KEY POINTS:
Richard Humfrey has seen good times and lean times on New Zealand's railways. Now, the veteran track construction and maintenance ganger hopes the push for rail from a Government spending commitment of almost $1.5 billion will mean that his days of despairing over the industry's future are over.
"But it depends on the public - because if you don't use it, you lose it," he said yesterday, while putting final touches to a 7.5km length of duplicate track set to open this morning between New Lynn and Henderson.
The sector is the largest duplication stage on the western railway line, and its completion means Government rail agency Ontrack has only 10km of the western line left to upgrade.
The track duplication is expected to reduce delays from trains having to give way to opposing traffic to such an extent that the Auckland Regional Transport Authority and its passenger rail operator, Veolia Transport, intend doubling peak-time services between Henderson and Britomart to four an hour from next month.
Passengers will have new platforms to get used to from this morning at Glen Eden, Sunnyvale and Fruitvale stations, and pedestrians and motorists will be urged to look both ways for trains at upgraded level crossings along the way.
Mr Humfrey recalled that when he joined the New Zealand Railways Department in 1973, aged 21, the organisation had 35,000 employees and a daily passenger commuter service ran from Helensville to central Auckland.
Mass layoffs as the organisation was corporatised and then sold into private ownership left little more than 400 track workers in the mid-1990s struggling to maintain the country's 3898km of railway line, which was plagued by speed restrictions as it fell deeper into disrepair.
It was not until 2004, when the Government bought back the tracks after the near collapse of Tranz Rail the previous year, that things started looking up for Mr Humfrey as one of about 700 employees of the new Ontrack organisation.
"I really despaired at one stage 3 1/2 years ago when Tranz Rail were in the final asset strip to meet their books," he said yesterday.
"It was very demoralising and I got the idea that if it went any further, the line between Penrose and Newmarket might end up as part of the motorway.
"We were trying desperately to keep it going, but we were shockingly understaffed - we couldn't have left it any longer than we did, and full credit to the Labour Government for buying back the track."
Mr Humfrey has been in charge of an eight-member core track construction team which has been joined over the past 18 months by dozens of contracting staff to finish the $55 million duplication project between New Lynn and Henderson.
The project has involved the construction of five new or replacement rail bridges, two footbridges and a pedestrian underpass, a kilometre of retaining walls and two platforms on each of the three upgraded stations and the new Henderson rail-bus interchange - all the while trying to keep week-day passenger services running.
Although the construction was officially completed on Friday as Prime Minister Helen Clark drove in the "last spike" by levering into place a clip between the rail and one of 12,000 new sleepers, the track between Avondale and Henderson was closed over the long weekend for new signals to be commissioned.
That kept a 30-strong team of signalling technicians and engineers from as far as Christchurch busy until last night, when a test train eased its way along the fresh tracks to let Veolia's operating staff become familiar with them.
Ontrack project manager Alan Stokes said it had been a tough task for Veolia to operate a metropolitan service on a single track, and the duplication would give it the robustness required to increase service reliability and to give rail the passenger numbers needed to guarantee its future.
