As a few of my recent posts have shown, a significant amount of work has gone on throughout Auckland’s railway system over the last few weeks. Yesterday the Southern and Western Lines reopened for the first time since Christmas, with trains operating once again throughout the whole network.
It is quite impressive to see what OnTrack have achieved throughout that time. The Avondale work I have covered in a previous post, although I will at some point head back there to take some more photos of the finished product (well, the finished product at this point, as the final train station is probably going to be slowly constructed over the next year). However, there was also a huge amount of work around Newmarket and also between Newmarket and the Boston Road station. OnTrack have fantastically kept a great record of the works they’ve been doing on their website. A few pictures from that site are included below:
This photo appears as though it’s taken from the Broadway bridge over the rail line, looking east. It’s interesting that the entire track base has been concreted in this area – I guess there must be some instability in the ground around here. I still haven’t figured out exactly how the train movements will work through Newmarket when it’s complete (the under-construction station is over to the right side of the picture), but I think the two tracks clearly in picture are mainly to be used over the next year or so while the rest of the station area is constructed.
This is a particularly interesting photo as we don’t often get to see ‘close up’ how the tracks are constructed and tested. Perhaps the machine above is ‘bolting’ the tracks to the sleepers between them or checking that they have a consistent width. I’d be curious to know.
I am pretty sure this photo looks back towards the same bridge that the first photo was taken from. Pretty amazing to think that this crazy work site is now a completely functional rail line again.
This is another interesting photo of the Newmarket area. I’m not sure exactly where it would have been taken from, but I think it looks south towards where the station is being constructed.
This photo shows a part of the recently double-tracked line between Newmarket and Boston Road. Previously the double-track line finished about where the photo is being taken from, but now it extends further towards Boston Road. I need to get to this area and have a look at it myself to see exactly what progress has been made – perhaps I will be able to get out there myself in the next couple of weeks.
I am particularly looking forward to Newmarket station being opened. Another year….
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