One of the things Aucklanders don’t like to talk about – because it’s far too embarrassing – is that up until a few years ago our trains didn’t run on Sundays. That’s right, we had the typical weekday services and then we had a greatly reduced timetable that ran on Saturdays, and nothing at all on Sundays. It was embarrassing, I try to banish the memory from my mind.
When Sunday trains were introduced, in about 2006 I think, they started off fairly tentatively. I think the frequencies were fairly minimal throughout the network, although since that time frequencies have been increased – to the extent that the Eastern Line now has a train every half hour on a Sunday. This is largely due to the success of the Sylvia Park railway station. I know that the times I have caught a train on the Eastern Line on a Sunday just about the whole train has got off at Sylvia Park.
On the Western Line when Sunday trains were first started there was a significant amount of trackworks being undertaken between New Lynn and Swanson as part of the double-tracking project. Therefore, it made sense to terminate the Sunday services at New Lynn and leave the track further to the west of that empty for the construction works. However, we are now three years on from that situation yet the Western Line Sunday timetable looks the same:
Yup, the “Terminates at New Lynn” still plagues our system. I guess to be fair there is a significant amount of trackworks going on at New Lynn, due to the trenching project that is underway there. However, that project would affect trains on the city side of New Lynn station just as much as those further to the west. In fact most of the remaining Project DART works are on the city side of New Lynn station – so trackworks really isn’t a justifiable excuse in my opinion.
Perhaps maintaining the current poor service is just too easy for ARTA/Veolia. Maybe it’s tricky getting sufficient staff on a Sunday? Not really an acceptable excuse in my opinion – and I challenge ARTA/Veolia to extend Sunday trains on the Western Line out to Swanson as soon as possible!
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Josh
Would you like to work Sundays?
On a PO wage of $14 ph
On a TM wage of $17 ph
Wouldn’t being at home with the family be better?
Bear in mind also that Veolia can’t get enough onboard staff as it is without have to staff a full service on Sundays.
I might continue this on the bettertransport board..
I used to work on Sundays for a lot less than that. For a student being a PO on the weekend would be a pretty cool job I reckon. A damn site better than the years I spent working weekends at McDonald’s.
Your observation about the success of the Sylvia Park service raises the persistent thought about the relationship between these mall owners and rail. I can’t quite understand, for example, why Westfield in Manukau City hasn’t been kicking and screaming and dragging Manukau City Council into shifting the proposed station so that it abuts the Mall rather than being a km away? The same with Lynmall: is there any proposal for example to integrate the new station at new Lynn directly into the Lynmall complex, ie under cover? Likewise see the missed opportunity at Henderson. For example, Westfield, as you know, have considerable experience of rail/mall integration from their White City experience in west London; it seems strange that they seem incapable of applying this knowledge to NZ projects.
It is strange that Westfield haven’t caught on to the idea of improving rail access to their malls. After all, they could save a lot of money in not having to provide quite so many parking spaces if the percentage of shoppers using trains increased.
I still think there’s a 1990s mentality that public transport users are poor and don’t spend money, while those who drive to the malls do the real spending. Hopefully Sylvia Park is changing that mentality.
New Lynn’s plans provide reasonably good integration between the mall and the railway station.
Westfield refused point blank to have an exit from Britomart in the Downtown Mall, why should they change their attitude now?