![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/the-wairarapa-line-will-be-closed-for-a-month-over-summer-fo-G42SNF3KKVAU5BKLRLAE5K7PTM.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWith buses replacing Wairarapa trains for a month over summer, regional councillors are pushing for passengers to be \u201cas comfortable as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n
By Emily Ireland of Local Democracy Reporting<\/p>\n
The Wairarapa Line would be closed from December 26 while essential rail upgrades were carried out by KiwiRail.<\/p>\n
Passengers will need to take the “vomit-inducing” bus ride over Remutaka Hill \u2013 as one councillor described it \u2013 until the full Wairarapa train service resumed on January 26.<\/p>\n
Over that time, new level crossing safety barriers were planned to go live, along with a new signalling system that enabled more trains to travel on the line.<\/p>\n
The extended closure meant all the equipment could be switched on and thoroughly tested in preparation for the new T\u016bhono trains from 2028\/29.<\/p>\n
At a Greater Wellington Regional Council meeting on Thursday, councillor Quentin Duthie said bus replacements for the Wairarapa Line were “always challenging” because it was such a long journey from Masterton over the Remutaka Hill to Wellington.<\/p>\n
“The comfortable coaches are not compliant with accessibility stuff, but if you put on a compliant bus, it is a bone-shaking and vomit-inducing ride over the hill,” he said.<\/p>\n
“How are we approaching this, knowing that it is always going to be substandard?<\/p>\n
“How can we make it as comfortable as possible.”<\/p>\n
He added that passengers were “already getting an inferior service” and felt they should be getting a discount \u2013 “and we can\u2019t afford that”.<\/p>\n
Staff responded that the plan was to have the coaches plus the accessible bus for the Wairarapa Line passengers.<\/p>\n
The coaches were not Snapper-enabled, and councillors were concerned the information on how to tag on and off them was unclear.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Wairarapa Line will be closed for a month over summer for essential rail upgrades. (Source: LDR \/ Emily Ireland) (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n
Duthie said the council was “asking for a lot of tolerance from our passengers” and made several recommendations that were approved unanimously.<\/p>\n
The recommendations included requests for timely surveys of bus-replacing-train (BRT) passengers, and options for improved communication about how and where to pay fares for BRT services.<\/p>\n
He asked that these be available in the Public Transport Committee\u2019s November report.<\/p>\n
“The set of recommendations is to show that we care and show we are doing everything we can,” Duthie said.<\/p>\n
From December 26 up to and including January 4, there would be no trains between Wellington and Masterton and bus replacements would run the whole way.<\/p>\n
From January 5 up to and including January 25, trains would run between Wellington and Upper Hutt while bus replacements would continue between Upper Hutt and Masterton.<\/p>\n
Wairarapa councillor John Hart said the summer works would be a large disruption to Wairarapa commuters but acknowledged the long-term benefits.<\/p>\n
He said he was concerned about the impact on Wairarapa commuters who he labelled “a hardy bunch” and noted the service currently had “impressively bad punctuality”.<\/p>\n
Latest performance data from Metlink showed only 44% of Wairarapa Line services were punctual in August.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With buses replacing Wairarapa trains for a month over summer, regional councillors are pushing for passengers to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69,135,112],"class_list":["post-631271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}