Why KiwiRail is so useless

Why is Kiwirail failing so appallingly?

Because it is a neoliberal nightmare that just never ends.

Let’s remember that the wankers who privatised it, stripped it of assets and sold it back to Kiwis…

…so Faye and Richwhite advised the Government to sell off the railways, went and quietly bought it themselves for a fraction of the real value, made a fortune asset stripping it, left behind a broken clusterfuck the Government had to buy it back, and because it’s been so underfunded for such a long time, the entire struggling super structure of the system is broken.

Wellington train disruption could now last days instead of weeks

The organisation came under heavy criticism on Friday as it was announced Metlink train services would be reduced throughout May after a 70kph blanket speed restriction was to be imposed on KiwiRail’s Wellington network starting Monday – because the country’s only track evaluation car broke down.

Its chief operations officer Siva Sivapakkiam said on Saturday the track evaluation car could leave its Auckland workshop early Sunday morning and arrive in Palmerston North that night. The company is aiming to have all speed restrictions dropped by Friday night, May 5, at the latest.

…the exact same incompetence happened in Auckland in 2021…

A year ago yesterday, and in the middle of Auckland’s second lockdown, speeds on the entire Auckland rail network were slowed to just 40km/h as a safety precaution after Kiwirail revealed wear on the tracks, known as Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF), was more widespread and severe than they previously realised. At the time they said they urgently needed to replace 100km of track across the network.

A week later they shut the entire Eastern Line between Quay Park and Westfield down for two weeks in order to accelerate that work. That two weeks extended to four weeks and over the subsequent six months or so the rest of the rail network experienced various closures as Kiwirail worked to fix the issues. As of early February, with just the Pukekohe line to go, Kiwirail said:

“So far we have replaced more than 112km of damaged rail which is 84 per cent of the required re-railing work overall. At the same time, we’ve replaced close to 20,500 sleepers and destressed 95km of rail track.

They now say they’ve replaced 130km of rail which is significant when you consider there’s just over 180km of track passenger services run on.

After thinking the work was all done, more issues surfaced in mid-June which saw Southern Line slowed down again and services reduced as a result which lasted till late July. This and issues like left over rail causing $250,000 of damage to Auckland Transport’s trains and Kiwirail prioritising of freight prompted letters from the Mayor and AT and included calling on the government to put people with asset management and public transport experience on the Kiwirail board.

…and how did this all happen? How did all these underlying issues suddenly spring up?

An independent report has been released providing a route cause assessment for how the network (AMRN – Auckland Metro Rail Network) got into this position.

Findings

There were three key areas studied, the track, the vehicles and the wheel rail interface (WRI). Here are the findings for each of them.

Track

The report highlights that while there has been investment in network improvements, such as double tracking, new stations, new signalling, electrification and new trains, the “existing track and civil infrastructure, including historic formation was not upgraded under any of those programmes“.

…here’s what does my head in…

In 2014, prior to the commencement of the new electrified service, AT engaged Network Rail Consultants to evaluate the overall state of the infrastructure. The evaluation effectively concluded that substantial investment (~$100m) in the AMRN [Auckland Metro Rail Network] track assets was needed to ensure it would be fit for purpose for the proposed EMU operation. This investment was not approved and the parties instead relied on increased inspections for safety, track speed restrictions, and accepted the infrastructure would provide lower levels of service.

…so they knew there were these huge legacy infrastructure problems and their cheaper solution was an increased inspection regime, the very regime that has broken down in Wellington.

So.

An asset that was privatised to the rich who helped sell it to themselves, stripped it of all its assets, left the Government to buy back a fucked up broken system and instead of upgrading, they chose a cheaper inspection regime, one that just broke down.

If the rich paid their fair share, we could rebuild the infrastructure they robbed us of.

Bernard Hickey has argued, “We could have gotten $200 billion in extra tax revenues if only there had been a fair tax system which meant that capital gains were taxed at the same rate as every other type of income.”

There are 14 Billionaires in NZ + 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals, let’s start with them, then move onto the Banks, then the Property Speculators, the Climate Change polluters and big industry!

 

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