KiwiRail wants to boost branch line

KiwiRail is optimistic that a rail line it runs one train a week on can be improved at minimum cost to carry higher containers and attract new business.

The Napier-to-Gisborne line is a marginal branch line on which KiwiRail makes a loss.

Given its scenic location it is an obvious candidate for a cycleway to boost tourism at a time when the Government is investigating an idea of a national cycleway.

KiwiRail was pleasantly surprised when a Gisborne Herald online poll was 62 per cent in favour of keeping the line for freight and steam excursion trains, with 27 per cent in favour of operating a cycleway and excursion trains.

"We run one train a week because we don't want to not run a service, but we run one train a week and lose money," said KiwiRail's commercial general manager Aaron Temperton.

KiwiRail will soon run a trial on the line to identify how much work is needed to be able to put high-cube containers on the line. They are 2.9m high. Work on the network in the lower North Island in the last year or so has removed blockages to such containers.

The new business KiwiRail is eyeing includes the proposed Hikurangi Forest Farms veneer and plywood mill, which has resource consents, and could be operating by late 2011 as well as other forestry industry clients.

KiwiRail has also been talking to horticulture customers who want high cube containers.

"It appears from our simulations that it could be a quite straightforward and cost-effective option to lower the tracks a bit to allow us to accommodate high cubes," he said.

KiwiRail believed there were two pinch points in two tunnels and removing them would only cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

There are now no high-cube restrictions on rail in the central region of New Zealand. A high-cube capability on the Napier to Gisborne line would increase freight to ports for exports and also improve flows on to the national domestic rail network.

KiwiRail had made contact with 10 prospective clients, none of whom currently moved freight on the Napier-to-Gisborne line.

KiwiRail has previously made the point that rail upgrades are not all expensive.

The capacity of the Hamilton to Tauranga line, known as the East Coast Main Trunk, was doubled by spending $13 million on passing loops.

- NZPA