A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
I can’t understand why you keep perpetuating the myth that bad weather was the cause of the Wharerata rail section washouts.
Have you ever contemplated the amount of bad weather that has come and gone since 1936 that has not caused washouts? The reason being that the railway was brilliantly
engineered to cope with these events. However, the carefully designed solutions require a small amount of regular servicing. Something that KiwiRail ceased to provide years ago.
The subsequent blockage of the water drives under the embankments transformed said embankments into huge dams (a function for which they were never designed) and led to predictable catastrophe.
It’s KiwiRail’s responsibility to protect this national asset and the Government’s to ensure the funding is available for the purpose.
The current damage to this Wharerata section shows both coming up short.
