Te Huia Hamilton to Auckland carriages (upgrade) – New Zealand

With the increasing number of commuters travelling from city Hamilton to New Zealand’s largest city Auckland, the decision was made in 2018 to initiate a regional commuter service between Hamilton and the Auckland suburb of Papakura, connecting with the regular Auckland suburban train service.

The service is named Te Huia after a sacred New Zealand native bird. Like other large New Zealand forest birds, Te Huia were not a strong flyers yet gracefully moved along the ground with ease.

The train fleet for this service consists of push-pull trains utilising former Auckland suburban service carriages that have been completely refurbished and modernised by KiwiRail at the Hutt workshops in Lower Hutt, Wellington. Noske-Kaeser Rail & Vehicle was engaged to refurbish and upgrade the HVAC systems.

The work was extensive and challenging, the HVAC units had not been operated for a number of years and the original manufacturer is no longer in business, however a number of improvements were possible, and the project completed successfully with the trains ready to enter service at the beginning of 2021.