REGISTER

A.G. Williams

Director of Electrification, New Zealand Railways Corporation

In December 1981 the New Zealand Governtnent approved the New Zealand Railways Corporation electritying the North Island Main Trunk Railway betwn Palmerston Nortll and Hamilton with a 25kV 50 Hertz system to be camercially operative mid 1988. 'rhe project embraces a range of technical disciplines, both traditiorral to the Corporation and in sane cases new, It also includes sane state ot,the art technology. A number of large civil engineering works were necessary along the route, as well as saw "non-project" operating and route unprovements which were justitiable in their in right, and whilst not being essential to electritication do enhance the completed system.

The work was planned in two stages. Stage 1 was the l8lkm tram Palmerston North to Ohakune and Stage 2 the 227km tran Ohakune to Hamilton, See Figure 1. Contracts were awarded in December 1983 tor tne design, supply and installation ot the Stage 1 Signalling, Cmunications, and Traction Overhead, the supply ot Power Supply equipnent and all of tne 22 locomotives required.

Separate contracts tor Stage 2 were negotiated with the respective Stage 1 Contractors during 1985. The civil works, including works associated with the main contracts and "non-project" works, were undertaken concurrently with the above contracts by NZK.

Except for Cmunications, Stage 1 is now complete on the ground and Stage 2 well advanced. A number of locanotives are also in the country. mtn contracts for ccxrmunications were determined in November 1986 and the Corporation has itselt now taken responsibility for managing and arranging the provision of tne cmunications systems for the electritication project.

Because the Corporation's Engineering and operating branch structures and related District & Regional Oftices with separate geographic boundaries were straddled by this large multi-discipline project, the traditional NZK Management structure was not suited tor Implementing the work. The detailed management, co-ordination and control ot the project and integration ot the non-project works was theretore ettected through a specially tom Electritication Project Group, as a division of the General Manager's Ottice reporting direct to the Deputy General Manager. Technical responsibility was retained by NXH Engineering Branches.

As a consequence of the NZR organisational changes currently taking place (which are referred toin the next section of this paper), the group is now a separate division of the Freight Winess Group and reports direct to the Group Manager.

The structure and staffing of the Electrification Project Group for Stage 1 was largely successful. However to cunplete the project on time it was necessary to significantly overlap Stage 2 with Stage 1. This required considerable extra resources to cope, as well as significant changes to the Stage 1 structure rran carmencement of Stage 2 planning.

A partial modification to this new structure was needed recently because ot the termination ot the carmunications contracts by the Corporation. The Project Group is managing the "recovery" and  this has necessitated additional resources and a specitic structure sub-set.