Northport urged to develop wharf rail line to meet railway link

Constantinos P brought 1340 containers to Northport for transport to Auckland over summer. Photo / Northport

Northport is being urged to accelerate infrastructure funding and build a rail line down its wharves to allow ships' container cargo to be directly offloaded.

Northland businessman and former Far North mayor Wayne Brown - who led the group recommending shifting Auckland's port to Northland - said any improvements at Northport were good.

But while incremental changes were better than none, the announcement of funding to pay for the rail link to the port was a game-changing opportunity that needed to be grasped.

"They should be preparing so the rail goes straight down the edge of the wharf so they can do direct ship-to-rail container movements."

Brown's comments come as Northport announced it was spending $8 million for container-handling and training equipment. Chief executive Jon Moore would not be interviewed but said in a statement the spending was to manage the "here and now" and wasn't linked to expanding the port.

Brown said the rail link to the port - confirmed when Whangārei learned it had lost the four-lane highway expansion into the city - was going to outstrip that rate of growth.

"Once the trains go in they're going to have 300 per cent growth. They've got to start thinking about when the [rail] line goes out there - how do they get the rail down the edge of the wharf?"

Brown said the huge growth in northwest Auckland also offered a huge opportunity to Northland, with the greatest anticipated growth being in those suburbs close to the North Auckland line. He said Auckland would need to be "fed from both sides".

Northport currently needs to unload containers from ships and transport the containers to trucks, and from there to rail.

Containers on the way to Auckland from Whangarei by rail. Photo / Michael Cunningham

The funding for the rail extension was announced this month and comes out of the Government's New Zealand Upgrade Programme. It will connect Northport to the North Auckland line, which has been upgraded for modern containers and heavier loads.

KiwiRail has said it expected freight volumes to go from 18 million tonnes a year to 23 million tonnes by 2042.

A huge backlog at the Ports of Auckland over summer saw Northport fill the breach, with hundreds of truck journeys used to ferry containers from Marsden Point to Auckland. The port company expects container traffic to increase 15 per cent for the year to the end of this month.