Work starts on Wairoa forestry rail link
WORK HAS ALREADY STARTED ON RE-INSTATING THE NAPIER TO Wairoa rail link to provide an alternative to trucking logs from East Coast forests now starting to be harvested.
Just days after Forestry Minister, Shane Jones announced Government funding for bringing the rail line back into service, as part of the $3billion Provincial Growth Fund, contractors were cutting back vegetation at Eskdale to clear the tracks and will be working north over coming weeks.
Then work begins on the line’s drain and culverts, says KiwiRail Acting Group General Manager Network Services Henare Clarke.
The aim is to have the first log train run from Wairoa to Napier port by the end of the year after a six-year gap when the track was mothballed as a result of storm damage.
The Government has allocated $5 million to the project, which is expected to take two years to fully complete.
About 11,000 hectares of forest planted around Wairoa are already starting to reach harvest age as the ‘Wall of Wood’ comes on stream and the rail line will take pressure off the winding Wairoa-Napier road and make it safer.
“Moving logs by rail takes pressure off the roads and reduces greenhouse gases – each tonne of freight carried by rail instead of heavy trucks means 66% fewer carbon emissions,” says KiwiRail Chief Executive, Peter Reidy.
“The Wairoa-Napier road is not designed to cope with the growing volumes of logs now that the ‘Wall of Wood’ is coming on stream. Rail is the ideal way of getting that timber to overseas customers.
“We have estimated that using the Wairoa-Napier line to move the logs could take up to 5,714 trucks a year off the road and reduce carbon emissions by 1292 tonnes.”
Funds from the Provincial Growth Fund will also be used to improve transport of logs in other regions.
In Whanganui, $3 million will be made available to upgrade the rail line for locomotives carrying exports and about $3 million will go to revitalisation of Whanganui Port. Also, $250,000 each will be spent on feasibility studies for rail in Kawerau, Southland and New Plymouth, with the aim of getting more logs shipped by train.
Meanwhile, Northland is receiving $17.5m in the first round of funding for several projects that include the forestry sector, such a feasibility project to investigate the viability of a rail link connecting to Auckland to Marsden Point Wharf, which could take logs from several forests along the route. Roads, too, are being upgraded. A pilot scheme to grow Totara commercially is also being funded.