Hon Gerry Brownlee
Minister of Transport

15 May 2014

Further $198m for KiwiRail’s Turnaround Plan

KiwiRail’s 10-year Turnaround Plan to make its freight business commercially viable continues, with $198 million being invested from the Future Investment Fund.

This brings total Crown capital investment in the Plan to $1.04 billion.

Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee says KiwiRail will use the new money to invest primarily in:
• Infrastructure renewals and upgrades.
• New wagons and refurbishment of existing wagons and locomotives.
• IT systems.
• Earthquake remediation projects and other safety works.

“KiwiRail has had a challenging few months, but looking more broadly at the rollout of its Turnaround Plan we can see fundamental improvements in the company’s operations,” Mr Brownlee says.

“KiwiRail is increasing revenues in its core operations and growing its share of the domestic freight market, and we expect that to continue. It was always clear that taking the business to financial self-sustainability was going to be a huge challenge.”

Today’s announcement comes on top of $844 million of capital investment appropriated over 2010/11 to 2013/14.

Since the company was bought by the previous government in 2008, Crown investment in KiwiRail now totals $2.4 billion – excluding investment in metropolitan rail projects. In addition, there have been writedowns totalling $9.8 billio

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