Britomart signals end of line for train delays

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Rail commuters will see improvements to the delays that have plagued the opening of the Britomart rail station, say politicians and officials.

The three bodies in charge of the Auckland rail network met yesterday to sort out problems with new tracks, signalling and the station itself.

Judging from afternoon train departures at Britomart, the service had improved from the first three days when delays of half an hour or longer led to anger.

Of the eight services scheduled to leave between 4.10pm and 5.20pm, three were 10 or more minutes late and four were less than five minutes late.

One commuter said a wait of a few minutes was acceptable, but anything over 10 minutes was not.

The meeting of representatives from the Auckland Regional Council, Tranz Rail and Auckland Regional Transport Network Ltd, which runs the Britomart station, resolved to work more closely to fix problems.

The three bodies have made improvements to software that works signalling in and out of Britomart, made plans to lift a speed restriction into the station by the end of next week and decided to do track maintenance work outside rush hours.

ARC transport committee chairwoman Catherine Harland apologised to commuters who thought Britomart would bring a new rail network.

"One station does not make a network. Aucklanders need to understand the rail network has been underfunded for decades. Britomart is the first step but a lot more investment needs to happen in terms of trains, tracks, signalling and other stations before Auckland can have a world-class network ... It's not a good message, is it?"

The transport manager for the network company, Mark Townsend, said all the parties needed to work together to "make this damn thing happen", saying fine-tuning would bring benefits from next week.

"There are safety issues whenever you change what you've set up. We need to be very careful that we test them and train the people on those changes ... We're not going to rush into things. I'm not going to make promises in terms of this week because that would be dangerous."

Tranz Rail spokeswoman Sue Foley said the parties were working well together but Tranz Rail was only a "side player". It did not own the track or most of the trains. Its contract ran out last month and it had agreed to stay on until a new operator was appointed in a few months, she said.

"Our staff have done an incredibly good job in quite often difficult circumstances ... We're very happy with the level of service we're providing in the areas expected of us as a contractor."

Sue Foley said Tranz Rail signalled a long time ago that it was going to get out of providing commuter services and it was unfair to blame the firm for the current state of the Auckland network.

Readers' views

The station is great and is exactly what the city needs - a modern transport centre.

The train service is appalling.

Apart from [trains] never leaving on time, never arriving on time and being so overcrowded they must be unsafe, there is no information system to communicate these problems to commuters at suburban stations.

The ARC and Tranz Metro have had all this time to get the commuter train service up to an acceptable standard in time for Britomart. Instead, we have refurbished cast-off trains from the 1960s that cannot run to schedule, not enough trains for rush hour, not enough drivers and dodgy suburban stations. - Jeremy Reynolds

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I am a rail commuter from West Auckland who has a gripe about the rail service. I have been using the trains for the last nine years, commuting from Swanson to Mt Eden and back Monday to Friday.

These delays have been the worst in months, not just this week, but most of the time. Bring back the old diesel engines, the ones that towed the old red carriages. At least they never broke down.

There is an old saying in rail terms - "rolling stock". Well, it might as well be called "laughing stock" and this is directed at management, with no reflection on the train guards. I think they do a great job even under these stressful times. - Peter Reihana

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I had the pleasure of using Tranz Rail's passenger services between Downtown Wellington and Paraparaumu on the Kapiti Coast in 2001. This is roughly the equivalent of Downtown Auckland to Papakura.

The trains in Wellington run like a Swiss watch, never missing a beat. Why does Wellington do it better? - Jason McDonnell

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I find it rich for Tranz Rail to blame the train delays on the Britomart switch-over, as mentioned in a recent report in the Herald.

The train was running late before Britomart was even close to being finished. - Andreas Hagen

* Tell us what you think of the new rail services and Britomart rail station. Email the Herald News Desk.