Time to ask where the trains are

By TIM WATKIN

Waiting on the platform at Britomart, there's plenty to wonder about while you kill time. First and foremost, you're likely to be wondering where your train is.

Two months after Britomart was opened, promising a new, oh-so long-awaited era of public transport in Auckland, getting the trains to the right place at the right time still seems to be an insurmountable problem.

Commuters are frustrated. Foot-stamping, refusing to pay frustrated. A timetable that bears little relation to reality remains a common subject of complaint in the tea-rooms and pubs of central Auckland.

While you wait you might flick back to some of the anecdotes of recent weeks: the guy waiting on the platform since 6.30am being told by the driver on the 7.20am heading in the other direction that he'll have to wait until that train comes back as the other one broke down; the conductor explaining to incredulous passengers that their train was delayed because a driver was nowhere to be found; the Mexican stand-off when commuters refused to pay fares on a train that was nearly an hour late; and, everyone's favourite, the people delayed on a train because it caught fire.

Assuming you're still waiting on the platform after these thoughts - and it's a safe bet you will be - you might wonder at how woefully local politicians have failed us; how with years of warning the local bodies still weren't able to have good trains on good lines with enough drivers in time for the opening. Still, thinking about what Infrastructure Auckland director Gary Taylor describes as a development "fraught with delay and patch protection" will probably only make your blood boil. Better to ponder how you can let those politicians know what you think of all this waiting at the next council elections.

Check your watch, peer down the track, return to your wondering. Perhaps you'll bring to mind the "bold vision" of local bodies announced in June that aims for 25 million train trips a year by Aucklanders, up from 2.2 million now. What chance of that if they can't get a train to your cold, wet station this morning, you might think. Everyone will give up and go back to cars.

There is the Perth example, of course. Check your watch again - you feel like you could have walked to Perth in the time you've been waiting. The model for Auckland, Perth rebuilt its rail network between 1988 and 1991. From 1991 to 1997 trips rose from 7.5 million a year to 30 million.

So maybe your mind will drift into a daydream of days when this platform won't be a scene of daily disappointment. ARTNL (Auckland Regional Transport Network Ltd), the forward planning part of the many and varied groups running Auckland public transport, is busying itself with three main priorities - new rolling stock, the double-tracking of the Western Line and electrification of both lines.

Chief executive Martin Gummer says, "We're addressing issues in a more long-lasting way to improve frequency of the service, the amenities and the environment around the stations; and provide faster journeys. It will be a fundamentally different rail system. That's the excitement for Auckland once all the bits and pieces are brought together."

Your fraying nerves start to ease. You could get excited about a reliable train service. Then you remember just when this "fundamentally different" system will be in place. "We are targeting the year 2007," says Gummer.

All this wondering hasn't got you any further than this platform. All you want to know - here, now - is one thing. Where the hell is my train?

ASK around those who have a finger in Auckland's train pie just why the trains are so often late, and they tend to um and ah and talk about complexities, before coming back to one main answer.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton: it's the trains, stupid. Frankly, the fleet is old and mechanically unreliable.

Says Taylor: "We've got clapped-out rolling stock that keeps breaking down even though it's been cosmetically upgraded."

"They're running beyond any planned life for them," says Auckland Regional Council chief executive Jo Brosnahan.

Paul Ashton nods his head. "Driving these trains is like driving a 1972 Mark II Cortina. Not the most reliable thing." But, he adds, there are bigger problems than the trains.

If anyone knows where your train is, it's Ashton. As manager of Tranz Metro Auckland, brought in barely a month ago to get things chugging along smoothly, he's got one of the least enviable jobs in town.

Last year around 85 per cent of trains reached their destination no more than five minutes late. While Auckland City Councillor Bruce Hucker called that an "infrequent and irregular" service, since Britomart opened it's got worse.

In the past three months that's fallen to 65 per cent. Only half have actually been on time. Reliability is improving - back up to 72 per cent in September - but there's a long track ahead to achieve the goal of back to 85 per cent reliability by February.

The formula's straightforward enough, if a little daunting: running the Auckland train set means moving up to 22 trains between 41 stations, including Britomart. That's 19 DMUs (diesel multiple units), made up of 10 ADLs (two carriages each) and nine ADKs (also two carriages each); two SXs (each with three carriages); and one Silver Fern (with four carriages).

Not all those trains are running at once. The ADLs have been spruced up and one is still being finished, to return next month. Then, the ADKs will be taken off for their refit, two at a time. In addition, in line with international best practice, 10 per cent of the fleet - two DMUs - are held in what's called "maintenance reserve". With two services on the Western Line carrying 400 and 600 passengers respectively, two DMUs have to be coupled together to create four-car trains. That means, at the moment, Auckland has 15 trains on the go. Suffice to say that's not enough.

Monday to Friday, those trains make a total of 148 trips daily. On the Southern Line, that's 948 stops a day. On the Eastern Line - the loop off the Southern Line that goes through Glen Innes - 881 stops a day. On the Western Line, 792 stops. That's 2621 stops at 41 stations, every weekday.

