Chief Operations Officer Siva Sivapakkiam says:
“KiwiRail’s Track Evaluation Car has travelled down from Auckland and is currently in Palmerston North.
“Tonight (1 May) it will begin assessing one of the two tracks on the Kāpiti Line (between Wellington and Waikanae),
with the aim for it to assess the other track tomorrow night (2 May).”
“KiwiRail infrastructure crews are ready to urgently repair any track issues that may be found.
“Later this week we should be able to lift the 70km/h speed restriction that was placed on the Kāpiti Line today.
“We are keeping Metlink informed of progress.
“At night, over the course of this week the Track Evaluation Car will be assessing the Hutt Valley/Wairarapa Line,
Johnsonville Line and Melling Line, to avoid the need for blanket speed restrictions being applied on those lines. We
expect the entire Wellington metro network to have been assessed by the end of Friday (5 May).
“I apologise again to the people of the Wellington region for this disruption. We are working as hard as we can to get
the work done, so that services can return to normal as quickly as possible.”
The Track Evaluation Car has to work at night when other trains are not running on the network.
While the Kāpiti Line blanket speed restriction is in place the Capital Connection (Palmerston North – Wellington) is
experiencing delays of about 15 - 20 minutes. The Northern Explorer (Auckland – Wellington scenic train) is expected to
operate close to scheduled times, with delays of just 10 – 15 minutes predicted for its 10.5 hour journey.
Given freight trains can only travel up to 80km/h on the Wellington metro network, there is expected to be minimal
impact to freight services travelling on the Kāpiti Line.
KiwiRail
04 498 2038