"It's a big decision given the socioeconomic impact on your own workforce. There are skill sets that once they are lost are hard to get back," B. Allen Brown, founder and chief executive of multinational Michigan-based Railmark Holdings Ltd, said.
The Rail and Maritime Transport Union blamed 70 redundancies at Dunedin's Hillside Engineering and Lower Hutt workshops on the Government, and KiwiRail's decision to outsource major rail manufacturing contracts overseas.
Mr Brown believed KiwiRail had not done the type of planned pre-emptive fleet maintenance common in North America and Britain that could have avoided a bulk purchase of new equipment.
KiwiRail chief executive Jim Quinn said in response he suspected Mr Brown's was "an American perspective" based on doing business in a country that had a "massive" railway infrastructure.
"If his argument was right, Air New Zealand would make planes, our automotive industry would make cars, the shipping industry would make ships; it's an illogical argument," Mr Quinn said.
Building locomotives in New Zealand cost 70% more than overseas, while wagons cost 20% more - a commercial reality which highlighted the "emotive" nature of questioning workshop redundancies.
"To create a modern, sustainable railroad, I have to spend the money really, really well.
"At the end of the day, we're in this state and who cares how we got here. Wishing we weren't in this state is pointless," Mr Quinn said.
The job cuts were about "having the right level of workforce" to meet projected manufacturing demand in the New Zealand rail sector that would be geared towards "boutique" operations in the future.
"I've got an asset here that I'm going to let go of reluctantly," Mr Quinn said.