The tricky part is making sure those numbers don't derail. A problem with just one of those thousands of stops, and the whole network could feel the impact.

What's more, Ashton's marking time. Tranz Rail signalled long before Britomart was built that it wanted out of passenger rail. Yet when the company's contract expired in June, the local bodies still hadn't got around to appointing a new operator. That appointment's not due until early next year - or, if we're lucky, by Christmas, says Ashton. So in the meantime, to use railway parlance, Tranz Rail is minding the gap.

Despite all these hassles, Ashton's overflowing with plans, schemes and tweaks he can make to bring order in the few months he has in the job.

So let's cut to the chase: "Paul, if we put all the politics and funding and planning problems aside and concentrate on the day-to-day running of the network, can you tell us, two months after Britomart opened, why are the trains still late?" Remarkably, he says yes. The major causes of delays since Britomart opened can be seen in the accompanying box. It turns out that passengers are an even bigger problem than the old trains.

"You can break the delays down to three categories," Ashton explains. "One is passengers. With the volume of people getting on and off trains, the older DMUs aren't configured to handle that ... the trail unit in the older ADKs only has one door, so you've got everyone trying to get on and off through the one door.

"Two is the availability and the reliability of the DMUs given that they were purchased as secondhand units 10 years ago. The older lot are of 1960s vintage and the others are the 1980s version. There needs to be further work done to overhaul them from a maintenance perspective.

"The third area is to do with infrastructure. It's the single line rail track [on the Western Line] and there's been issues with the line reconstruction. There's been a number of different work gangs out there on the networks doing de-stressing."

The problem with passengers is that the people who designed the timetable were expecting passenger numbers to grow by around 10 per cent. In July they got 72 per cent, although that was distorted by sightseers on the opening weekend. Once it had settled down in August, patronage was still up 32 per cent, from 212,000 people last year to 278,100 this year. On Saturdays, the increase has been a huge 139 per cent.

At the same time renovations are going on at major stations such as Glen Innes and Papatoetoe. The result is more people trying to get through disrupted stations and on to one-door trains.

"It's simply taking people longer than we expected to get on and off the train," Ashton says. "Every stop you might spend an extra 20 seconds getting people on and off. If that happens at every station from Waitakere to Auckland, you're four or five minutes behind."

Britomart itself is also part of the problem. There used to be some elasticity at either end of the lines to make up lost time, but, committed as Tranz Metro is to maintaining the pre-Britomart journey times, the extra few minutes into the city has stripped that elasticity away.

Trouble with too many people on the trains and time-pressure from the glorious new station is hardly the news local politicians want to hear as they try to urge more people on to trains. But Ashton has plans. This week he revealed to the Weekend Herald his "quick list of here and now solutions" that will take effect in mid-October.

On the Southern Line the two SX trains will be put at either end of what will be a bigger "push-pull" train. Unable to turn round in Britomart, the SXs have been stopping at the old railway station, meaning low patronage. With an engine at each end, the train will be able to go all the way to Britomart and will take over the 7.35am express run, easing morning congestion and freeing up a DMU. Tamaki station, run down and attracting few passengers, will be closed for the interim, saving between one and one and a-half minutes.

On the Western Line, the only significant relief will come with double-tracking. The ARC is seeking urgent funding to double-track the line between Boston Rd and New Lynn, a job that will take 12 months. In November, however, Tranz Metro will trial a short-run peak service between either Avondale or New Lynn and Britomart. Come February, it will look at terminating some trains at Ranui or Swanson, meaning quicker turnaround times.

Weekend Herald also understands an undisclosed number of new trains are on their way. The ARC will announce the purchase next week, but it will be six months before they're ready for service.

The most immediate improvement will come as early as next week, as ARTNL winds up its de-stressing work on the tracks. This work involves heating and cutting the track, then "fitting a gripping mechanism that allows more give", Gummer says. It will ensure the tracks don't buckle in the summer heat, as happened last year.

Gummer estimates de-stressing has been responsible for no more than 10 per cent of delays, and each hold-up has lasted no more than a minute. But Ashton says, "it would be higher on both counts". It takes more than a minute for the trains to slow, stop, get the all-clear, then start up again, and the de-stressing work makes up most of the 25 per cent of "track related" troubles, according to their figures.

Either way, it's one cause of delays that will no longer be a problem this time next week. The other problems, however, are harder to fix. Expect some noticeable improvement next month and again in February, but the really big solutions - the new trains, double-tracking and electrification - are further down the track.

It doesn't give much comfort as you stand on that platform, but as Brosnahan says, "What we're dealing with is a construction programme. We're building a new system over the next five to 10 years and Britomart was just the beginning."

Some time next year either Connex, Serco or Stagecoach will take over the network and it will be their job to nurse the ailing system up to full health. Until then you have to be patient. Waiting there on the platform is good practice.

The main causes of Auckland train delays

* Passengers slow to get on and off trains - 35-40 per cent

* Track-related problems (including de-stressing, points and signals) - 25 per cent

* Engine reliability - 20 per cent

* Average train delay: 8-12 minutes

(Source: Tranz Metro)