KiwiRail strikes deal for logs

LOG HAUL: The KiwiRail deal will mean fewer logging trucks on the roads.

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About 2000 fewer trucks will travel to Wellington's CentrePort after state-owned KiwiRail struck a deal with WPI Timber.

A disused railway siding at WPI Timber's Tangiwai timber mill will be re-established and minor adjustments made to existing freight services to shift the freight from road to rail.

The export timber will be carried on the existing daily rail service that runs to and from the nearby Karioi Pulp Mill, also owned by WPI.

"The switch to rail, using an existing freight service, will mean around 2000 fewer truck movements a year, and associated environmental benefits," KiwiRail's commercial general manager Aaron Temperton said.

The new business was made possible by comparatively modest investment in infrastructure, he said.

Ontrack, the infrastructure arm of KiwiRail, expects to have the siding ready for use by mid-May.

It has also leased land to the mill for loading space. A new transit store will be built next to the siding to ensure the timber is kept undercover before it is loaded onto the wagons.

The mill expects to move about 50,000 cubic metres of sawn timber each year.

WPI has sought funding from the New Zealand Transport Agency to assist with financing the initiative.

WPI is a subsidiary of Ernslaw One, the fourth largest forestry owner in New Zealand.

KiwiRail is also optimistic a loss-making rail line it runs one train a week on, between Napier and Gisborne, can be improved at minimum cost to carry higher containers and attract new business.

Given the Napier to Gisborne line's scenic location, it is an obvious candidate for a cycleway to boost tourism at a time when the Government is investigating an idea of a national cycleway.

"We run one train a week because we don't want to not run a service, but we run one train a week and lose money," said Mr Temperton.

KiwiRail will soon run a trial on the line to identify how much work is needed to be able to put high cube containers on the line. They are 2.9m high. Work on the network in the lower North Island in the last year or so has removed blockages to such containers.

The new business KiwiRail is eyeing includes the proposed Hikurangi Forest Farms veneer and plywood mill, which has resource consents, and could be operating by late 2011, as well as other forestry industry clients.

KiwiRail has also been talking to horticulture customers who want high-cube containers.

"It appears from our simulations that it could be a quite straightforward and cost-effective option to lower the tracks a bit to allow us to accommodate high-cubes," he said.

KiwiRail believed there were two pinch points in two tunnels and removing them would only cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

There are now no high-cube restrictions on rail in the central region of New Zealand.

A high-cube capability on the Napier to Gisborne line would increase freight to ports for exports and also improve flows onto the national domestic rail network. NZPA