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Oh great, an email from a trainspotter

by Whaleoil on September 28, 2009

I got this email from a trainspotter. One who clearly has never looked at the rail map of Auckland with anything except glazed over eyes and co-related that to a map with one of Auckland where people ACTUALLY live.

Trains suck. They suck at almost everything they do and every study that proves they work is based on a population 10 times the size of New Zealand and running trains on a gauge other than the orphan one we use. If my suggestion of a dedicated truckway was implemented then we could run freaking road trains.

Also, idiot, trainspotter, to get things onto a train you need, TRUCKS to get the stuff there, and TRUCKS to move it again at the other end. Why not just stick it on a TRUCK end to end.

I don’t even know what a DMU is and i suspect I wouldn’t care even if I did. Why is that tossers who don’t live in Auckland, usually tossers from Wellington or the Socialist Republic of Christchurch see fit to tell us in Auckland what is best for us. Rail most certainly isn’t, never will be, couldn’t possibly be and won’t be good for us in Auckland.

Why? Because you muddle headed ignoramus, Auckland is built on an isthmus. Everything has to go through an area at Otahuhu that is only 500m wide from the Manukau harbour to the Waitemata harbour and why the road is fricken called Portage Road there.

Unless massive tunnels and bridges are built capable of carrying both vehicles and trains thre isn’t going to be a rail solution for Auckland. You can’t even catch a train to the North Shore because some genius decided that the Harbour Bridge should take cars only and even then under-designed it.

If you want to see just how truly fucked the Auckland transport system is then use the Maxx website and plot a trip from say Howick to Henderson. That’s a real trip from my house to my in laws. I plotted the quickest: $13:50 and 2hrs and 09 minutes and the cheapest $12:70 which take 3hours 20mins.

I sure as fuck am nort paying $13:50 or even $12:70 to sit next to some rank smelling poor person for a minimum of two hours. That would cost someone  far more than that if I billed that time out. In two hours I can drive there and have an hour long meeting and drive back all for cheaper than $12:70 including the drive thru breakfast at McDonalds, which you sure as fuck won’t get on a bus or a train.

So with no respect at all shove your fucking trains.buses/public transport up your fucking arse and fix my fucking roads. even if I have to pay a toll. Better still make petrol $3:00 a litre so I can travel unhindered by poor people in barely warrant-able cars across Auckland

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  • http://intensedebate.com/people/The_Grizz The_Grizz

    Whale, DMU refers to a diesel multiple unit. Essentially a diesel train.

    This Josh person clearly has a passion for trains which unfortunately has a large bias to his argument. However, I would like to make a few salient points regarding rail that Josh fails to point out.

    - New Zealand has a challenging topography. As rail requires less acute gradients, tracks are indirect, winding, and generally slow. Those long straights built for great speed do not exist. They could be built at great expense, but it is far more cost effective to build a road.

    - The decline of rail started round the 1950s. Classic branch lines were removed long before NZ rail was corporatised. The Nelson line went after it was too difficult to link the track anywhere. As the coal mines on the West Coast closed, so did many of the branch lines. If some promoters of rail travel had their way, the rest would close, then the West Coast line would have to close. That would be the end of the Tranz Alpine Express. The South Island had branch lines scattered around the countryside like bird shit. By 1970, most had disappeared.

    - Why are we trying to support the Overlander at great expense to the public? While on the whole it is mostly scenic, it does only carry 30-50 people per trip. There are double decker buses run by intercity that carry more people and get them between Auckland and Wellington a couple of hours faster for less fuel per passenger. Last time I looked t bus timetables, there were several companies running this route. They had multiple departure times and some even offered an express service. When time is weighed up with cost, If I had a choice, I would fly between Auckland and Wellington. Take note, where is the Southerner or the Northerner these days? Lost out to more efficient and passenger friendly bus services.

    It takes just over 4 hours to drive between Christchurch and Dunedin. It used to take 7 hours by train, and you had to catch it at 8am or you would miss out until the next day.

