New Zealand Minister for Rail, Rt Hon Winston Peters, has officially opened the new Waltham Maintenance Hub in Christchurch.
The Hub, which was built with a 110 million NZD Government investment; will aim to provide a modern, safe environment for staff handling maintenance duties on KiwiRail locomotives, wagons and passenger carriages used across the South Island.
The new mechanical maintenance building and eastern rail yard
© KiwiRail
KiwiRail Chief Executive Peter Reidy said:
The building will allow work on 24 different assets to be carried out at the same time, it has electronic safety systems to protect staff from any unplanned rail movements and is supported by enough solar panels to meet half of the site’s electricity needs.
Thanks to further significant Government support, we have ordered the new DM locomotives. Four have entered service in New Zealand now, with the rest to arrive in batches over the next two years.
The Waltham hub and the DMs are a game changer for KiwiRail’s South Island operations. Waltham ensures our maintenance crews have the capability to move to the preventative asset management approach needed to deliver consistent reliability of service for our customers.
More efficient maintenance, combined with more reliable locomotives will mean better and more timely services for our South Island customers. It is the crucial foundation that will allow us to get more of the island’s freight onto rail.
The event also saw a display featuring the first of 66 new, low emission and more powerful DM locomotives currently being built by Stadler in Spain – which the Government has invested 533 million NZD into so far. Of these 66, 47 (372 million NZD) will replace the aging South Island Locomotive fleet.
Both the Waltham Maintenance Hub and DM locomotives form part of a 1.2 billion NZD Government investment in South Island, which first began in 2019.