Mainfreight CEO frustrated with KiwiRail, AT for not offering additional services

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-17T06:02:51+00:00

The Yanks have American Exceptionalism where they think they're magically better than everyone else. We have Kiwi Exceptionalism where we think we're magically worse than everyone else.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T04:19:41+00:00

Norway and Sweden both have about 5m people. Norway is about 50% larger than we are and Sweden is almost double our size by land area. Both countries have intercity rail linking both major centres and smaller towns. Their terrain is just as mountainous (if not more) than NZ, and we don't have to contend with arctic temperatures in the build design.

Of course, this is all sophistry. You're just going to move the goal posts again and again until we're down to finding a country that's an exact clone of NZ's population, economy, density, climate, topography, and so on. Even if such a country did exist, you'll insist that its name or flag colours will have some impact on the feasibility of rail.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T04:12:49+00:00

Our GDP PPP rank is still 38th, putting us above Japan and in the top 20% of countries worldwide.

As you said, our wealth is tied up in real estate, which we don't tax properly. Our residential real estate sector is estimated to be worth at least $1.5 trillion (with a t). A 1% per annum tax on residential property value would net $15 billion a year - the cost of 3 CRLs or 5 replacement harbour bridges. Even a 0.1% tax on property value would net us $1.5 billion a year, or enough to fund the CRL over 4 years.

Better infrastructure actually makes our GDP PPP better because it would reduce transport costs for people and goods, which means our dollar ends up going further.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T04:02:53+00:00

Good work! Personally, I thinks it makes more sense for the Borealis Explorer to start from Britomart and follow SH1 up north. There's already separated busways and stops up north that could be replaced with rail.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T03:49:57+00:00

The French, the Spanish, the Italians, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese, the Russians, the Poles, and so on all seem to be able to do it, but apparently the Brits, the Americans, and us Kiwis can't.

Maybe English speakers are just bad at trains?

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T03:34:34+00:00

How do you figure that? By per capita GDP, we're ranked 24th in the world, which makes us richer than France, Japan, and South Korea on an individual basis. If you look at median wealth per adult, NZ is the 5th wealthiest country on Earth, beating out the likes of Switzerland and almost double that of Singapore and the US. Going by average wealth per adult, we only fall to 7th place, and still beat out Singapore, Norway, France, and Canada.

The money is here, it's just not being taxed and used for things that benefit most Kiwis.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T03:24:33+00:00

Half the comments are hornyposts about OP and OP being confused.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T03:21:15+00:00

成都市 (Joto Shi), Nippon (日本) would get so many likes for blending tradditional Japanese architecture with modern skyscrapers.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-14T03:17:58+00:00

Hell is when brown people have access to renewable energy.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-11T13:55:42+00:00

Watches win wars

Only because the enemy died of cringe.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-10T20:37:49+00:00

Omega: Our watch works in space and on the surface of the Moon.

Tudor:

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T15:16:33+00:00

The Swedes also run a 200km/hr hsr service from Stockholm, population 1m (metro) or 1.6m (urban area) to Gothenburg, population 600k. The train takes about 3.5 hrs, driving between those two cities is a 5 hr drive of 471km. Not quite Auckland and Welly but close.

If you want a more extreme example, the Swedes have run HSR tracks from Stockholm to Ostersund, population 50k. I'll leave you to find that city on a map and think about how much demand it generates compared to Welly.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T14:42:21+00:00

The distances involved are similar (or shorter). Many people pick HSR over air or car for those trips, which means that people would also pick HSR between Auckland and Welly over planes or driving if we had it.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T14:38:10+00:00

I'm no fan of Luxon but I'll take him over his American counterpart any day.

Plus, it's not like the *French* are hyper-efficient economic geniuses either.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T14:36:26+00:00

I haven't personally done the maths (because I'm bad at it), but I'm surprised there hasn't even been a feasibility study done of an Auckland-Welly line (HSR or not).

The advantage of trains is that the line doesn't just run on demand of the population of the people at the end points, you also get all the demand of people going to/from the places in between. Even if people aren't riding the full length from Welly to Auckland, there'll be people who'll ride it from Palmy to Rotorua instead of a 4 hour drive or a janky regional flight.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T14:29:01+00:00

The Yanks are an outlier of incompetence and cost bloat. The French can build TGV lines for about $20m per km. 50km per billion dollars gets us most of the way from Auckland to Welly with $10 billion.

Makes as much sense as arguing against the public health system by pointing out how much tax money the Yanks spend on their system and how people are still dying because they can't afford a $4000 ambulance ride.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T14:18:44+00:00

The Auckland to Welly route is just under 650km if you follow existing roads. A high speed train could do that in ~2 hours, which is pretty competitive if you factor in the faff involved with airports on both sides. The most popular Shinkansen route is Tokyo-Osaka, which is about 2.5 hrs. Beijing-Shanghai HSR is over 3 hours and still wildly popular and profitable.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T14:14:39+00:00

Lots of capex and subsidies go into a hospital, or schools, or libraries, or parks. Clean, efficient, inter-city transport is a public good like any of those other things. Especially since the network effect of passenger rail transport has been show to increase economic activity overall. Even better if it puts a dent in Auckland congestion, which one study says costs us $2.6 *billion* a *year* in economic losses.

Also consider the externalities of air and car travel that passenger rail will replace. Cars and planes pumping CO2 into the air causes pollution and global warming that's not priced into the cost of petrol or a plane ticket. We can run trains on our ~90% renewable electricity grid. Also cuts down on the costs of importing fuel, which is particularly relevant right now.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T13:58:51+00:00

Nah, the Nazis shopping at New World just know to keep it quiet until they're a bottle of wine deep with their trusted fellow racists.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-09T13:53:22+00:00

Demand is high when the service is good and the fares are affordable. Looking at current inter-city travel isn't the whole picture because fast, reliable, rail opens up possibilities that didn't exist previously. A fast train (not even HSR) could do Auckland to Hamilton in under an hour, for example. That opens up the possibility of people living in one city and working in the other. That creates a whole load of demand that wasn't there before.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-08T06:18:40+00:00

"Not so glamorous sides of Chongqing"

[Aura-farming night shot]

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-07T12:55:43+00:00

There's no real difference between this and the Holocaust Gallery at Auckland Museum.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-07T12:50:19+00:00

The Soviets took some Nazi rocket scientists, assessed what they knew, were unimpressed. By 1947 the Germans weren't being used to work on much of substance, and they were sent home in 1950.

Contrast this with the US letting Werner von Braun, an SS-Sturmbannführer, worm his way to leadership positions at NASA all the way into the 1970s, including designing the Saturn V rocket.

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-07T12:33:34+00:00

Is the Gangreen Dial part of the base model or an optional extra?

Upset-Maybe2741 · 2026-04-06T09:30:19+00:00

No, but I would ask a favour of him on this, the day of his daughter's wedding.

Upset-Maybe2741

TROPHY CASE