    -Wellington is better suited to rail as its lines service its population better than Auckland's. However it is by no means perfect. All their lines were in place before the first Motorway which was built in 1950.

    -The Central Otago Rail Trail has seen more people use the route than when there were rails. It has revived all the old pubs that were scattered along the trail.

    - Derailings make the news because they obstruct the flow of freight. Fonterra does not like tonnes of milk rotting away in the hot sun. The rails need to be assessed and repaired before trains can use them again. All the debris needs to be cleared away which is hard to do with limited road access. By comparison roads are easier to reopen or to have traffic diverted in case of a truck crash.

    - The reality is that there are only about 4 lines in NZ that have enough volume to justify their existence. These will be for long distance freight and will require trucking at either end.

    - Do not be fooled by that 1990 profit. NZ railways sold off a lot of surplus assets at the time (It is unfathomable how much taxpayer money was spent buying unnecessary stuff for this department) It also ran a profitable trucking and bus services which have been sold off. Remember, when a government department is could not run at a profit and when a private company, it struggled to break even, even when the government paid to maintain the lines.

    For some, even myself, rail carries much nostalgia. However, lets use our heads and not pin a tail on a money pit and call it Kiwi Rail. If running behind the back end of a truck is a problem, then double laning SH1 may be a better option.

  • http://libertyscott.blogspot.com libertyscott

    Grizz is largely right. The Overlander appears to be barely a commercially viable service. However, there is no good reason to hold onto it if insufficient tourists want to make the trip. Wellington has somewhat developed along its rail network, so it is barely worthwhile to keep it going given the sunk cost involved. Auckland though has a dilemma.

    I would argue there needs to be a proper study comparing three options for Auckland rail:
    - Electrify (what the ARC wants)
    - Use new diesel rolling stock, so that what has already been spent is fully utilised through its life cycle;
    - Keep what is running till it is run into the ground, so as rolling stock is unserviceable, reduce services, to the point that it closes.

    This being for a 40 year period, so the total net costs and benefits can be assessed with different scenarios. Then the right decision can be made, which I suspect is to finish what has been done, write it off as a sunk cost and then run it into the ground.

    The rest? Grizz is right, there are a handful of lines worth keeping, the rest can be run into the ground and then either mothballed for future use or converted into cycleways/walkways.

    An economically rational view would see rail running profitably Auckland-Wellington, Hamilton-Tauranga, Picton-Lyttelton-Dunedin and West Coast to Lyttelton (while the coal lasts). There is profitable business in milk and timber elsewhere, but probably not enough to pay to replace the track and signals when their time is up.

  • mediatart

    How can rail compete for long distance freight when the roads are paid for by motorists and then buggered up by the heavy trucks. I travel down to Taupo on the SH that was built for the hydro schemes in the fifties and sixties instead of the nightmare that is SH1. Beautiful road in great condition, seems a liitle narrow by modern standards but the base of the road isnt full of ruts and and cracks.
    make the trucks pay for the damage they cause by increasing the RUC to level the playing field. User pays

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/The_Grizz The_Grizz

      The road from Kihikihi to Whakamaru is nice, but you need to stay alert as it is easy to get lost or simply miss a bend and end up in a ditch on the side of the road. However, I like taking this route as well.

      You are not the first to raise the issue of fair share of road user charges. Can you provide some research on the cost to roads by trucks and the road user charges they pay? Even if RUC were raised fro heavy vehicles, rail would still struggle for the simple fact that they do not go to most places, or the freight demands are so low, it is cheaper to share the route with cars.

      By the way, in Australia, the Hume Highway is being built with a concrete surface. It looks magnificent. If only Transit would do the same here.

