Noggin2018

Very good news. The new Government appears to be very rail-friendly, and this decision should buy enough time for the pieces to fall into place to enable further rail electrification in New Zealand. With the extension of the electrification at the Auckland end, the gap between the Auckland and central 25kV systems comes down to something like 80km, which should improve the business case no end, and a third main line should create paths for freight and medium distance express passenger services. One problem is that it's unlikely that the EF's could run into Auckland - even if the power supply can cope with them, I suspect that the electro-magnetic interference might be a bit too much for the signalling to take, and the locos would possibly need ETCS signalling kit installing too. So that probably means power-supply upgrades, expensive signalling upgrades and/or more likely, replacement of the EF's with something more up to date and better mannered. As Edwin_m and others have said, multi-voltage locos (and EMU's) with 25kV and 1500V DC capability are very much an 'off the shelf' product these days, including with 'last mile' diesel engines, and increasingly with 'last-mile' batteries. Whilst the track and loading gauge probably rule out one of Siemens standard products, it's the sort of thing that Stadler do very well, and of course I'm sure the Chinese chaps that built the DL's would be only too happy to quote. Modern kit can sense line voltages and deal with it automatically (or have changeover prompted by a track-side ballise). Pantographs can also vary the amount of upwards pressure they exert to cope with lines strung at different tensions, so in most cases the same pantograph can be used on multiple systems, with the exceptions that Edwin suggests. For example, IIRC, French high-speed lines have wires at a fixed height, and so the pantograph is essentially fixed in position when the unit is on that system. The other issue is that much of the freight out of Auckland actually goes to the port of Tauranga. That's something like 100km east of Hamilton, so with a bit of Government support, there might be quite a good business case for electrification. A further advantage of electrification would be that medium distance rail services could be run from Auckland's (underground) Britomart station to Hamilton and Tauranga.