1950s technology behind Hutt Valley train delays
Technology that failed on the Hutt Valley train line dates back to the World War II-era.
The signals fault on February 19 and 20 temporarily cut power to the entire Hutt Valley line. It was soon isolated to the Upper Hutt to Ava section. While trains could still run, there were delays.
KiwiRail has now, under the Official Information Act, released the reasons for the hiccup. The failure of a buried section of the Hutt Valley signals power supply resulted in three signals losing power, KiwiRail said.
‘‘This power supply system dates from 1949 to 1955. The cable is beyond its expected life and is prone to failure.
‘‘Its failure was a consequence of its age and its obsolete design, which leaves it prone to physical disturbance. Work is under way to renew the line.’’
Those dates – later clarified by KiwiRail as being during the 1950s – mean the technology dates back to when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was alive, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was born, and the Wahine was yet to enter service.
The response noted the outage came around the same time as Cyclone Gita, when KiwiRail was also dealing with another failure.
The need to renew the power supply was first identified in 2010 but Crown funding was first used to fix even older systems on the Ka¯ piti line and the Petone to Ava section of the Hutt Valley line.
February’s failure was further north, between Ava and Woburn.
There was now Crown funding to replace that section and work – costing $3 million and to include other improvements – was under way and would be completed in the next 18 months, a KiwiRail spokesman said.
‘‘Signals are designed to fail safe. This means that any failure will result in trains being prevented from entering the section ahead,’’ KiwiRail said.
‘‘A blacked-out signal is treated the same as a red signal, so there was no danger of collision as a result of the failure.’’