KiwiRail

The Government's decision to buy locomotives designed and manufactured in China is a "debacle", Dunedin South MP Clare Curran says.

More than one in every five South Island jobs at KiwiRail's infrastructure and engineering division is likely to go, the state-owned enterprise has confirmed.

Dunedin South MP Clare Curran says she still has questions about KiwiRail's faulty Chinese-made locomotives, despite receiving some answers in Parliament yesterday.

Kiwirail's 45 infrastructure and engineering staff in Dunedin are yet to be told whether their jobs will remain, as the state-owned enterprise considers cutting up to 220 jobs by October.

Dunedin South Labour MP Clare Curran has come out swinging today after news that the brakes on 500 Chinese-built freight wagons ordered by KiwiRail had to be replaced before they could hit the tracks last year.

Kiwirail is considering expressions of interest for the purchase of Dunedin's Hillside Workshops.

Kiwirail is planning to undertake maintenance along the rail line between Milburn and Milton, picking up, cleaning and re-depositing ballast (rail formation material) in the next few weeks.

KiwiRail has asked the Otago Regional Transport Committee to be involved in a feasibility study for freighting logs by rail rather than road.

Dunedin's city leaders have officially put up a unified front to do whatever it takes to smoothly roll through the sale of Hillside Engineering.