wagons for rail ferry) * Spring Creek (serves as rail head for Nelson) * Middleton,
Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...
(largest yard in South Island) * Dunedin * Taieri, Fonterra bulk store facility,
Mosgiel Mosgiel (Māori: ''Te Konika o te Matamata'') is an urban satellite of Dunedin in Otago, New Zealand, fifteen kilometres west of the city's centre. Since the re-organisation of New Zealand local government in 1989 it has been inside the Dunedin ...


Current rolling stock fleet


=Locomotives

= The table below lists only the current locomotives in service with KiwiRail.


= Carriages

= The majority of passenger carriages in New Zealand are now owned by
Auckland Transport Auckland Transport (AT) is the council-controlled organisation (CCO) of Auckland Council responsible for transport projects and services. It was established by section 38 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, and operates under ...
, Greater Wellington Regional Council and
Dunedin Railways Dunedin Railways (formerly the Taieri Gorge Railway) is the trading name of Dunedin Railways Limited, an operator of a railway line and tourist trains based at Dunedin Railway Station in the South Island of New Zealand. The company is a counci ...
. KiwiRail operates a small fleet of New Zealand built AK class carriages for long-distance passenger trains and heavily rebuilt former British Mark 2 carriages in several configurations, the S class carriages for the Palmerston North-Wellington Capital Connection and the SR class carriages, which KiwiRail owns and leases for the
Te Huia Te Huia is a passenger train service between Hamilton, Papakura, and Auckland (Strand) in New Zealand. The service is a five-year trial with subsidies from the NZ Transport Agency and Waikato local authorities. The opening was delayed because of ...
Hamilton to Auckland regional service. Twelve carriages are also being overhauled to replace the current S class carriages and will be deployed in two sets of six.


Corporate governance


See also

*
Rail transport in New Zealand Rail transport in New Zealand is an integral part of New Zealand's transport network, with a nationwide network of of track linking most major cities in the North and South Islands, connected by inter-island rail and road ferries. Rail trans ...


References


Citations


Bibliography

*


External links


KiwiRail

KiwiRail Freight
{{authority control Companies based in Wellington Government-owned companies of New Zealand Railway companies of New Zealand New Zealand brands New Zealand companies established in 2008 Transport companies established in 2008 2008 establishments in New Zealand