With buses replacing Wairarapa trains for a month over summer, regional councillors are pushing for passengers to be “as comfortable as possible”.
By Emily Ireland of Local Democracy Reporting
The Wairarapa Line would be closed from December 26 while essential rail upgrades were carried out by KiwiRail.
Passengers will need to take the "vomit-inducing" bus ride over Remutaka Hill – as one councillor described it – until the full Wairarapa train service resumed on January 26.
Over that time, new level crossing safety barriers were planned to go live, along with a new signalling system that enabled more trains to travel on the line.
The extended closure meant all the equipment could be switched on and thoroughly tested in preparation for the new Tūhono trains from 2028/29.
At a Greater Wellington Regional Council meeting on Thursday, councillor Quentin Duthie said bus replacements for the Wairarapa Line were "always challenging" because it was such a long journey from Masterton over the Remutaka Hill to Wellington.
"The comfortable coaches are not compliant with accessibility stuff, but if you put on a compliant bus, it is a bone-shaking and vomit-inducing ride over the hill," he said.
"How are we approaching this, knowing that it is always going to be substandard?
"How can we make it as comfortable as possible."
He added that passengers were "already getting an inferior service" and felt they should be getting a discount – "and we can’t afford that".
Staff responded that the plan was to have the coaches plus the accessible bus for the Wairarapa Line passengers.
The coaches were not Snapper-enabled, and councillors were concerned the information on how to tag on and off them was unclear.
Duthie said the council was "asking for a lot of tolerance from our passengers" and made several recommendations that were approved unanimously.
The recommendations included requests for timely surveys of bus-replacing-train (BRT) passengers, and options for improved communication about how and where to pay fares for BRT services.
He asked that these be available in the Public Transport Committee’s November report.
"The set of recommendations is to show that we care and show we are doing everything we can," Duthie said.
From December 26 up to and including January 4, there would be no trains between Wellington and Masterton and bus replacements would run the whole way.
From January 5 up to and including January 25, trains would run between Wellington and Upper Hutt while bus replacements would continue between Upper Hutt and Masterton.
Wairarapa councillor John Hart said the summer works would be a large disruption to Wairarapa commuters but acknowledged the long-term benefits.
He said he was concerned about the impact on Wairarapa commuters who he labelled "a hardy bunch" and noted the service currently had "impressively bad punctuality".
Latest performance data from Metlink showed only 44% of Wairarapa Line services were punctual in August.
– LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
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