Please attribute to KiwiRail Chief Operations Officer Siva Sivapakkiam:
“KiwiRail is working hard to lift speed restrictions on the Wellington metro rail network in days, not weeks.”
“Our mechanical teams re-lathed the wheels of our specialist Track Evaluation Car (TEC) last night and are now in the process of reattaching monitoring equipment to the wheels.
“This means the TEC can leave our Auckland workshop early tomorrow morning and travel down the North Island Main Trunk Line to Palmerston North by tomorrow (Sunday) night.
“On Monday evening we will begin track assessments on the Kāpiti Line as it travels from Palmerston North to Wellington, with infrastructure teams ready to address any track issues found. We are focussed on repairing any track as quickly as possible, so are bringing in additional infrastructure teams from Palmerston North to support our Wellington crews.
"We are aiming to have completed assessments across the entire Wellington Metro Network by Friday night (5 May).
“Once the TEC assessments are complete, we will be able to lift the 70km/h blanket speed restriction on the Kāpiti Line and avoid the need to place blanket speed restrictions on any other lines in Wellington.
“Our TEC has been assessing the Wellington network three times a year for many years, without issue. KiwiRail works hard to maintain the national rail network, to support commuters and our freight customers, and we are committed to fixing this situation as soon as we can.
“I fully appreciate the disruption to normal commuter services people in Wellington will experience this week and apologise again for the inconvenience. If everything goes according to plan, we will have removed blanket speed restrictions by Friday night at the latest.”
For more information and background to issues on the Wellington Metro Network, please see the joint KiwiRail/Metlink press release issued yesterday:
KiwiRail speed restrictions on Wellington’s rail network during May | KiwiRail