End to long distance rail travel in the North Island (updated)

I am slightly sad that the Overlander (Wellington-Auckland train) is ceasing to operate from 30 September, if only because it is the end of the era of long distance rail travel in the North Island. Since 1908, when the main trunk line was opened, business, tourism and simple access between Auckland, Wellington, Palmerston North, Hamilton and numerous communities in between was facilitated by train. It took two days back then, but was down to 16 hours and today 11 hours. It has gone from 3-4 trains a day to only 1, and reached it peak in the 1960s, before the Boeing 737 and cheaper cars and better roads saw people drift from the rails. Businesspeople increasingly flew and families went by car, and with competition in the air from the 1980s, more people flew. Air fares have continued to plummet as Air NZ has worked to increase the size of the market and ironically - the state owned transport operator has killed off the operation of a privately owned one running on government owner track. However, the killing off has been due to demand - neither Air NZ's main trunk operations nor the Overlander are subsidised.

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I caught the Northerner and the Overlander, and its predecessor the Silverfern, several times as a student and as a child, as well as trains to and from Napier to visit relatives. It was a relaxing way to travel, and in recent years has been air conditioned, with reasonable food and comfortable seats - but alas, no more passenger trains on the Main Trunk line (outside Auckland and Wellington commuter runs).

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It is for good reason it is ending. It's unprofitable, and newer more comfortable buses undercut the train at the budget end, and cheap airfares at the top end. Certainly I've not thought about catching a train from Wellington to Auckland for around 14 years or so. The trip is also not really scenic enough to attract tourists, there are some great scenes in the central plateau but most of the trip between Wellington and Hunterville and Te Kuiti to Auckland is dead boring.

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The Greens are claiming that "peak oil" will bring it back, but they are dreaming. For starters, Toll can run the Palmerston North-Hamilton service with electric locomotives but it is not worth it. As I blogged about a few weeks ago, the high price of petrol is benefiting buses because they are newer and more fuel efficient - but there simply isn't enough people travelling Wellington to Auckland on a budget willing to take an 11 hour train trip. Flying is such an enormous time advantage that it is beyond belief that one would do anything else. Fortunately the Greens aren't asking for a subsidy but that the infrastructure be retained - since the main trunk line is one of the most profitable sections of railway for freight (on average a train every hour), I doubt it is at risk.

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By the way, do the Greens take the Overlander every time they travel between Auckland and Wellington and the centres in between? Honestly, do they?

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Anyway, if you want to take a trip before it goes, just to see the scenery or show your kids what its like to go on a big train (because you can be sure the last trips will be filled with rail nuts and Sue Kedgley catching the train for the first time, like she did with the Bay Express a week before it stopped), go here and get a ticket.

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UPDATE: The RMTU chief Wayne Butson wants you to subsidise his members’ jobs and those who want to catch the Overlander. Given you don’t subsidise the bus or airline companies that compete with it, why the hell should you subsidise the train? (the train was subsidised from the 70s through till 1988, when Prebble told the Railways that the government wasn’t into subsidising long distance passenger train travel, and suddenly the service improved dramatically, and it stopped losing money).
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Butson claims “We have a rail network which is supposed to pay its entire cost of operation through the operator at the same time as we have a national roading system which is available for any commercial entity to use at minimal cost when the vast burden of the infrastructure is paid for by the private motorist.” He is talking nonsense. The government is pouring taxpayers money ($200 million) into the rail network, which is hardly being paid by the operator. Given the train has largely lost out to airlines, the road network is only part of the competition and bus operators pay road user charges (which are not “minimal cost”) to use the highway. That RUC easily pays for the damage caused by the buses to the highway, a review carried out five years ago proved that.
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Fortunately, the Greens aren’t calling for it to be subsidised, which is surprising but good.

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UPDATE 2: The Waikato Times reports Hamilton East MP, David Bennett (National!) saying the government should intervene to ensure the Overlander continues! What sort of muppets are National getting selected as candidates? If Labour and the Greens wont "intervene" what the hell is a National MP asking for? Is he is in the right party?? Shouldn't Don Brash be giving him a right bollocking?