      • mediatart

        This I found on IPENZ regarding the new mega trucks

        The proposal is to increase weight limits from 44 tonnes to 53 tonnes – an increase of 20%. The damage to road pavements is generally regarded to follow the 4th power rule. This means that if a load is doubled, the damage to the road pavement increases 16 fold. While there is ongoing debate about whether the number is smaller or larger than the 4th power, if we assume it is the 4th power, and axle loads are increased by 20%, then the damage to a road by each truck will increase 102% i.e. double. This far outweighs the reduction in trips of 16%.
        The RUC is very good in that the actual Km are measured but whether they pay for all the damage they cause since these figures are startling

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/The_Grizz The_Grizz

          Typically larger trucks have more axles and more tyres to spread the load. Sweden and Finland allow weights up to 60 tonne, but the load is spread over more axles. According to these countries, heavier trucks are more fuel efficient and reduce greenhouse gases!

          Next time you are in the Australian outback, have a look at the road trains. 4 axles per each trailer unit. I am not advocating we have 3 or 4 trailer trucks, but there are limits to the weight that is channeled through each axle. If heavier trucks are used, consideration will have to be made for truck and load design as well as the number of tyres to channel the weight through. The end result is ultimately going to be far less emotional than what you advocate above.

      • libertyscott

        This is the conclusion from the Road User Charges review http://www.transport.govt.nz/ourwork/Land/RoadUse… The Surface Transport Costs and Charges study indicated (and it is long been known that) RUC on state highways more than pays for the share of marginal and fixed maintenance and construction costs from heavy vehicles, but on local roads it underpays (it is an average system which doesn't vary by location). If RUC was to be increased to fully recover local road costs (i.e. replace rates) it wouldn't go up by enough to make much difference to rail.

  • Zork

    Better to rip up the tracks, pave them over with tarseal and make them trucks only. Get the trucks off the main roads. Everybody wins.

  • jag

    I'm very ill-informed when it comes to this debate but given the fact that most of our cities have ports why do we not utilise sea-bound freight more? I realise this is slightly off-topic given we are talking mostly about public transport.

    No roads or lines to maintain or construct, there is an ability to shift vast amounts of products at once…. If there is any blessing provided to New Zealand's geography it surely has to be this.

  • Rodney

    Trucks cheaper than rail? Trucks don’t even pay their own way now; heavily subsidised as they now are by us motorists and taxpayers. Imagine the costs of trucking freight if trucks had to actually pay the cost of fixing the roads that they destroy so quickly?

    Then there is rising oil prices. They are only temporarily stable at present, that won’t last long.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/The_Grizz The_Grizz

      Open this link, it outlines road user charges. http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/publications/docs/road-us…

      This outlines that trucks pay more per $1,000 kilometers according to weight with consideration of the number of axles on the vehicle. Possibly not enough, but it suggests that Road Freight is required to contribute to maintenance of the National Roading system. The statement you make that motorists are subsidising trucks, is this based on emotion or do you have some plausible research to justify your statement? I am interested to know as like you I feel the playing field does need to be even.

      Lets not forget that NZ trains also consume large amounts of diesel and are subject to oil running out just as much as trucks. You could electrify the lines, but you would need to find new renewable sources to justify your argument. The problem of course is that there is so much opposition to worthwhile schemes that a Lignite coal electricity station is seriously being contemplated. But this is another argument. Then again, if there was an abundance of renewable electricity for trains, we would all want to drive electric cars up and down the country.

  • http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com Elijah Lineberry

    I always travel by train when heading South.

    Nothing is better than sitting on a train from Auckland to Wellington because it is an excellent opportunity to relax, read a book or newspaper and know you are not going to be bothered.

    But train travel within Auckland is difficult and not recommended; the train stations are some walking distance from anywhere, it invariably rains, there are usually smelly brown people disrupting other passengers and is overpriced.

    • Jared

      Except for the fact that its a waste of time. Why spend 8 or 9 hours on a train when a flight is often way cheaper, and takes 40minutes. No brainer to me

  • trucker

    Motorists do not subsidise trucks,and the figures quoted by the Christchurch based emailer are from the Surface Transport Costs Study produced by Booze Allan (Railways consultants) when they were trying to position rail for sale. The figures were found to be inaccurate, and when like was compared to like road paid far more of their own costs than rail (87% to 67%). Road User Charges pay fro truck usage, just as fuel excise duty pays for cars. Generally RUC are 50+% of the money spent on roads, although this has changed with increased capital expenditure on roading. Before the last government started spending on roading infrastructure trucks paid more than 50% for many years.

