More truck traffic can be expected along Napier’s Marine Parade because the local Ravensdown plant has switched from rail to road transport.
The company told the Dominion Post that KiwiRail had hiked it prices to an “unreasonable” level and all fertiliser would now be shipped by sea or by road.
According to the Dominion Post, the last shipment by train left the Awatoto plant on July 8.
The rail siding at the Awatoto Plant had been in use since the 1950s and a company spokesman says that Ravensdown was committed to the rail link as a transport option.
“The reality is that 85% of the product being shipped from Napier has been freighted by road or coastal ship for the past three years,” says the spokesperson.
He told the Dominion Post that the company had been in discussion with KiwiRail for months to try to keep rail as an option, but a workable solution could not be found due to “KiwiRail’s insistence that we pay more for the upkeep of their rolling stock”.
“Their wagons are old and maintenance was getting more expensive for them, so they sought to recover that from Ravensdown as we are the only remaining users of this rolling stock.
“This led to them proposing a rail freight rate that was just uneconomic. If more businesses had used the rail freight option over the years, then of course those maintenance costs would have been spread more evenly.”
The spokesman says there were 180 rail trips from the plant last year.
The increase in trucks using Marine Parade to access the Port of Napier was also likely to further aggravate residents, who wanted the trucks to use an alternative, longer route.
The spokesman says it was difficult to calculate the likely increase in traffic, as this would depend on how much freight was shifted to coastal transport.
KiwiRail told the Dominion Post it would not discuss commercial arrangements with individual customers publicly, but added that the rail line would continue to be used for other freight between Napier and Palmerston North, particularly from forestry.
Freight general manager sales Alan Piper told the Dominion Post the two companies “had reached an amicable decision to cease transacting because of significant costs that needed to be incurred by both parties to continue the arrangement”.
“KiwiRail is a state-owned enterprise and, as such, has a duty to act in a commercial fashion,” says Piper.
“In this instance, there were significant upfront costs to be incurred by both parties to be able to continue to trade, and neither party wished to do that – it just didn’t make financial sense for either party.”