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UPDATE 3: Ruapehu District Council's Mayor wants you (through the government) to be forced to pay to subsidise the train, because its loss will cost jobs in the district. Yes it will. However, it is a privately provided service. Presumably the councillors concerned used the train several times a year? There is nothing stopping anyone else wanting to start a service on the route once Tranz Scenic has withdrawn. It is one reason, after all, why the government renationalised the rail network from Tranz Rail. So roll up, roll up, if you care, put your money where you mouth is - either invest in another train, or use it between now and September enough so it is worthwhile for Tranz Scenic to keep.

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UPDATE 4: Stuff report the subsidy Tranz Scenic sought to keep the Overlander was $1.75 million p.a. with a $0.5 million capital injection! That's over $32 per passenger. Dr Cullen was smart enough to say no. Jeanette Fitzsimons says the $120 million spent on maintaining the rail network is peanuts compared to roads - no shit sherlock - got a railway going to every house, every shop, every farm and every town?

High density housing and public transport not the answer

Not PC has done a great job of fisking the anti-sprawl dogma that completely dominates most NZ, Australian, UK and many US local authorities, who have taken on the mantra that says:

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1. The problem with cities is that people "drive too much" and use "too much land". They use too much energy.

2. Less land and less driving would occur if everyone lived closer together, and the places they want to go (work, shops, leisure) were all sited in centres.

3. People should lived in high density housing around corridors for public transport, which is a good thing, because it means people don't drive.

4. The best public transport is rail, because it just is, it doesn't involve roads. It is also the most expensive, but don't let that put you off, people like trains more so it is worth paying 3-4x the cost of buses. You need lots of people living close together near railway stations all wanting to go to the same places.

5. People buying big houses with sections on their own are bad, because it wastes land and energy, and they are far away from everyone else - this means they drive needlessly and are "dependent" on their cars. People in apartments living on top of each other are good, because the use less energy and can walk places more.

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What they ignore is that high density living doesn't mean people don't want cars, also because planners want you to live in an apartment doesn't mean you do. People still want houses and they don't want to live next to the railway.

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An article in the Toronto Globe and Mail by Margaret Wente continues to make the point:

"The idea that people will use public transit to get to work ignores the fact that most people don't want to live near their work. And because people are so mobile, they no longer have to. On top of that, people use their cars for much more than commuting. According to one study, 20 per cent of all trips by auto are for work, 20 per cent for shopping, and 60 per cent for things that are "social." The idea that public transit can replace the car in people's busy lives is a fantasy."

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Indeed it is, you see public transport can be sustainable and profitable (unsubsidised). Half of the buses in Auckland used to be like that, until the ARC started pouring money into rail and making some of the bus routes no longer viable. Hong Kong and Singapore's metros make profits. The London Underground is not far short of breaking even too.

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PC blogged about the book by Robert Bruegmann: Sprawl a Compact History. Margaret Wente quotes from it:

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"Very few people believe that they themselves live in sprawl. Sprawl is where other people live, particularly people with less taste and good sense than themselves. Much anti-sprawl activism is based on a desire to reform these other people's lives"

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Indeed, and Wente herself is pretty good on figuring out what the solutions to urban air pollution and congestion actually are. She said:

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"If we really wanted to tackle smog and congestion, we wouldn't be fantasizing about massive new investments in public transit. We'd be investing in transportation infrastructure, less polluting fuels, more intelligent roads and vehicles with sensors to control traffic flows, peak-time user fees and more flexible forms of public and private transport, such as group taxis. But you won't find the planners talking about these things because, to do so, they would have to concede defeat to the unwholesome lure of the automobile -- to say nothing of the overwhelming preference of the public. And that would be very, very wicked."

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Given I have heard one of the Green Party's key advisors on transport say that anyone who owned a car with an engine above 1.3 litres is evil, then I find it hard to believe that those on a mission to promote trains and not roads, are simply just on a crusade. Private transport is hear to stay, it is roads that need to be managed better.

