KiwiRail Group

Demolition Warehouse 1 and Power House Lower Hutt Workshops

The Warehouse 1 (WH1) and Power House structures are approximately 100 years old. They are both in very poor condition internally and externally and no longer fit for purpose as operational buildings. Of particular concern is the degradation of the cladding material Galbestos, known to contain asbestos. This is delaminating from the base iron in many places creating a risk of release of asbestos fibres.

The Power House is not an occupied building but does however contain the site High Voltage substation including Wellington Electricity (WE) incoming 11kV Ring Main Units, our 11kV Main Switchboard, a Transformer and Low Voltage Switchboard. There is also an obsolete 250V DC Power Supply which currently feeds the two 100T cranes in P1 and P2 and all the remaining cranes in P2. These services will need to be removed from the Power House to allow its demolition. This work is underway with two further projects.

Depending on the availability of funding to complete Mechanical Facilities projects both at Woburn and nationally, the possibility of demolishing only Warehouse 1 will be considered. The Crane DC-AC Replacement project and the Site Wide Electrical Resilience Upgrade project will both need to be completed before we can consider demolishing the Power House.

The tender documents detail these two demolitions as separable portions and note that our first priority is to demolish WH1 and that demolition of the Power House will be dependent on available funds. Completion of related projects will mean the Power House demolition would not occur before April 2026.