Here we are at the end of the year. Thanks for bearing with us these past months. We know our work has created disruption at times, and we’re grateful for your patience. The good news is we’ve made great headway, and are a whole lot closer to getting your railway ready for a more reliable service, with faster and more frequent trains from 2029. 

 These past twelve months we have: 

• completed the civil works at 10 level crossings.
• laid 25.3 kilometres of of ducting for service cables 
• laid 1,450 sleepers
• replaced 2 kilometres of new track, sleepers and ballast inside Remutaka Tunnel.

This summer we'll finish the job of completely renewing the line inside Remutaka Tunnel. We’ve been replacing sections of track, around 200 metres at a time, over several weekends through the year. It’s been good practice, giving us the opportunity to test new equipment, streamline processes, and get our team ready for the main event. We’re currently around 2km into the job, with the remaining 6.8km to do.

The line will be closed with bus replacements operating between 26 December and 9 February.  Read more...  

In Masterton we’re not far from completing civil works for Hillcrest and Cornwall Street level crossings, and are underway at Kent Street in Carterton. Some of the enabling work is also happening now at Akura Road and Ngaumutawa Road. 

From January we get into the next big tranche of upgrades, kicking off on 13 January with Renall Street and Ngaumutawa Road in Masterton, Carterton’s Belvedere Road, and work continues at Kent Street.

Read more...

KiwiRail Project Engineer Niclas Wagner says one of the great pleasures he gets from his role is working with local contractors. Family business Diamond Civil has been on the Wairarapa job from the start, trenching and installing ducting which Niclas describes as the ‘bread and butter’ of their work. 

But they’re doing much more – picking up the latest digital technology, including high tech software used by some of the big contractors. 

Diamond Civil Contract Manager Ian Wood explains how the Wairarapa work is opening up opportunities.  Read more...

A ‘gamefication app’ involving an online avatar called Amy helped teach students at Ōpaki School about being safe at level crossings. Just north of Masterton, many of the community’s young people cross the tracks to get to school. While this part of the line doesn’t have daily commuter trains there are plenty of maintenance trains moving up and down. Read more...

'Rerailing' involves replacing all of the old 91lb rail with new 50kg rail. Some of the old line isn't completely past its useful life, so the team has found a way to reuse it. 

"We identified that the old 91lb rail could be re-used for the new passing loop at Woodside," says Senior Project Engineer James Rees Philips. "This takes away the need to buy new rail, and we used work trains to pick-up the old rail and drop it off at Woodside. 

That comes to a saving of 280 tonnes of carbon (CO2-e), or the equivalent of 50 return flights from Auckland to London.

Nice one!