Subscribe to RSSWellington’s State Of Play
With north Wellington’s Waikanae open at the weekend and Matangi trains running soon, Wellington’s long winters of discontent will be coming to an end with the massive upgrades coming into play.
KiwiRail has kindly provided this comprehensive network upgrade map of where everything is at:
Or if you want it bigger..
Besides the weekend’s opening of the Waikanae station and extension of an electrified service to Waikanae, the rail work has included double tracking of the line from McKays Crossing, north of Paekakariki, to Waikanae.
Fran Wilde, Chair of Greater Wellington, says the extension of the Wellington metro rail service to Waikanae is a huge improvement to public transport in Kapiti.
“This makes regular public transport accessible to a lot more people north of Paraparaumu, it’s a fantastic amenity for Waikanae residents who now have 20-minute peak hour services, half hourly non-peak week day services and a regular weekend service.”
Up until Sunday they had only the Monday to Friday Capital Connection service and no trains at the weekend.
9 Comments
The Dom Post, as usual, gave space for negative train stories such as http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4682206/Commuters-grumble-over-timetables, and it had it’s usual woe is us story about the Kapiti Expressway, http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/big-reads/4683765/A-road-runs-through-it, which has pictures of the lovely Steven Joyce portrayed as the Roadfather. And I know Steven gets trash-talked on AKT a bit by us commenters, but he has to be a better transport minister than Western Australia’s Troy Buswell who has racked up 9 speeding tickets in his 3 years as Transport Minister (source http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/21/3144671.htm). Buswell being the same Buswell of chair-sniffing fame. (see http://www.news.com.au/chair-sniffer-was-in-mock-sexual-ecstasy/story-e6frfkp9-1111116260465) At least Steven Joyce isn’t as bad as his fellow ideological traveller in Troy Buswell.
Can’t they convert to 25K AC & get rid of most of the substations? Wouldn’t that reduce maintenance costs??
No, they can’t, because they have just spent a few hundred million upgrading the existing supply. Ask again in 50 years, when the next upgrade will be due
And yet after all the upgrades the service does not improve…. http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=32077
Not to mention the new timetables starting today were not easily accessible from the website until late this morning and all the electronic signs at Wellington station still listed Kapiti services terminating and Paraparaumu. Oh were are the Matangis BTW??
No, They can’t because just under half of the eventual rolling stock will be existing 1500V DC units.
@Matt Agree. TV3 gave it publicity as did several newspapers but it was all concentrated on Joyce and 50 protestors holding a banner which mis spelt Joyce’s first name! No signs of a train station.
Waikanae is a very exciting development so that should be celebrated.
@Scott In Auckland we are used to teething problems the first day. I seem to recall Newmarket fell over when opened. It will come right.
Matangi are on their way, running offpeak on the Hutt line next month. They have to be bedded in too to make sure they work or you will be complaining they didnt do their homework.
We need to celebrate exciting improvements.
the problem was because one of the old Ganz trains brokedown. The Matangis have been delayed several months, they should have been in service by now.
pressure needs to go on Joyce to fund the upgrade on the Ganz units, even with the brand new Matangis these will still be used on peak trains.
for about $50 million the ganzs can be upgraded to an all but new standard, and that money will all be spent locally creating/saving a fair few jobs.
@Jon C Agree, but surly our acceptance of breakdowns and system short-falls (Why would you not/forget to update station PIDs??) is in part why we as customers are left with the system and services that we have now… PIDs and websites not updated with a whole new station and line-name is a great insight into Tranz Metro’s commitment to customer service and communication.
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