The first rake of railway carriages to be designed and built in New Zealand since 1941 rolled out of Hillside workshops in Dunedin yesterday, bound for Christchurch.
A KiwiRail spokeswoman said the 17 new AK-class carriages consisted of 14 standard carriages and three cafe carriages, with three existing open-air viewing and generator carriages converted for use on the same trains.
The standard carriages, which seat 63 people, will feature 52sq m of glass in panoramic side and roof windows, ceiling-mounted high-definition screens and GPS-triggered announcements with displays and commentary at each seat in a choice of five languages - Mandarin, Japanese, German, French and English.
The fleet was designed entirely by KiwiRail's mechanical design staff in Wellington and built at Dunedin's Hillside workshops, as part of a $39.9 million contract funded by the Government in 2009.
Manufacturing of the first carriage took place in 2010, and the whole fleet was expected to be in service on the Coastal Pacific route for Tranz Scenic in about two weeks, the spokeswoman said.
The carriages would then be used on the TranzAlpine route in early 2012.
