The 2024/25-2026/27 Rail Network Investment Programme has been finalised, providing $1.360 billion over three years with infrastructure investment that backs provincial New Zealand, Rail Minister Winston Peters says.

“When the taxpayer builds an asset, we expect it to be used for the benefit of our economy and not wasting away on the side of the road, which is why we are focussed on a no-nonsense rebuild of the railways,” Mr Peters says.

“Since the first railway was laid in 1863, rail has built New Zealand into an export nation connecting the hinterland to ports and communities to each other.

“Regional summaries of the work show the extent of work by track teams across New Zealand, relaying long lengths of rail, replacing ballast rock and sleepers, enlarging culverts to guard against floods and washouts, protecting bridges and slopes from erosion, and improving the telecommunication systems that manage the national signalling network.

 “This is the type of basic day-to-day investment that makes the economy work – grunt work that gets our exports to the rest of the world.

“In 2020 when last responsible for rail, we changed the law to fund rail like roads by establishing a three-yearly Rail Network Investment Programme funding maintenance, renewals and network operations – rebuilding our rail infrastructure sleeper by sleeper after decades of dereliction.

“Our network investment is bolstered by brand new train control centres in Upper Hutt and Auckland, resilient to natural disasters, which were built thanks to our investment when previously responsible for rail, accompanying thousands of new wagons, shunts and locomotives to underpin a thriving rail company. 

“And we have secured rail ferries for another generation. 

“When we talk about sleepers, we mean what sits under the rails, not those in Parliament,” Mr Peters says.