The North Auckland Line has been closed since the end of January, when it was damaged in the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods. Cyclone Gabrielle and further flooding in February also caused more damage to the fragile network.
Across the 180km line between Whangārei and Auckland’s Swanson, more than 200 sites were damaged by overslips, slumps, washouts and underslips.
But Northland programme director Eric Hennephof says a re-opening date is still not confirmed.
One of the delays has been caused by a major fibre optic cable buried in the rail corridor for about 60km between Maungatūroto and north Auckland, he said.
The cable had to be moved before heavy machinery could be used on the rail line, to protect numerous internet connections in Northland from being severed.
This held up work on some of the larger sites over the holiday period, Hennephof said.
KiwiRail is also planning out how $50 million worth of Government-funded extra resilience work can be fit into the work schedule, to make the rail line better able to withstand future weather events.
“We are currently working through all of these details and expect to have a clearer re-opening timeframe in the coming months,” he said.
Repair work on the North Auckland Line includes a swale drain being cleared near Maungaturoto.
Up to the end of December, more than $28m has been spent on rebuilding the North Auckland Line, as part of a $200m budget for repairing weather-damaged rail lines in the North Island.
“It is a massive job and we are making good progress on repairs,” Hennephof said.
Work completed includes fixing a massive 350m-wide slip at Tahekeroa, between Helensville and Wellsford, where 35,000cu m of material slipped 400m down across a road and the rail line below.
About 95 per cent of the material was reused to build a 4m-high road embankment to help catch future slips, while two other large slips in the area were also remediated.
While the slip repair work is progressing, KiwiRail has also been upgrading the line between Whangārei and Kauri to take 18-tonne axle loads, including laying 20,000 new concrete sleepers and 13km of rail.
This upgrade - which was also completed on the line from Swanson to Whangārei just days before the severe weather hit - will allow the line to run the same locomotives as used in the rest of the North Island and to run longer trains, Hennephof said.
“It’s an important step to bring Northland’s railway on par with the rest of the North Island and enabled us to offer improved freight services,” he said.
Fonterra faces higher costs and more CO2 with rail closure
For one of the main users of Northland rail, Fonterra, the closure has meant an increase in both costs and carbon emissions.
The dairy co-operative used rail to transport 100 per cent of its product containerised for export from its Kauri plant and Northport cool stores, said general manager of logistics and customer experience Brendan Miller.
These products are now transported by road to MetroPort in Auckland, he said.
However, Miller said the closure has not impacted Fonterra’s ability to get its product to customers and it has been kept well-informed by KiwiRail about the reasons for the delays.
Denise Piper is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.
