KiwiRail

29/05/2026

🦺 This King’s Birthday weekend, KiwiRail is taking on several major maintenance projects to keep the Wellington and Auckland metro networks in top condition for passengers and our customers.

🤝 Work will also continue at the Naenae and Tawa substations, the Henderson Station project, and wider preparations across the Auckland network ahead of the City Rail Link opening later this year.

💪 We are looking forward to seeing the progress our teams make over the weekend.

⚠️ For journey planning info in Auckland, please visit: https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/journey-planner | for Wellington: Metlink | https://www.metlink.org.nz/journey-options

25/05/2026

🌱 As part of the Drury Rail Stations Project, KiwiRail is planting more than 60,000 plants across the three stations in south Auckland. Native plants play a key role in stormwater management and site resilience, helping ensure we are responsible neighbours in the communities we are part of.

📹 Hear from JFC Project Engineer Joe Sterritt, who explains the benefits of the recently completed planting at Paerātā Railway Station.

22/05/2026

Meet Wellington Metro Trainee Signals Maintainer Ted van Bunnik.

Ted was looking for an apprenticeship, did his pre-trade at ETCO, and says he hasn’t looked back since starting work with KiwiRail. He loves the challenge the job brings every day and being able to get into some “hard work”. When he’s not at work he’s out sailing in Evans Bay.

Check out Ted’s story.

15/05/2026

👷‍♀️ KiwiRail is proud to support Girls in Infrastructure. On Wednesday, we hosted over 100 high school students from a number of Auckland schools at the new Drury Railway Station. With the civils site complete and the only work remaining on the station itself, our project team was able to plan the largest group visit the site has ever seen, making sure it took place safely.

🦺 Students had the opportunity to walk around the civils site and visit the station forecourt, led by volunteers involved in the project. Photos of the project over the years were put up in the new bus shelters – showing just how much work is involved in such a large project.

🤩 “Seeing so many students on site was incredibly inspiring. They are the future of our industry, and hopefully we were able to inspire and encourage at least one of them to consider a future in infrastructure,” says KiwiRail Senior Project Manager, Roshini Chanda.

🤝 A huge thank you to everyone from KiwiRail, HEB Construction, John Holland, Aurecon, and Stellar Projects who volunteered to support this event.

14/05/2026

Approaching half-way mark for City Rail Link emergency tests

Derailments, train collisions, fires and other unlikely events are scenarios we must prepare for ahead of the City Rail Link (CRL) opening later this year.

Working alongside volunteers from CRL partner organisations, Emergency Services, Auckland Transport, City Rail Link and Auckland One Rail, we are practising coordinated emergency responses. These exercises cover testing critical systems such as smoke detection and ventilation and procedures like evacuation drills.

KiwiRail plays a key role in coordinating any emergency response within the CRL tunnels, via our Auckland Rail Operations Centre (AROC).

These exercises are a vital part of the preparation and mean we are one step closer to unlocking the benefits that the CRL will bring.

12/05/2026

🤩 Jasmine Kroeze - Artist has just completed two vibrant murals in the rail corridor at Mount Wellington, Auckland. Now based in Tauranga, Jasmine previously lived and worked in Auckland, only a short distance from the mural site. “It’s meaningful to return and contribute to a space that was once part of my everyday environment,” she says.

👩‍🎨 Over the past decade, Jasmine has completed more than 40 murals across a range of spaces. Her art style focuses on bold colours, texture, and layering, as well as connecting to a place by referencing botanicals and wildlife.

🤝 These two murals celebrate the richness of Aotearoa’s flora and fauna and are inspired by native species found throughout the wider Auckland region. They feature references to pīwakawaka and tūī, as well as tawa, peretao, and huruhuru whenua ferns, and kōwhai flowers and leaves. The colour palette was chosen to bring energy and warmth to the surrounding area.

