Ed Said - Railing against transport

 

Northland roads have been prominent in the news lately with multiple deaths due to logging truck accidents. Some have occurred on sub-standard roads through the Otaika Valley, the trucks carting from Mangakahia forest. While the road may be unsafe to some degree one must also take into account drivers seen on their cell phones, truck speeds and the possibility of meeting local residents the school bus on the road plus the morning and afternoon school bus trips.

While these accidents lend some weight to the re-vitalisation of rail, the reality is something else.Northern rail has long been a poor relation in our transport system but, in my opinion, not without good cause. While more money is poured into wider and safer main roads northwards from Puhoi and though increasing traffic numbers will probably negate much of the advantage, rail cannot provide a service nor draw custom sufficient to be viable.

Recently in Whangarei, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said roads rather than rail will continue to receive a lion's share of taxpayer funding because that is the preferred mode of transportation for freight, tourism and the passenger industries."The trouble with the rail network, particularly the link north of here is there's no customers. Nobody wants to use it, nobody wants to pay a commercial price and so not surprisingly KiwiRail doesn't want to invest in it."

On why there was no mention of rail in the Regional Action Plan, Mr Joyce said the plan was created by locals with input from the local government, iwi and the business sector and the general consensus was a focus on roads.

I tend to agree despite logging truck accidents. In that regard roading, especially through Otaika Valley, could be improved but to my mind if drivers kept a sedate 60-70 kph speed they would arrive at their destination safely, the trip to the port taking them probably an extra three or four minutes. As it is, on the open road one has to travel 120 or more to pass a logging truck. That can’t be blamed on the roads and invariably the accidents are due to driver error.

Why is rail not used more in NZ? In the 90s NZ rail was sold. It was in need of maintenance but when a later Government bought it back at double the cost it was still in need of maintenance- only moreso. This is still the case today and apart from its daily commuter traffic in Auckland and Wellington, rail is a slow and unreliable service- a good reason not to use or support it.When Dairy factories north of Puhoi and along SH 12 to Dargaville gradually fell by the wayside and coal went out of fashion, the service became uneconomic. Imagine the cost to resuscitate that line to Dargaville then back to Whangarei in the northern side of the Northern Wairoa river. Prohibitive- and for what?

If Whangarei is the main centre, trucks, vans and transporters are going to clog downtown Whangarei to take cargo to the railhead then later be there again to ferry arriving goods to their destinations. Not only costly extra transport but double handling which would then negate any benefit that additional jobs would serve. If Marsden Port became an outlet taking over from Auckland, carriers from as far south as Pukekohe and Waiuku would then have to cross Auckland adding more stress to the already clogged traffic system and lower north roads.

The other aspect about which protesters have been very vocal is Tourism but rail and tourism in the north is the stuff of dreams. Rail, as I have said, is slow, unclean, expensive and unreliable. What are tourists going to see from the train leaving Auckland?

Moreover, what WON’T they see? They won’t see, for example, the iconic Puhoi Pub or the Puhoi cheese factory, they won’t stop at the famed Kaiwaka cheese shop and they certainly won’t come anywhere near Mangawhai, nor the popular Marsden Point Refinery visitors centre. They won’t get to the world acclaimed Matakohe museum nor use the twin Coast highway…..need I go further? There won’t be a branch rail service to Marsden Point because that would interfere with layout plans for the new Airport – ooops----should I have said that?

We are not Europe and we don’t have Bullet Trains. Our rail system is in the dark ages by comparison.

Road is the mode.