Minister for Rail, Winston Peters, has welcomed KiwiRail’s identification of three potential construction partners for a ‘design sprint’ to provide low-cost design options for the 19-kilometre Marsden Point Rail Link.
The three companies are infrastructure builders, Acciona, a Downer/HEB joint venture, and Martinus Rail.
“The companies will focus on further refinement of rail alignment to reduce earthworks volume, optimising the construction sequencing, investigating the other options to deal with ground conditions, and exploring different bridge and level crossing options, among various options,” said Mr Peters.
“Just as we have done with the ferries, our no-nonsense approach to infrastructure knows no boundaries,” he said.
The Minister said it was “blindingly obvious” that Northport requires a rail connection, and more specifically for a port identified by the major shipping lines as critical to New Zealand’s export future.
“The previous Government allocated $410 million, seemingly at random because they did so without any clue of the design or costs and subsequently received a billion dollar estimate from KiwiRail,” he said.
“Since resuming responsibility for Rail we have overhauled the Marsden Point Rail Link process with KiwiRail opening its design data to the market who put forward their own designs (at their cost) to identify cheaper ways of building the line, which both we and KiwiRail have welcomed.”