👏 Jasmine spent a week in Auckland working on the murals. “A highlight was seeing the transformation of the space – bringing life and colour to an otherwise overlooked area,” she says. A huge thank you to Jasmine for spending time away from her whānau to create these murals as part of our wider beautification initiative, which aims to improve graffiti hotspots across the rail network.

⚠️ Please remember, Jasmine was invited to paint in the rail corridor by KiwiRail, and measures were in place to keep her safe. Entering the rail corridor without permission and protection is both extremely unsafe and illegal.

09/05/2026

🚦 We all share the transport network and the choices we make help to keep our communities safe.

🚆 This Road Safety Week we’d like to remind everyone to be a Road Safety Hero by remembering to only cross the tracks at official level crossings, and never anywhere else. Remember to always stop, look, listen, and think before you cross.

💛 Stay safe and be a

08/05/2026

❤️ We are so proud of our team who saved the life of their co-worker, Tau Pili of Palmerston North, who recently suffered a cardiac arrest at the end of the shift they’d been working at together.

📞 While one of the team made the 111 call, another started CPR, and Rail Protection Officer Hayden Bradely headed straight to the car to get the defibrillator. “He was in a really bad way and we needed to know if his heart was working,” says Hayden. “The defibrillator started reading his heart rhythms and sent the message for us to step away before it administered a shock.”

🚑 Site supervisor Sam Reuben says there’s no doubt in his mind that it was the combination of teamwork, the defibrillator, and the quick arrival of paramedics that made the difference.

🤝 Tau is home from hospital and doing well. He can’t remember anything much from that day, and nothing at all about the incident, but he couldn’t be more grateful to the people who helped him. “We’re like any other group of workmates – we joke about and give each other a hard time sometimes, but on that day, those guys, they became hero’s not just to me, but my family and the Kiwirail family. Thinking about what they did for me brings a tear.”

👏 Rachel Evans, Senior Heartbeat Programme Manager at Wellington Free Ambulance says that starting CPR as soon as possible and using an AED more than doubles survival rates. “We commend Tau’s work mates for their lifesaving efforts!”

08/05/2026

07/05/2026

Yesterday, we joined our Mana Whenua partners, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, and our contractors, to hold a dawn karakia (blessing) of the civil works sites at Drury and Paerātā Railway Stations, along with the SH22 Paerātā roundabout.

The civil works at both stations reached practical completion in April, including the bus interchanges, roading, and wetlands. With Auckland Transport preparing to provide bus services using the new infrastructure, it was important that the sites were blessed ahead of services commencing.

These blessings mark an important milestone. While some work remains on the station builds, we are getting closer to the finish line. A massive thank you to the surrounding communities for their continued support over the past few years.

05/05/2026

🤗 The mural “Te Kura” has recently been completed at Papakura Station. Its name is a shortened reference to Papakura and reflects the area’s red, fertile soils. This is acknowledged through the triangular niho taniwha forms facing east, which continue around the lower edges of the four sides as taratara a kai, a pattern associated with cultivated foods.

🤝 The pātiki pattern (diamond shape) acknowledges the fish species of the Pahurehure Inlet and its tributaries. The kuaka (godwit) represents a kaitiaki (guardian) of the harbour, reflecting seasonal change and migration patterns. The kāhu (swamp harrier) and matuku (bittern) further acknowledge the wetlands and swamp areas that were once an important part of the cultural and ecological landscape of Papakura.

🎨 Thank you to artists Mike Tupaea (Ngaati Te Ata Waiohua, Ngaati Tiipa) and Bryce Williams (Tangata Tiriti), and to Pāora Puru (Ngaati Te Ata Waiohua, Ngaati Mahuta) for the cultural design narrative. This mural is part of our beautification initiative in Auckland, aiming to improve graffiti hotspots with community artworks.

⚠️ Please remember, these artists were invited to paint in the rail corridor by KiwiRail, and measures were in place to keep them safe. Entering the rail corridor without permission and protection is both extremely unsafe and illegal.