Auckland Floods, Cyclone Gabrielle: City Rail Link’s lucky escape, opening date, payout still uncertain

A flooded City Rail Link Tunnel. Photo / City Rail Link

Auckland’s City Rail Link would have been delayed by a year and faced major and costly devastation had the Auckland floods occurred just one year earlier, when the tunnels were still being bored.

The extreme weather over anniversary weekend flooded tunnels, but CRL limited was able to pump them within 36 hours.

CRL chief executive Sean Sweeney told Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee that the organisation’ massive tunnel boring machine, Dame Whina Cooper, would have been destroyed and “out for a year” had the floods occurred one year earlier.

It would have needed to be dismantled and removed from the tunnel at great cost. Electrics would also have been taken out.

As it happened, damage from the floods was minimal and Sweeney said the insurance claim for flood damage is about “a tenth of what we feared on the night”.

When Cyclone Gabrielle blew through a few weeks later, CRL decided to dam tunnels and strategically deploy pumps, allowing it to suffer no significant damage on the night.

CRL is currently negotiating a cost overrun, which will need to be funded by the Government and Auckland Council who each have a 50-50 share in the project, which is currently costed at $4.4 billion.

Outgoing Chair Sir Brian Roche said the partners “have not been given a funding request from us”.

“They are fully abreast of where we think the negotiations will end”.

Roche said the precise figure “had not been shared with sponsors” because “the number has been bouncing around”.

“We are still in negotiation with Vinci [a contractor] and others,” he said, referring to the cost overrun.

He said the cost would become clear in the next 10 to 12 weeks.

CRL is tasked with building the tunnels and stations, before handing it over to AT and KiwiRail, who will actually run it.

Sweeney urged caution, saying the day of handover was not the same as the day the CRL opened to the public.

CRL had been visited by the chief executive of London’s Crossrail project, who built the newly opened Elizabeth Line for the London Underground.

CRL was warned not to link day one operations with completion of construction because “every date that you give will be wrong”.

Sweeney said timing was still a challenge because Australia was building a number of rail lines at the same time as New Zealand, making it difficult to find labour.

“A lot of specialists come from Australia and Europe to do this work,” Sweeney said.

“This means we will not get everything on the day we want it,” he said.

“This is a problem because this huge rail pipeline in Australia draws resources away,” he said.

• Find full coverage of the Auckland Floods here.
• Please donate - how you can help the victims of Cyclone Gabrielle; NZ Herald teams up with Red Cross
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