Very grateful to the Greater Wellington staff who led this procurement and to Horizons Regional Council and the other partner organisations and legal / technical advisors. The support of various Ministers over the years, including current Transport Minister Chris Bishop, has been critical. 4/

Yeah same - my family in Palmy too and this will be absolutely brilliant for day trips and also more flexible overnight trips. So good!

The new trains, named Tūhono for their role in connecting and uniting people in the lower North Island, will be the first battery electric trains in the Southern Hemisphere. Alstom will also support local jobs and local business and help develop capacity for NZ’s rail industry. 3/

There’s a bright future for passenger rail in NZ and, once we get past some of the unfortunate preconceived ideas about road vs rail and allow reason and economics do the talking, we will be able to offer more and better transport options for people that greatly improve their everyday lives. 2/

Precisely - we need to keep pointing out that anybody who promotes residential development that expands linear infrastructure ahead of residential development that uses existing infrastructure is actively putting upwards pressure on council rates.

Yes, it’s very simple and just as politicians like to ask their opponents “how are you going to pay for it?” the same question needs to be answered by politicians calling for more sprawling residential developments where the cost of infrastructure per dwelling is so much higher than the alternative.

We can only do that if the government owned rail tracks are open for us to run trains on.

You can’t vote for me because I’m not standing again and also I don’t live in Wairarapa (if that’s where you live). Nobody has done more to advocate for fixing the Wairarapa line than current councillor Adrienne Staples, who is very much worthy of votes and campaign support in Wairarapa.

Here is the most detailed recent update with quite a lot of facts about the situation. We (Metlink, which is the Regional Council) asked Transdev (the company that operates the trains and employs train staff) to prepare this plan. This was an unacceptable failure of workforce planning in our view.

Expecting some news on this in the next few weeks. Things tracking well and obviously significant purchase with lots of elements including KiwiRail upgrades, so plenty of scrutiny and due diligence being applied.

Here’s a write up of the survey from Ellen O’Dwyer at RNZ. We want to deliver top notch service in the AM and PM peaks. We’d like to do more, but nailing the peaks is achievable, so that’s our focus: www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa.... 5/

We have a lot of work to do on the Metlink side too, as the public transport authority. In particular providing much better bus replacement services (we now have a detailed plan in place for this), continually improving our operational communications and ensuring strong workforce planning. 4/

We do need to improve asset management for rail in NZ. Decades of imbalanced transport investment favouring gold plated motorways over basic passenger rail means results take time to flow through, but rail users should expect more from the major public investment in recent years. 3/

Once the government brings its tracks up to a standard that will allow us as the public transport agency to run punctual, reliable passenger rail services, patronage will go up, just like it has with buses, and everyone will benefit, including drivers enjoying fewer cars on the road. 2/

Thank you!!

Thank you! Your support has meant a lot over the years Jackie. I am not standing this time, but the best way to support my work in Wellington on the regional council is to support @yadana.bsky.social and @henrypeach.bsky.social who are both brilliant in all the ways.