Market working again! *sigh*

According to Stuff new large car sales have plummeted, because of petrol prices. From around 24% of the market in 2000 to 11% today, that's quite a shift - it may be because of demographics too (baby boomers kids starting to leave home, so large cars are less needed), but nevertheless consumers are reacting to market based price signals, and buying more fuel efficient cars because they want to.
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Not because some nanny statist environmentalist wants them to, not because of some tax incentive, or preferential motor vehicle licensing fee or the rest, but because they want to.
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Amazing really – a resource becomes more expensive and more scarce – the government and environmentalists worry themselves silly that it will run out and demand that something be done so people don’t keep “wasting it” – the price goes up, and consumers make their own judgment about whether they are willing to pay or not, and quite a few choose to save on fuel (buying smaller cars, catching public transport). Money goes from buying large cars and more petrol, to smaller cars and other things, or buses.
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Planners can’t make this happen. It is the decisions of thousands weighing up how best to use their own money – and they happen to know better than the government.

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Unfortunately, former Labour Cabinet Minister Peter Neilson (now Chairman of the Business Council for Sustainable Development) wants the government to use YOUR money to subsidise the price of buying new small efficient cars. Why should you, whether you own a car or not (and many don't), especially since most people don't buy brand new cars, subsidise those who do? Neilson calls for up to $3000 per vehicle. $3000!!! Money that you could spend on your kid's education, or shoes, or a holiday, or books, or a secondhand car. Hopefully the Greens will reject a subsidy for car ownership.

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By the way I noted a report in the Times motoring supplement (not online) that sales of hybrid cars are declining, because motorists are increasingly wary of paying the premium for a car that isn't that much more fuel efficient than many new diesels - in addition, the resale value is poor.

Labour's tax cuts

So Labour is talking about tax cuts? Now there’s a strategy to try to win the next election – given that the current one nearly lost it for them last time. It is a vindication for National, that Labour is now adopting a small part of its policies and all of the leftwing naysayers either eat their words about tax cuts, or can oppose Labour. However, it does appear to be because United Future and NZ First demanded it – you wouldn’t be getting this with the Greens and Maori Party. (Peter Dunne and Winston will go on about this endlessly no doubt)
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However, no reason to get too excited, and few are (the state sector unions predict doom and gloom because their solution to prosperity is to take more of your money to "invest" in what bureaucrats do) it is mostly about cutting company tax from 33 to 30% (nice but only a first step and the top personal rates should also follow it), targeted tax credits (more picking winners) and changing depreciation rates. Dr Cullen has said this also could mean changing thresholds for income tax – hardly exciting stuff since he announced that in last year’s Budget. Remember the 70c a week tax cut? Maybe it will be a dollar - wow.
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So I’m underwhelmed, at best it shows that even Labour sees some merit in tax cuts – the question is whether you want hardly any (Labour), some (National), quite some (ACT), or a lot (Libertarianz).

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although with it being reported that National would "probably" cut company tax, you have to wonder! Why the "probably"?

News on Sunday - leftwing incompetence at its best

On TV last night was a hilarious documentary called “lefties” where the BBC reminisces about the “good old days” when unreformed communists were fighting for a socialist Britain. This has been a series that I have largely been missing, but last night was classic – it was about a failed attempt at a national socialist newspaper in Britain (bigger than the Morning Star and more leftist than the Guardian) – the News on Sunday. It was inspired by John Pilger and the desperation of trade unions and socialists “convinced” that despite Thatcher winning two elections, the mass of the British public could be encouraged to vote Labour (pre-Blair get Britain out of NATO Labour) because socialism was good for them – if only they realised it!

