KiwiRail plan shortsighted
Transport Minister Simon Bridges has bought himself an electric car. The rail workers’ union says that’s ironic, because at the same time he’s supporting the end of electric trains on the North Island main trunk line. ‘‘If Bridges is sold on the benefit of electric vehicles why isn’t he sold on the benefits of electric locomotives?’’ says Rail and Maritime Transport Union general secretary Wayne Butson.
There’s something to this. Good on Bridges for buying an electric car, and introducing incentives for others to do the same. Together with his support for urban cycleways and certain major public transport projects, it shows he can think beyond motorways. But why has he been so content to support KiwiRail’s Christmas announcement that it will go for an all-diesel fleet?
The case for doing so is unsatisfying, and one that seems to be based on a short-term financial payoff rather than a balanced view of the national interest. In an age of growing urgency around action on climate change, can it really be wise to buy a fleet of trains that will substantially push up KiwiRail’s carbon emissions?
Bridges say it’s an operational call, and therefore not his to meddle in, but it’s his Government that has set the tone for both rail funding and climate change policy.
With a more serious system of disincentives for greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, would KiwiRail have made the same call?
With a more long-term commitment to rail as a transport mode, would its leaders have thought differently?
As it is, the KiwiRail case is a collection of loosely-connected arguments: that it’s awkward and timeconsuming to have to change between diesel and electric locomotives through the middle of the North Island at present; that fully electrifying the line would be too expensive; that diesel trains are cheaper to buy and quicker to introduce than electric equivalents; and that moving freight off roads and on to rail is an effective way of cutting emissions. It’s nearly convincing, but not quite. Fully electrifying the line, for instance, would cost $1 billion. But the Transmission Gully road alone, one small stretch of State Highway 1, will cost $850m. For a major piece of infrastructure, is the rail electrification so expensive?
Diesel trains can be procured more quickly, but mostly because KiwiRail has ordered them from China relatively recently. A longer-term view might place relatively little weight on the precise introduction date.
The climate change pitch – that an all-diesel network will see more freight move from trucks to trains – is a speculative one. A more aggressive approach to curbing emissions would stick with clean trains in the first place.
Even on the question of cost, there is considerable doubt. KiwiRail says the diesel trains are 25 per cent cheaper than electric ones, but others have a different take. British Conservative MP and former transport secretary Justine Greening, speaking in 2012, said: ‘‘We all know that diesel is massively expensive so if we can move over to electric trains, not only are they greener, they’re also cheaper and also they are lighter ... so maintenance costs go down too.’’
Buying a host of diesel trains in 2017 is a strikingly counter-intuitive move. The case for doing it would need to be rock solid. It doesn’t seem to be.
Even on the question of cost, there is considerable doubt.