Wellington commuters who regularly use our local trains live with the day to day realities of the last National government’s disastrous decision to privatise what was then NZ Rail. Between its sale and eventual buy-back in 2008, very little was spent on upgrading or even maintaining rail services. Some of the trains running on Wellington’s rail lines are literally museum pieces.
The last Labour government started to repair some of that damage. For example the new trains that will start arriving in Wellington later this year were purchased only after central government stumped up most of the cash. The problems that have plagued our local trains over recent months are largely due to the huge backlog of maintenance and upgrading that’s now being done. Had it been done over the past decade and a half we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.
Like a lot of Wellingtonians, I’m disappointed the new National-led government seem to have so little faith in rail. From the outside looking in it seems as though they want it to fail so that they can carve it up, sell it off, or close it down. They’re now talking about closing down regional lines, what a sell-out. Freight within NZ is expected to increase by up to 75% in the next 20 years – does National want to see all of that going onto the roads?
