KiwiRail's decision to cut 158 jobs is a national disgrace says NZ First's transport spokesman Brendan Horan today.

The Tauranga-based MP says KiwiRail's announcement today it will be cutting 158 jobs within its infrastructure and engineering business is a disgrace considering the maintenance he says is required on the tracks.

NZ First transport spokesperson Brendan Horan says KiwiRail job cuts are a disgrace.

'There's maintenance required right across the network,” says Brendan.

Brendan says there are severe maintenance issues that need to be attended to in Tauranga and the wider Bay of Plenty, with the Kaimai Tunnel at the top of the list.

'It was closed last Monday night for three and a half hours. There's a permanent speed reduction to 25km/h. Contractors have been doing maintenance work in the tunnel for three months.”

The Kaimai Tunnel is the only rail link between the Bay of Plenty and KiwiRail's main trunk line providing access from the Port of Tauranga, and Auckland and Hamilton.

The Matapihi Railway Bridge is also in a severe state of disrepair, says Brendan.

He says there are also severe issues at Sulphur Point where the concrete has crumbled and the track has spread resulting in wagon wheels going off the track.

'That's just two areas right here.”

He's concerned the KiwiRail maintenance staff are being replaced by private contractors who lack expertise.

'It's placing KiwiRail in the expensive position of hiring contractors, who do a bad job, and then bringing in KiwiRail maintenance workers to fix it up.

'At the fuel depot in Tauranga contractors were supposed to fix some track,” says Brendan. 'They dug into the concrete, and what should have been a one to two day job ended up over a month. KiwiRail maintenance workers had to go in and fix it.”

Brendan says these issues are in addition to the work KiwiRail is facing to redress the damage caused by the 'rotting Peruvian sleepers”.

He says there are 55,000 rotting sleepers around the network, which are endangering lives with one Auckland rail worker having a lucky escape last week when a sleeper on a bridge collapsed under him over a 40 metre drop.

'It's back to '93 when they cut the heart out of NZ Rail,” says Brendan.

'It looks like that is what they are going to do again.

'The Government's spending billions on roads, I believe we should be investing in rail. We have got the opportunity to make a wonderful piece of infrastructure, especially in terms of fast rail.”

KiwiRail says today the 158 is reduced by 23 from an earlier proposal to cut 220 jobs.

KiwiRail infrastructure general manager Rick van Barneveld says the company has worked closely with staff and more than 70 have already taken up an offer of voluntary redundancy.

Staff will be told this week which roles will be disestablished.

KiwiRail operates in three regions: Southern - South Canterbury to the bottom of the country. Central - Wellington to South Canterbury, and Northern - Wellington to Northland.

There will be 42 redundancies in the northern region, 58 in the central area, 40 in the southern region. There will be 18 redundancies from the track machine team and railweld which operates around the country.

KiwiRail is reducing its 714-strong infrastructure and engineering work force to 556.

KiwiRail will begin working with affected staff from early October, and recruitment in to the new structure will be complete by the end of October.

The state-owned enterprise is looking to shave $200 million from its books in the next three years and there is talk of a second round of job cuts in March.