Brian Rudman: Rapid rail action all steam, smoke

You can always rely on Auckland local politicians to blame someone else when everything turns to custard.

The day the new Britomart train station opened, there was Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey moaning away about the trains being second rate and he not being invited to an earlier blessing of the site.

Mr Harvey had been crusading for a first-class rapid-rail system since the 1960s and couldn't believe that after "all the effort and energy, collective thinking and endless consultation" it "has come to this".

It's a sentiment we all share. But unlike Mr Harvey, the rest of us have not been in a position to do anything about it.

Last weekend, I happened upon the Waitakere railway station in the heart of Mr Harvey's empire. It's the last stop on the Western line out of Britomart. I think it was the Waitakere station, but it could have been the public urinal, it was hard to tell.

It was certainly not a beacon for public transport. If this is all I had to show for 40 years of activity - 11 years of that as Mayor of Waitakere - I'd be hanging my head in shame rather than criticising others.

At the very least you would have thought the crusading mayor and council would have taken a leaf out of Auckland City's book and matched its showpiece $211 million investment with a similar, if more modest, proof of commitment to rapid rail at their end of the line.

But who am I kidding? We all know it's not the Auckland politician's way to pick up a hammer and build something when you can use it to whack a neighbouring rival on the head instead.

I'm not sure what Mr Harvey planned to pray for at the blessing ceremony. One of his earlier visions was of carriages with espresso coffee and internet connections on tap. Over the past 10 days, passengers' prayers have been more basic.

All they've been asking for is something on wheels that turns up, with an engine that goes and a timetable from this century.

If any good has come out of the present fiasco, it's that the opening of Britomart has brought the parlous state of Auckland commuter rail on to centre stage. It's also put the heat on to squabbling politicians and bureaucrats to sort things out.

I won't revisit the chaotic background to Auckland rail politics. I hesitate even to suggest that progress is in the offing. We've heard that said about the Palestine-Israel conflict.

With that proviso in mind, Finance Minister Michael Cullen's personal transport emissary, Chris Mackenzie, was in town last week hawking the Government's "road map to peace" around Auckland's warring rail factions.

Like all shuttle diplomacy, there was a mix of carrot and stick involved. The parties were told, for example, to stop procrastinating and get on with building and repairing stations pronto, otherwise the Government would come in with four by twos and sheets of corrugated iron and build rudimentary shelters instead.

In turn, Dr Cullen has or will formally give a commitment from the Crown to allow commuter services on the Auckland rail network. Infrastructure Auckland had been holding out for this before freeing any money for station building.

Two major stumbling blocks to an adequate rail service remain. The first centres on finding a new service provider. The sooner current operator Tranz Rail goes the better. It wanted out long ago, and most commuters would say amen to that.

The problem is, the Auckland Regional Council process of selecting a successor continues at a snail's pace. A shortlist of three contenders was selected last year but the final request for documentation doesn't close until the end of this month. The current leisurely plan is to make a final selection by January next year and to phase out Tranz Rail by next July.

This hiatus is unacceptable. At least two of the contenders are ready and willing to take over tomorrow. They are eager to get on with the job. And until one of them does, the nonsense will continue. For once, the ARC should loosen its collective corsets, stop dithering and make a decision.

Hopefully the arrival of a new operator will result in a truce to the regional bickering and internecine warfare and a concentration on important things, like the state of the rolling stock.

The state of the trains is the other stumbling block. This year when it was announced the more modern of the clapped-out diesel units would be refitted as the backbone of an interim fleet, I applauded.

Little did I know that the engines were not included in the upgrade.

Mechanical failure is the main reason for the current chaos. Tired old engines pushed too hard.

The ARC is promising to increase the level of maintenance forthwith. I wish I had its confidence that this will be enough to keep the rubber bands turning.