Auckland Transport won’t accept an offer from Waikato councils for the Te Huia rail service to pick up train-less passengers in Pukekohe for the trip to and from Auckland, during the months-long closure of the AT Metro train service.

The refusal of the Waikato offer continues a “trend of difficulties” the Waikato council sponsors of the Te Huia service have had in their dealings with Auckland Transport, and “unnecessarily deprives south Auckland residents of the option of continuing to use rail to access inner Auckland,” said Hamilton City Councillor Ewan Wilson.

Planned track upgrade work by Kiwirail has meant the Southern Line down as far as Pukekohe will not be available for nearly two years for regular AT Metro train services into Auckland for passengers from the Pukekohe and Papakura areas, although the inter-regional Te Huia (twice daily) and Northern Explorer services will continue to run on weekdays and some Saturdays.

Cr Wilson and Cr Dave Macpherson, Hamilton City representatives on the Te Huia service’s governance group, said they “cannot understand why AT has spurned our offer to support Pukekohe rail passengers during this period”.

“We’re not asking AT for any money, we’re just wanting to offer the spare capacity we do have on Te Huia trains to support Auckland City residents who want to continue to use the rail option for their commuting into the City,” the pair said.

“It really is quite silly of AT not to sit down with us and talk about how we can help their own customers – they’ve offered up some incredibly weak reasons as to why they don’t want to allow it,” said Cr Macpherson, “and they certainly haven’t consulted their own passengers. It’s just a continuation of the obstacles they have put in front of Te Huia from before it even started.”

Cr Wilson pointed out that Te Huia’s just-released September passenger figures “continue the upward trend, with the month returning the highest non-holiday average number of passengers on weekdays since Te Huia started.”

“If Auckland Transport waits too long to take up our offer of help, we mightn’t have any room on the train left to help them!” he commented.

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