KiwiRail

Back in 2024, our caring team at Hutt Workshops built their very own meat smoker as a tasty way to help their community.

Each month they run a staff barbecue, with the profits going to a local charity of their choice.

Last week, they were pleased to donate $1,000 to Wellington Free Ambulance.

Since the smoker has been in service, Hutt Workshops has donated a total of $13,000 to local charities including Te Omanga Hospice, Cancer Society, Caring Families, and the Amaryllis Huntington’s Disease group.

Ka pai team!

Last week, we joined our iwi partners, the Transport Rebuild East Coast (TREC) alliance, and local contractors to mark the completion of Cyclone Gabrielle repairs on the Palmerston North to Napier section of rail line.

During the cyclone, flooding and high winds damaged bridge piers and embankments, culverts, and ballast, and washed out sections above and below the track that needed stabilising.

Since 2023, we’ve repaired 25 sites between Napier and Palmerston North, replaced 10 culverts (large drainage pipes), renewed damaged ballast, and completed additional work to keep the line safe further north.

We marked the milestone with a blessing at Bridge 217 over the Tūtaekurī River near Awatoto, which was the final completed recovery site. The bridge, badly damaged during the cyclone, was reopened in 2023 with temporary repairs.

This year, we’ve replaced spans, removed unnecessary piers to improve river flow, applied corrosion protection, and restored the river berms.

A huge thank you goes out to all involved. This has been a true partnership with iwi, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, contractors, and the local community to keep the rail network running for our customers.

🚆 The third batch of three new DM locomotives arrived at Lyttelton Port on Friday and have been taken to our Middleton Depot to begin their testing and commissioning journey.

🏗️ The new DMs were built by Stadler in Valencia, Spain. This delivery is part of KiwiRail’s order of 66 new locomotives, including 47 new DMs for the South Island, made possible through significant Government investment.

🛠️ Over the next four to six weeks, KiwiRail and Stadler will focus on preparing the locomotives for operation. Following this initial phase, the units will move onto the mainline for further testing.

✅ There are four of these new DMs already in service across the South Island, actively hauling freight for our customers, and, so far, the feedback has been great.

🌟 We’re excited to see these locomotives, once commissioned, further strengthen our reliability and resilience across both freight operations and Great Journeys New Zealand services.

📸 Phil Hopkins

🚆 The annual Federation of Rail Organisations of New Zealand - FRONZ conference was held in Auckland last weekend.

🤝 The event brings together rail organisations from across the country to share knowledge, strengthen networks, and support the advancement of the industry.

🏆 KiwiRail was a gold sponsor of this year’s conference and our Heritage Integration Advisor, Karen Binnie, presented the KiwiRail Infrastructure Improvement Award.

🎉 Huge congratulations to this year’s joint recipients: Gisborne City Vintage Railway, for their new boarding platform, and Glenbrook Vintage Railway (GVR), for their North Yard retaining wall and siding project.

👏 We’re honoured to be a part of this amazing event and congratulate all of the award winners and nominees.

Photo taken by Lindsay Benbrook.

🚉 The Northern Explorer, Capital Connection, and KiwiRail freight services all operate through Palmerston North Station, making it a key transport hub.

🧑‍🎨 Seeing an opportunity to enhance our customers’ experience, we invited Feilding artist Joe Mcmenamin to create a series of murals throughout the station.

🤩 Joe completed 22 murals on the block walls behind the platform seating. The designs transform what was once a grey, concrete space by bringing nature to life. Native flora and fauna create a peaceful environment, while also showcasing services that operate through the region and reinforcing important rail safety messages.

🎨 He says the mural process, while unique, went smoothly. “It was a buzz – while I was painting, passengers would disembark from trains, and suddenly I had an audience of art admirers.”

🫶 Thank you, Joe, for brightening up the station environment. We hope passengers enjoy these murals for years to come.

🎉 Only six months after work began at Ngākōroa Railway Station, we’ve reached a major milestone with three 26-tonne, 20-metre beams installed to form the pedestrian overbridge.

🏗️ During the King’s Birthday rail closure, crews used a 450-tonne crane to lift the beams into place, installed reinforced steel, poured the concrete bridge slab, and drilled hydrant pipes (used to transport high-pressure water for firefighting) underneath the track. A huge thanks to our teams and contractors for their hard mahi over the long weekend.

🤝 Work across all the Drury Rail Stations is progressing well, with major construction at Drury and Paerātā now mostly complete. Testing and commissioning works are underway to ensure the stations are safe and ready for use when open to the public.

🙏 We appreciate the community’s ongoing patience as we prepare to open Drury and Paerātā in the next few months, with Ngākōroa to follow in 2027.

Some of our older diesel shunts are being retired to make way for electric to cut emissions and modernise our operations.

At Hutt Workshops, a 110 tonne capacity electric shunt vehicle (ESV) from Zagro is already proving its value and delivering quieter operations, lower costs, zero tailpipe emissions, and improved productivity.

A win for our people, our environment and our network.

🦺 This King’s Birthday weekend, KiwiRail is taking on several major maintenance projects to keep the Wellington and Auckland metro networks in top condition for passengers and our customers.

🤝 Work will also continue at the Naenae and Tawa substations, the Henderson Station project, and wider preparations across the Auckland network ahead of the City Rail Link opening later this year.

💪 We are looking forward to seeing the progress our teams make over the weekend.

⚠️ For journey planning info in Auckland, please visit: https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/journey-planner | for Wellington: Metlink | https://www.metlink.org.nz/journey-options