The Railway Technical Society of Australasia – New Zealand Chapter invites you to join them for their mid-year get together, in-person (Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington) and online. This year includes presentation on the Economics of Rail in New Zealand as well as a presentation from the Remutaka Tunnel Upgrade team.

Click here to register on the Engineering New Zealand website!

Overview

The Economics of Rail – The Economics of Rail was estimated in 2021 as $1.7b-$2.1b a year.  Garry Whale will talk about KiwiRail’s contribution to the New Zealand economy from recent works done for the Ministry of Transport. A focus will be given to how that works has been used in analysis of the rail freight network and how it contributes to decisions to support future funding for the overall infrastructure needs to the New Zealand rail network.

Garry Whale is an economist by profession, and has 35 years of interacting at a Senior Executive and Board level on performance and strategy development.  Garry has been at KiwiRail since its inception in 2008 and has a variety of roles in rail freight, long term financial modelling, strategic analysis, pricing and network economics.

Remutaka Tunnel Upgrade was holed through 70 years ago. Since then, the track has slowly degraded, and TSR’s have been placed upon the tunnel to stretch its lifespan.  The objective of the Remutaka Tunnel Upgrade is to bring this aging asset in to the 21st century, returning the track to line speed, and improving the safety and overall reliability of this section of the Wairarapa Line.

Tim Marsland-Smith has a civil engineering background, joining the KiwiRail Long Tunnels programme as a Project Engineer on the Remutaka Project in August 2022.

David Sauvageon joined the KiwiRail Project team in 2021 and has been extensively involved with Wairarapa Line catch up renewals and assisted with the NIMT T1 and T2 Renewal works.

‘Titan Contracting Group Ltd is a New Zealand Pasifika owned specialist rail, survey and civils company delivering nationwide.  They have the biggest resource of rail qualified and competent track and rail protection staff and rail specialist plant outside of KiwiRail.

Event program

• 5:00pm: Onsite Locations guests welcome to arrive – drinks and nibbles provided
  5.30pm: Presentations & Online will begin
• 7:00pm: event concludes

• In-person (Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington) and Online
  • Auckland: Beca Auckland – Level 1, 21 Pitt Street, Auckland
  • Christchurch: Beca Christchurch, ANZ Centre, Level 2, 267 High Street, Christchurch
  • Wellington: Engineering New Zealand, L6/40 Taranaki Street, Wellington