Rail link still closed as flood repairs continue
Rail links north from Timaru remain severed more than a week after heavy flooding in a number of South Canterbury rivers.
KiwiRail said its bridges across the Temuka and Orari rivers and Coopers Creek were damaged in the flooding and repair work was underway.
‘‘Staff are working to re-open the line as quickly as possible, and there are no delays to the repair work,’’ Mark Heissenbuttel, Kiwirail’s general manager of South Island operations, said.
KiwiRail hopes to have the line open later this week with repairs to the Orari railway bridge starting on Wednesday.
The most northern of the three damaged bridges – Cooper’s Creek – is only eight kilometres south of the 350-metre section of the line at Rangitata that was washed out in the December 2019 floods and cost $1 million to reinstate.
Heissenbuttel, when asked to compare the 2019 and 2021 events, said ‘‘the 2019 floods were more localised, and in 2021 the damage is spread across a wider area’’.
With rail links out of action, businesses have been looking to use roads, to the north and south, that were also affected by the weather event.
Hilton Haulage’s chief executive Scott Crampton said they were doing their best to deal with the additional volume and to meet the clients’ demands, but there had been no serious logistical issues.
Wendy Smith, chief executive for the South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce said the railway line closure had caused major logistical issues and goods had to be moved onto trucks for transport.
Nigel Davenport, Venture Timaru’s chief executive, said the flooding highlighted the need for more robust and fit for purpose transportation links.
‘‘As (Timaru District) mayor (Nigel) Bowen recently stated, South Canterbury is a significant contributor to national GDP and as such it is absolutely critical we are able to get our raw materials and supplies in, and then our finished products out to national and global markets, with as minimal interruptions as possible.
‘‘Having roading and rail networks effected to the extent they were is far from ideal and we need a genuine and urgent commitment from all key parties to improve resiliency – starting with central Government,’’ Davenport said.
‘‘Road, rail, sea and air are all parts of this resiliency solution and we strongly believe the establishment of a coastal shipping service needs to be an integral part of these such discussions.
‘‘Commencing well before the recent floods, we continue our engagement with key stakeholders who like us see the real need for a reliable and committed coastal shipping service,’’ he said.
A spokesperson for Oceania Dairy near Glenavy said ‘‘whilst the railway closures are very problematic and tested our company’s agility for the most part, we were able to come up with alternative arrangements and accommodate delays with some but not a major impact’’.
‘‘Oceania Dairy has a good end-to-end supply chain system, safety stock level and all contingency plan in place, with no significant impact on the overall supply chain.’’
The company said, however, that export stock was exported through the port at Dunedin via both rail and trucks.
Fonterra’s Clandeboye dairy factory operations manager Steve McKnight said their ‘‘supply chain has been relatively unaffected by the recent flooding with minor disruption managed effectively on the ground’’.
‘‘We don’t anticipate any material impact to our export volumes out of Timaru,’’ McKnight added.