Third ship arriving at Northland's Northport with containers for Auckland

The 261m long Constantinos P will be back at Northport on Thursday with more than 1000 containers that will be taken to Auckland after Easter.

A third shipment of containers bound for Auckland arrives at Northport's deep water port at Marsden Pt this week to help ease congestion at Ports of Auckland.

In December the Constantinos P docked at Northport to unload more than 1000 containers as Ports of Auckland was too congested. Since then the Tianjin Bridge unloaded more containers in January.

And the Constantinos P is due to dock at Marsden Pt again on Thursday with 1160 containers and is due to depart on April 4.

However, given it's the Easter Weekend coming up none of the containers will be taken to Auckland until after the holiday weekend is over.

Constantinos P is no longer the largest vessel to have called here - that honour went to the Tianjin Bridge which called in January.

Northport expects to unload about 1160 containers from Constantinos P and will not be loading any containers for export.

All the boxes coming off at Northport need to be fully unloaded before truck loading can start. As a result Northport will not be loading any trucks until after the Easter break, meaning the roads will not have those trucks on them during the long weekend, a spokesman said.

Northport expects to be handling Auckland-bound container traffic for as long as NZ port congestion remains a challenge for the national supply chain.

''While current supply-chain issues impacting the country might be unprecedented, they demonstrate clearly the need for a resilient and geographically-astute upper North Island
supply chain strategy that makes best use of the three existing ports that already serve the region,'' the spokesman said.

''This in turn calls for continued central government investment in, and upgrading of, road, rail and coastal shipping infrastructure.''

KiwiRail, which transported some of the container from Tianjin Bridge in January had not responded by edition time if it would be involved in transporting any of these latest containers.

However, KiwiRail has a problem with the line to Auckland, which was closed after two wagons derailed on Monday.

KiwiRail general manager operations upper North Island Reuben Araroa said wheels on two wagons on a freight service travelling towards Whangārei derailed between Kaiwaka and Te Hana.

''Staff are currently on site re-railing the wagons, assessing any track damage and developing a repair plan,'' Araroa said yesterday.

''It is too early to comment on causes, how long the line will be shut, or the cost of any repairs.''

The revamped line between Whangārei and Swanson in west Auckland opened on January 11, following funding from the Government's Provincial Growth Fund. The Government allocated $165 million towards the line upgrade.

Police are also expected to be out keeping a close eye on the trucks carrying the containers.

During the first operation before Christmas, police said 2041 trucks were checked between December 10 and 22, and 1189 inspection reports were done.

A total of 393 (19 per cent) failed their inspection due to several issues such as faulty brakes and lights, worn tyres, suspension-types issues, and cracks in the chassis.

All together 25 trucks and a further truck-and-trailer unit were issued with non-operational orders.