KiwiRail poised to take $90m step for Auckland

KiwiRail will this week lay an important foundation for Auckland's rail electrification, despite despair among regional leaders about a delay in ordering $500 million of new trains.

The renationalised rail business is to sign a $90 million contract in Wellington on Wednesday for a new track signalling system compatible with the high-voltage overhead power supply required for the $1 billion-plus electrification project.

But doubt remains over when KiwiRail will be ready to order the trains, even though Transport Minister Steven Joyce expressed confidence yesterday that electrification would be completed on target by 2013, despite a radical change in funding arrangements.

The new signals will be provided by Westinghouse Rail Systems Australia, and KiwiRail expects them to be robust enough to allow more frequent passenger services while also being less vulnerable to failure than the existing system, which left thousands of rugby fans and commuters stranded on Friday after yet another train-control meltdown.

Below-track signals which are immune from interference by overhead power lines are expected to be all in place throughout the network by the end of 2011. KiwiRail says priority will be given to laying signals to Britomart from Otahuhu, which is where power will be drawn from the national electricity grid, and then to Morningside on the western rail line.

Those sections would be completed by the end of 2010.

This is to ensure a greater reliability of services in time for the Rugby World Cup.

Friday's computer-generated failure at Britomart, which disrupted trains for more than three hours from 5.30pm and made many rugby fans late for the kick-off for the Blues v Highlanders match, brought condemnation from Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee about KiwiRail's management of the local network.

"I was listening to the TV match commentators and cringing with embarrassment for Auckland that this should be going out, not only around the country but across Australia - they were saying it was hopeless and a disgrace, and I had to agree with them."

He would not be placated by the new signals contract, saying the Britomart computer system was by no means elderly, and there appeared "something fundamentally wrong at the core" of the Wellington-based railway corporation.

"It doesn't give us much comfort in the Government's new model of KiwiRail being in charge of electric trains at this stage."

Electrification time-track

* Train-control signals between Otahuhu-Britomart and Newmarket-Morningside - to be completed by end of 2010.

* Otahuhu-Papakura and Westfield to Britomart via eastern line - by end of 2011 at latest, but possibly in time for Rugby World Cup.

* Cost of new signals - $90 million.

* Cost of overall electrification project - about $1.1 billion.