When Greg Miller was the CEO of KiwiRail he was asked what it would cost to reopen the Napier to Gisborne line. Miller had a tendency to gold-plate these projects and put it at $200 million — with new 50kg rail and concrete sleepers, and built so the line could take the large main trunk line locomotives.
However, a more circumspect assessment with heavier but second-hand rail put the cost at about $130 million.
At the lower end of the line at Eskdale, KiwiRail can pay for this through insurance — however, the current Government needs to give them permission to do this.
The current budget to fix the road between Napier and Gisborne is between $1 billion and $1.8bn, but the Government currently has a fiscal hole of $24bn for all its road projects — which begs the question, how high on the priority list is the Napier to Gisborne road?
Therefore, perhaps local bodies could suggest to the Government that the cheaper rail option should proceed now as the road upgrades will likely happen a lot later.
