double-tracking of the North Island Main Trunk between Auckland and Hamilton; Increasing axle weight between Auckland and Tauranga to 20 tonnes plus; Standardising loop lengths from Palmerston North to Waikanae; Increase axle weight to 18 tonnes plus in the South Island. Current projects The City Rail Link is an underground rail line currently under construction linking Britomart Transport Centre to Mount Eden railway station in Auckland and is due to open in 2024. Light rail networks are planned for Auckland and Wellington. Advocacy group Greater Auckland proposed the Regional Rapid Rail initiative in 2017, including tilt trains with a maximum speed of 160 km/h. This network would provide passenger services linking Auckland with Hamilton, Tauranga and Rotorua. In December 2018, the Government of New Zealand committed funding to reintroducing a five-year trial rail service, named Te Huia, between Papakura in southern Auckland to Hamilton, starting in 2020. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand, the Te Huia service had been delayed commencing operations to sometime after 3 August 2020, changed from its initial announced opening date of March 2020. In 2020, the government announced funding for a number of rail-related infrastructure projects, mainly in the Auckland region. Operations Freight Freight is carried by KiwiRail and provides the majority of its revenue traffic. In the 2017–2018 financial year, freight contributed $350.7 million in revenue or 57% of the company's total revenue. Freight is mostly bulk traffic geared towards export industries, with general freight being largely restricted to containerised and palletised products on the trunk route. Major bulk freight includes coal, lime, steel, wood and wood products, paper pulp, dry and liquid milk, cars, fertiliser, grain and shipping containers. Freight levels have returned to the level that they were at when the railway had a virtual monopoly on land transport, prior to 1983. In 1980 11.8 million tonnes of freight was moved by rail, in 1994 this had decreased to 9.4 million tonnes. By 1999, tonnes carried had increased to 12.9 million tonnes, slightly more than the 1975 peak. In the 2006–2007 financial year, 13.7 million tonnes of freight were carried. This equated to 3.96 million net tonne kilometres (or the number of tonnes of traffic gained in 2008–2009 compared to the amount of traffic hauled in the 2006–2007 year). In recent years the amount of freight moved by rail has increased substantially and has started to gain market