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The News on Sunday attempted to mobilise the working classes to support Labour and its hard left agenda of socialism. It failed, the Daily Mirror and the Sun have proved that, by and large, the British working classes want newspapers with royal/celebrity gossip, football and pictures of women with big tits - they don't want to read about strikes in Mexico, Brazilians selling kidneys for cash, or any bunch of murdering militia that the left supports this decade.
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However, back to the paper. It was a catalogue of disasters in many ways, and showed a litany of sheer incompetence. Remember, these sort of people wanted to take more taxes, run your education and health system and economy. Why oh why would you trust them?
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1. In the early days Pilger fled to Australia to make one of his “documentaries” for several months, and when he found out the editor was putting together the paper in ways he didn’t like and not running it past him (kind of hard given he was far away), he immediately resigned and wrote articles in other papers damning the News on Sunday before it was even published.
2. The paper was based in Manchester, because it didn’t want to be London focused and saw its heartland as being the working class north. As a result it was distant from capital city politics, and advertising agencies and a pool of more experienced potential employees.
3. The paper advertised for journalists. Something not done in the print media as people usually are discovered or passed on by word of mouth. The number of applications were so high that most did not get a reply, after a few were looked through they were given jobs, there were few interviews and no screening of the vast bulk of applications. Very fair employment policy.
4. Virtually all of the senior staff had never worked on a national newspaper before, many not in the newspaper sector. So there was very little experience of the business.
5. Many of the senior staff had no experience in their administrative roles. For example, the head of personnel had never worked in HR (a qualification that is positive in my view for today), the head of finance had never done accounts for a business, ever!
6. There was an “equal employment policy” which effectively meant if you were an ethnic minority, disabled or gay/lesbian you were more likely to get the job. The goal was to have more diverse points of view in the paper – the result was a combination of hiring people with little skill or at worst incredible patronising of some groups. The black editor had no experience being an editor before. The head of HR described how the paper treated disabled people “we hired all deaf people in the mailroom and to do deliveries, because they could communicate together”. How fucking patronising is that?
7. There was a focus on political correctness rather than good management. One former staff member described how around a week before the first issue he had arrived to work at the office to find it empty. The whole staff were sent on a “deafness awareness course” which consisted of “walking around Manchester wearing earplugs”. How mind numbingly stupid is that?
8. Decisions were made on “consensus” were certain key individuals having “golden shares” that meant they could veto decisions. In effect, there was no clear leadership and endless committee meetings and relitigation of decisions. A democratically controlled workplace saw people observed saying one thing in one meeting and changing for another. As a result, it was dysfunctional.
9. The £6.5 million raised to fund the paper came from trade unions and local authority pension funds. The stereotypical loony leftwing Labour council was not just a stereotype, as several Labour controlled councils frittered away their employees’ savings on this venture. How utterly incompetent is that? What pension fund decides a good way to make money is to back a new leftwing newspaper that is run by amateurs? Why weren’t the councillors being sued by the union? Gee, I wonder.
10. The paper commissioned an advertising agency to launch it. The agency came up with the slogan “no tits but lots of balls” to make the point that it wasn’t a page 3 girl tabloid, but “gutsy journalism”. It upset the feminists too much that the word “tits” was mentioned (as it is degrading to women to use the word – shame so many women use it”), that the campaign was dropped.
11. Leftwing millionaire businessman Owen Oyston offered to take over the paper and inject more money into it if the “golden shareholders” agreed. They didn’t, he walked away and it went bankrupt.
12. The paper ran at a loss through to the 1987 general election, with the staff working to ensure it didn’t go bankrupt before the election – because it would look like major Labour supporters can’t even run a viable newspaper. Which of course, they couldn’t.
13. Owen Oyston bought it off the receivers, and lost around £2 million before folding it 8 months later. Subsequently Oyston was sentenced to six years for raping a girl of 16, this was not the first allegation of rape against Oyston and he claimed it was a conspiracy to “set him up”.
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The first issue sold 500,000 issues, not bad? Well it needed 800,000 to break even. By the eighth week it was down to a circulation of 200,000. Alan Hayling, who is now head of BBC documentaries (!! Yes the BBC is so demonstrably unbiased) who used to work at a Ford assembly plant, became the Editor – and got several ex. Ford employees to piss money down the drain invest in the project. Those workers were more abused by Hayling and the left than by Ford.

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Pathetic really - a wonderful test of trust (pillaging pension funds and pissing them down a drain), anti-capitalist principles of running business (no decision making, no accountability - everyone blamed everyone else, few with skills or competence) and the reality of leftwing politics - it is an orchestrated arrogance of intellectual minnows who claim to know what's best for the so-called "working classes" when the working classes don't actually want it!