The newly re-signalled entrance to Wellington Station. Photo: Supplied / KiwiRail
The lever has been pulled for the final time on New Zealand's last railway signal box.
After 89 years the manual signal box in Wellington, which controls train movement on the tracks, is gone, and has been replaced by a computerised system already adopted by the rest of the country.
KiwiRail chief of capital David Gordon said the upgrade was part of several changes to the Wellington junction that would allow for more trains on the network - slated to be in service in five years' time.
He said entry to the station had for almost 90 years been controlled by "people standing in a signal box pulling levers".
"So the job that was previously done by looking out the window, is now done by looking at a screen in Wallaceville."
Gordon said the digital signalling also built redundancy into the system, with the screens in the Hutt Valley duplicated in Auckland, which could be used in case of emergency.
He said while the manual system was still used in many parts of the world - including London's underground - it was not versatile.
"It is so incredibly reliable, provided you don't want to change it, but it only does one job.
"Whereas computer-based technology you can reprogramme."
Gordon said Kiwirail was considering what it would do with the manual levers and suspected they could end up in a heritage museum, but no decision had been made just yet.
He said the signal box upgrade and addition of more than 20 turnouts was necessary to open up the entry to Wellington Station, which was "critically constrained".
"We've spread the junction out so trains have got a bit more of a safety overlap and we've dealt with the signalling. So, what was a restriction on the network is now gone.
"Those [future] services were not going to be possible had we not done this work."
Gordon said the upgrades were among a series of maintenance projects that shut down Wellington's railway network over the Christmas break.
He said despite the abysmal weather most of work was complete and all train lines - except Wairarapa - were back up and running on Monday.
Gordon said the upgrades to the Remutaka Tunnel were on schedule and expected Wairarapa train services to resume on 10 February.
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