Trucking companies unsure about rail plan

Southland District Council mayor Gary Tong said he would ‘‘absolutely’’ be in favour of increasing the amount of logs transported by rail, if the plan was feasible.

Tong was speaking in response to a $250,000 government feasibility study into shifting forestry freight to rail in Southland, announced on Friday.

Tong said an increase in railway logging transport would ease the load on Southland’s roading infrastructure.

‘‘In areas around Tuatapere, there’s a lot of pressure on our gravel roads. There’s also a lot of pressure on our tar sealed roads in general, with the weight of the trucks driving over them.’’

With only a small amount of rail currently in use within the district, a large amount of new tracks would have to be built for the scheme to have any impact, he said.

‘‘It’s good that the work is going to be done [on the feasibility study], now we’ve just got to wait and see what they come back with.’’

Council chief executive Steve Ruru said the change would be ‘‘potentially desirable’’, but would require a lot of work on figuring out the logistics of where the freight was being transported.

Those within the logging transport industry have said it was unlikely an increase in rail usage would have a major effect on logging trucks.

D T Kings Transport Ltd general manager Grant Loader said it was difficult to see any increase in rail being economically feasible.

‘‘They used to do it years ago, but obviously it was more efficient to do it by road ... I think they’ll spend their money and find out it’s just not viable.

’’The costs would be ridiculous to put a rail head into every forest, and [the forests] move around so much as trees cycle and grow.

‘‘I’d like to think there would be a place for it, but I cannot see it as being as efficient as trucks these days, because we can go load and unload anywhere.’’

Loader said while rail was an option for more remote parts of the North Island, it didn’t make economic sense in Southland.

‘‘Of all of our carts, the top [travelling distance] would be about 120km. Now, if you were carting 200km or 300km, it becomes a different equation.’’

Loader said even if there was an increase in the amount of rail used for logging transport, there would still be a role for trucks to pick up the logs and take them to the rail heads.

HW Richardson Group director Scott O’Donnell, whose company has logging trucks on the roads, said it was ‘‘all about location of forests’’.

‘‘If you have got a forest at a rail head, it will work fine.’’

However he added: ‘‘No-one is going to have a rail head in the middle of a forest.’’

This means the logs would have to be transported out of the forests by trucks in the first instance.

‘‘It becomes hopeless to take them off a truck and put them onto rail unless those logs are going a big, big distance,’’ he said.

‘‘The lowest price seems to rule when it comes to logistics.’’

Investment into rail was a major feature in more than $40 million of regional spending announced by the Government.