Rail freight corridor reopening

The Picton to Christchurch rail freight line is reopening, reportedly taking 2000 trucks a month off the alternative State Highway 1.

The first freight train to run on the line has left Auckland and was expected to leave Picton about 1.30am overnight, stopping briefly in Kaiko¯ura before arriving in Christchurch this afternoon.

The reopening is expected to take pressure off the alternative SH1, which has been over-run with trucks since the rail corridor and adjacent SH1 closed on November 14 due to significant damage from the magnitude 7.8 tremor.

A KiwiRail spokesman said the two trains a night scheduled for the line were expected to take 2000 trucks a month off the alternative highway – a number questioned by some in the trucking industry.

The most recent New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) traffic figures showed average daily heavy vehicle traffic in St Arnaud jumped from 41 to 542 after the quake – an increase of 1216 per cent.

In the Lewis Pass, average daily heavy traffic went from 207 to 723 post-quake, while in Murchison it increased from 346 to 924. The average increase in heavy traffic across the route was about 530 vehicles a day.

NZTA earthquake recovery manager Tim Crow said diverting about 65 trucks a day from the alternative route was ‘‘extremely helpful’’.

Crow said the reduction would be a 10 per cent freight weight reduction, which would ‘‘have a beneficial effect in terms of maintenance’’.

He said the number might rise as KiwiRail’s freight service had ‘‘lightened the load on these upper South Island highways by 4000 trucks per month’’.

The KiwiRail spokesman said he was confident the rail operator’s numbers were right.

He said customers ‘‘had been quick to commit freight volumes back to rail’’ as the line played an important part in the supply chain between the North and South Islands and would lower the cost of moving freight.

But Road Transport Association chief executive Dennis Robertson said KiwiRail’s estimate of 2000 trucks of the road was ‘‘optimistic’’, at least in the short term.

‘‘It will reduce the trucking numbers, but to be honest I don’t think significantly so.’’

He said the way trucking operators had ‘‘geared up’’ and the contracts they had for carrying freight meant he thought things would not change much for some time.

There was a ‘‘major shortage’’ of drivers in the trucking industry, he said, so a reduction in truck freight would not lead to job losses.