Good afternoon Lindon
 
Please find our responses below.
 

* The key coal loading facility on the West Coast is Ngakawau.  We also
regularly load at Reefton and Stillwater, as well as Ikamatua and Mai
Mai on an ad-hoc basis
* The rail journey from Ngakawau to Christchurch is roughly 12-hours as
this can include operational stops, plus another 30 minutes for the
Christchurch to Lyttleton leg
* A loaded 30-wagon coal train typically weighs 2,000 tonnes (can carry
up to 1,460t of coal)
* KiwiRail normally runs four return coal trains Monday to Friday, two
on Saturday and one on Sunday, however this can vary depending on
customer demand. The average volume of coal however will not be
provided as this information is commercially sensitive to our
customers.
* We are unable to provide average fuel consumption for these journeys,
as this is commercially sensitive to KiwiRail and not broken down to
that granular level. KiwiRail operates a mix of diesel and electric
locomotives (although not in the South Island) 160 of our mainline
locomotives are diesel, 15 are electric and all of our shunt
locomotives are diesel.

With the mixture of propulsion types, and the additional usage of diesel
locomotives for our scenic services the fuel consumption by freight
services alone is unable to be easily separated out.
We can however advise the annual fuel consumption for our total locomotive
fleet is 43,863,550 L per year, and our mainline locomotive fleet travel a
combined 14,422,949 km per year, or an average of 82,419 km per locomotive
per year – which will hopefully give you an idea of the rough numbers on
fuel consumption.
 
Kind regards
Dave
 
Dave Allard  | Senior Government Relations Advisor
DDI: 027 201 8182
Level 4, Wellington Railway Station, Bunny Street, Wellington 6011 | PO
Box 593, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
[1]www.kiwirail.co.nz
 
 

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