After the steep descent of the Raurimu Spiral we steadily dropped through the rugged river valleys of King Country onto the lush plains of Waikato. We had some more stops in the middle of nowhere for "operational reasons". So of course we were not making up any lost time.
The last reasonable length stop was at Hamilton - just enough time to dash for the toilets on the station, go and rush back onto the train in the darkness. For by now the toilets on the last 2 carriages had been out of order for some time
As we stop-started our way through the endless suburbs of Auckland we finally saw another train heading the other direction. So there were only a few today and the 2 freight trains in no way contributed to our slow passage north. This was just a normal day on the North Island main trunk line - the on time performance has not improved since my previous trip, and my decision to travel northward was justified in hindsight.
We pulled into a deserted Britomart station in downtown Auckland a couple of hours late. When I think back to earlier trips in the 1990s, these took 9 or 10 hours and today's trip was 14 hours. What progress?