    There is no doubt that trucks wear the roads out faster, and they should pay more. What we have is 7% of the vehicle fleet, paying 50+% of the roading expenditure. Motorists are 93% and they pay less than 50%. If trucks alone were to use the roads, then we would not need multilane highways, and trucks could operate on single lane roads without the bother of motorists.

    In reality that will not occur, as cars and trucks share the roads, and the costs of running them.

    Rail in New Zealand is stuffed. Not because there is anything wrong with rail by definition, but because our population base is very small, and our topography is operationally difficult. No amount of nostalgic romance can sort those issues out.

    Inhabitants of Melbourne complain about the poor train system they have, and they struggle to afford the system they have: which is excellent by our standards. The population of Melbourne is bigger than the whole of New Zealand. The Australians are building new roads in the North west to cater for the huge tonnages of export metals that they will deliver to asia every year. These roads will operate alongside the existing rail system which will also be expanded. They key to the success of the rail system is the hugetonnage through put which we can never hope to create in New Zealand.

    Romance simply doesn't cut it, we can not afford to build white elephants to pander to the dreams of ill informed transport pundits.

  • Gavfaemonty

    Heh heh. Excellent rant.

    I'll raise you. Rail is so shite it should ALL be ripped up. Then we can use the excellent arterials for cycling, taking people off the roads, getting them fitter, coughing out less carbon (don't care much about that), and saving money.

    No need to thank me.

  • http://libertyscott.blogspot.com Libertyscott

    Yes I just read the email you got.

    The Surface Transport Costs and Charges report indicates that road users more than pay for their infrastructure costs. Trucker is largely right.

    Around 50% of road maintenance costs are NOT usage related, they are fixed costs, costs of erosion from rain and sun that would not disappear if traffic disappeared. On state highways, these costs are fairly shared by road users on a common usage basis, for local roads, ratepayers pay these costs because local roads provide access.

    Of the remaining 50% of costs, these are marginal costs and increase or decrease according to traffic levels. 40% of the 100% of costs arise from heavy vehicles, the remaining 10% from light vehicles. These costs are fully recovered for state highways and local roads from RUC and fuel taxes.

    So despite the nostalgia of your young correspondent, rail doesn't get an unfair disadvantage.

    Railways in NZ have been bailed out by taxpayers the following times in my lifetime:
    1982: Corporatisation, wiped all Railways Department debt (c. $100m in 1982 dollars). So on 1 April 1982 it was debt free, but by 1990…
    1990: Think Big debt for main trunk electrification, $350 million (1990 dollars) written off.
    1990: In parallel, $1 billion in debt written off, for restructuring. NZ Rail Ltd created. So again debt free.
    1993: Privatised.
    2001: Government spends $81 million buying Auckland rail network despite Treasury best estimates of $20 million of value.
    2003: Government supports Toll Rail deal, taking over rest of rail network, paying $50m for Wellington railway station, agreeing to subsidise major capital investment in rail network.
    2008: Government effectively writes off unpaid track access charges, pays over the nose to Toll for the whole business.

    By contrast, the road network has generated over that time net revenues much of which has been spent continuously improving the network, and until recently was a source of revenue for the Crown to spend on whatever it wished.

    Rail can't even dream of being that profitable.

  • Michael

    Wellington is the only New Zealand city that can support a passenger rail service. It has two narrow corridors (Kapiti/Porirua and Hutt Valley) and it's employment heavily concentrated in the CBD (due to Govt Departments and Corporate Offices being there only. Train fares are 60% subsidised in Wellington as this is cheaper than the massive roading cost needed if trains did not run.

    Auckland rail is a complete waste of time – there is no central point that employment is concentrated, the population is spread evenly over a 100km radius. A far better use would be to rip up the rail track and introduce a mix of new motorways and bus only expressways.