Launch of Wellington railway electrification

Today's article is from the Dominion Post believed to be in 2008 as a flashback to the introduction of electric multiple units (EMUs) in the Wellington region in 1938. These were the first EMUs in New Zealand and until 1982 the only one, and until 2014 only the Wellington region had EMUs operating passenger rail services.  Most of the article highlights the reports of the day opening the EMU service to Johnsonville. 

The English Electric EMUs were revolutionary for the development of the Wellington region, essentially opening up both Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt, as well as Tawa, Porirua and ultimately Kapiti Coast as commuter suburbs. The article below highlights the introduction of the then blue and silver EMUs on the Johnsonville line in 1938.  Unfortunately the blue and silver livery w replaced with red in 1949 as an economy measure.

This was only one-year after the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) had been relocated from the Johnsonville line route to the Tawa Flat Deviation, and so formally converted the Johnsonville line to a modern commuter railway.  The electrification also included introduction of fully automatic signalling.  The Tawa Flat Deviation and NIMT electrification as far as Paekakariki was not completed until 1940, but by 1938 "Ed" Class electric locomotives were regularly hauling passenger and freight trains through the long Tawa Flat tunnels as far as Porirua, although additional EMUs were not supplied until the late 1940s to enable them to be introduced on the Paekakariki section in 1949. 

The article notes that Wellington City Council was relieved that NZR had electrified the Johnsonville line, as it provided infrastructure to support the growth of housing in its northern suburbs, as it saved the Council from expensively extending its tram network north of Thorndon, or bus services (which in the 1930s were almost entirely feeders for tram services, with no major bus routes being operated by WCC). Additional stations on the line would be opened in the subsequent 25 years or so, at Raroa, Box Hill and Crofton Downs, to respond to growth in housing.

There were ultimately three sets of English Electric EMUs introduced in Wellington (the D/DM class) between 1938 and 1954:

• 1938 set (for the Johnsonville line) known as the "36 stock"
• 1946 set (for the Paekakariki line) known as the "42 stock" 
• 1949-1954 set (for the Hutt lines) known as the "46 stock".

The original 1938 set were all phased out by April 1983 with arrival of the Ganz Mavag Hungarian-built (EM/ET class) EMUs in 1981.