Rail electrification past point of no return

Travellers will use the Newmarket station from Monday. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Auckland's $1 billion rail electrification project is considered past the point of no return after a contract was signed yesterday for about 3500 masts and 80km of overhead wires.

KiwiRail signed the $80 million contract with a joint venture of Hawkins Infrastructure and Australian company Laing O'Rourke just before Transport Minister Steven Joyce formally opened Newmarket's grand new $35 million railway station.

The station, which will be available to passengers and trains from Monday, was built by the Auckland Regional Transport Authority in conjunction with KiwiRail's $65 million reconfiguration of Newmarket's junction of the southern and western lines.

KiwiRail chairman Jim Bolger said the junction had been important to Auckland since a railway line was built to Helensville in the early 1880s.

Its reconfiguration, with new signals compatible with electric trains, had been the most challenging of all the region's rail upgrade projects.

Mr Joyce said the Government made a commitment to proceeding with electrification before being elected in 2008, and he was proud to have honoured that without help from a regional fuel tax which would have been "just too big an imposition on Auckland motorists".

Yesterday's electrification deal follows a $90 million signalling contract signed in April, and the Government's announcement in November that it will lend KiwiRail $500 million to buy about 114 electric railcars.

An assurance from the minister to about 120 guests at the Newmarket Station opening that the first electric trains would be "on the ground and operational from 2013" drew applause led by Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee, who spent much of last year fretting about a lack of funds for them.

Newmarket Business Association chief Cameron Brewer said the new station would do for "the fashion capital of New Zealand" what Britomart did for Queen St since opening in 2003.

But he was concerned at suggestions trains carrying spectators to the Rugby World Cup might bypass it.