PM Chris Hipkins responded to questions about today's major KiwiRail disruptions. Video / Mark Mitchell
Transport Minister Michael Wood says it’s not the Government’s intention for people to lose their jobs over Wellington’s train fiasco, but KiwiRail has been put on notice.
The Government has ordered a rapid review into the state-owned enterprise (SOE) after a broken piece of critical equipment and schedulingissues caused significant disruption.
Trains were restricted to 70km/h this week, halving the usual number of services.
Thousands of passengers have been affected, with one saying it “was beyond any worst-case scenario I’d imagined”. Services returned to normal yesterday after three days of chaos.
Asked whether people should lose their jobs, Wood told the Herald’s politics podcast On The Tiles: Local Edition that was not the intention at this stage.
“The board maintains the Government’s confidence and ultimately the board is the employer of employees in the SOE, but we have put them on notice.
“This is a serious issue and it needs to be fixed.”
Wood said the Government has asked the independent reviewer to report back on whether KiwiRail has an adequate focus on delivering good customer services.
“That is what they need to focus on, that was the failing in this case. They didn’t make the link between their role as an infrastructure provider and what it meant for Wellington commuters.”
Wood said the reviewer would come back with recommendations and he wouldn’t prejudge what those might be.
KiwiRail chairman David McLean said they had let Wellingtonians down.
Thousands of passengers have been affected by the recent disruption, with one saying the situation “was beyond any worst-case scenario I’d imagined”. Photo / Mark Mitchell
KiwiRail initially said the disruption was because its only specialist track evaluation car, which measures tracks across the country so trains can operate safely, was broken.
This meant the tracks on Wellington’s Kāpiti line could not be inspected by April 30 to remain compliant and avoid speed restrictions.
But KiwiRail later said there was also a scheduling problem. The tracks on the Kāpiti line weren’t scheduled to be assessed until this month anyway - outside the compliance period and irrespective of the broken evaluation car.
McLean said the primary mistake was this scheduling failure not being picked up until it was too late.
“It’s unacceptable that regular track evaluations weren’t scheduled well before the end of the compliance period.”
McLean said in advance of the review’s findings, KiwiRail is amending its forward scheduling of track inspections to include contingency buffers “so that unforeseen issues like mechanical work on the machine can be managed without compromising the compliance periods”.
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