Tag Archives: johnsonville

Matangi Trains

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I was in Wellington the other week to catch up with friends and family and had the opportunity to catch the new Matangi trains out to Johnsonville – you might remember my previous trip out there featured the pre-WW2 relics, so it was exciting to check out some 21st century transportation. :-)

In some ways, it’s sad to lose the old relics since they were great fun as a visitor, but I can imagine that the local are grateful for some of the more modern comforts and quietness.

Speedy train is speedy! (or crappy phone camera is crappy)

I do think showing the train's model name rather than the actual destination is going to be pretty unhelpful for tourists, I'd be pretty worried if I was trying to catch the "Johnsonville" train if it had a sign saying "Matangi". :-/

Nice and new :-)

Of particular interest is that the Johnsonville units are specially marked, as they feature an additional feature of “wheel flange lube” –  apparently this is to help deal with reducing wear on the tight Johnsonville line rails by keeping the wheels lubricated.

Wheel flange lube? Sounds kinky!

Up Mt Kaukau

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When I was in Wellington last month I caught up with my good mate Tom (of #geekflat fame) and we decided to go for a wander up Mt Kaukau with Tom’s friend Nicola.

I spent most of my years in Wellington focusing on the CBD and southwards, so Johnsonville, Khandallah and it’s surrounding walks are quite new to me.

We took the route up from Johnsonville, going up to the peak and then back down into Khandallah side, before walking back through the suburbs, near the rail line, to Johnsonville.

The Wellington City Council has a good map of the Northern Walks available for download showing the route, I also quickly whipped up a rough Google map of the start & exit points I took along with the route diagram. I should really record more GPS accurate tracks with my phone, but that stuff loves chewing up the battery quickly so not always possible.

Starting out climb up....

It's a @macropiper! By a tunnel! (Turns out this tunnel is for the old water reservoir pipe).

TV transmission tower in the distance - it's visible clearly down on street level in Johnsonville and looks a long way away from there - not really too hard getting there though.

It's Welly! So pretty!

Uh-oh, what has Tom found?

Not a kitteh!

Will these landmark TV transmission towers still be relevant in 25 years time after everything has been replaced with IP over fibre?

I love this city!

Wellington suburbs lapping at the foothills.

Harbour view, love the trail of the turning cargo ship.

Panorama view over the harbour, CBD, surburbs and out towards Makara in the far right. Not very visable is the large wind farm out that way. Pictures don't really do the view from up here justice.

Anyone know what this weird tree is?

Johnsonville rail line

It was a pretty good walk all up, not to long or taxing, but with a rewarding view and an excuse to wander through the suburbs for the first time.

We came across a few promising looking cafes hidden in weird places in the suburbs whilst on the return walk, if I have more time in Wellington again soon I wouldn’t mind checking a few of them out, particularly one which was busy pulling home made pies out of the oven….

If you take a look at the council map for the Northern Walkway, it’s actually possible to walk all the way from Johnsonville to the Botanic gardens, staying mostly in parks with a few detors through streets. This route is also part of the Te Araroa walk, so good practice for me for when I’m ready to do it. :-)

Johnsonville Train

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I was in Wellington a week ago for several work projects and ended up on a train out to Johnsonville to help my good friend Tom with his wifi/cable modem issues at his new flat, now that #geekflat is over. :'(

It’s not a secret that I love trains, a good deal of my per-computing childhood was spent reading train books, visiting the Silverstream Railway in Wellington (I think I was the youngest member at the time) and when I was younger Dad would sometimes take me out on Wellington’s suburban trains for daytrips.

The fact that Wellington’s rolling stock was (and in many cases, still is) positively ancient made it fantastic for a young train fan, since all the locomotives made such great noises, screeching and rattling around the place.

Until recently with the 2011 introduction of the Matangi FP Class trains, most of the Wellington region passenger trains were the NZ EM/ET class dating back to 1982 or even worse, the NZ DM/D class trains which date all the back to 1938.

DM/D train running the Johnsonville Line in the foreground. An EM/ET class in the background.

The current Johnsonville Line was laid and the current Johnsonville station opened in 1938, which replaced the original rail line dating back to 1885. If you’ve caught a train on it recently, you might be forgiven for thinking that nothing has changed since.

This will be changing, new Matangi trains have been successfully tested on the Johnsonville Line and will be finally replacing the DM/D class – which whilst it will make for a smoother trip, will make it slightly less exciting for train fans. ;-)

There’s a great youtube video of the whole trip at about 23 minutes which gives you an idea of the noise, but if you’re just wanting a quick idea of the route and the number of tunnels, there’s a timelapse version. :-)