An updated train timetable for Auckland has been released by ARTA, to take effect from June 29th.
ARTA’s summary:
From 29 June there will be a new train timetable in operation on all lines.
With the delivery of additional carriages over the last year, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority has been able to increase services and provide more capacity during the busy, peak times.
More capacity (bigger trains) will be provided during peak times on the Southern and Eastern lines, and there will be some slight changes to the timings of nearly all services on these routes. Additional frequency will be provided throughout the day between Papakura and Pukekohe, as more services are added to cater for the continued demand in the area.
There will also be increased opportunity for existing and new customers to travel later in the evening, with the introduction of additional late night services on the Southern and Eastern Lines.
On the Western Line, passengers will benefit as the RailBus replacement services between Avondale and Waitakere cease, and normal train services resume.
Interestingly, the Western Line keeps its Helensville service, which is a bit of a surprise as it was only meant to be a trail service, continuing if 40 passengers per day was reached. This level of patronage has not been achieved, but the service stays. Oh well, could be worse! Extra late night services on the Southern Line and the Eastern Line are also good, and the south/east are now served by a train that leaves Britomart as late as 10.40pm each night of the week (even later trains run on Friday and Saturday nights).
The improvements that could be made were fairly limited, as additional trains for Auckland aren’t going to arrive for a few months yet, and there are still parts of the Western Line which are single-tracked (which make it difficult or impossible to increase frequencies). Hopefully, the next update to the train timetable will have Sunday services on the Western Line running all the way out to Swanson, and not just to New Lynn. And I also hope that we can get trains as late as 11.30pm leaving town on every night of the week. As for further capacity at peak hour, I think that will start being quite constrained by the track infrastructure – especially once the Onehunga Line starts service early next year.
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Wow. Things have changed immeasurably since the 1990s. It’s easy to forget ancient 1950s twice hourly trains that stopped at 6.30pm and hardly ran on weekends at all.
Things definitely have improved over the last few years. If you’re on the line between Papakura and Otahuhu you have – at worst – a train every 15 minutes throughout the day. That’s not bad.