Onehunga Station – photos

I managed to head out to Onehunga today and take some photos of the train station, which has now been largely completed. The site was a bit of a “mud-fest” as there has been so much rain in the last few days, but there has certainly been massive progress since I was last there. Here’s what the general site looks like now:As you can see in the photo above it’s a fairly basic station, but fits in nicely with the design of other stations around Auckland.The photo above looks towards the southern end of the station. It’s at this end where there was some recent debate about why the platform wasn’t made longer. My understanding is that some arcane rail rule meant that the end of the tracks in this spot had to be a certain number of metres back from a little, barely formed access road (which can be seen better in a later photo). The issue can be resolved oddly enough by making the little access road go over the tracks, meaning that there’s certainly potential for the platform to be easily extended in this direction in the future. In this area we will be seeing a Park and Ride constructed in the next month or two. It won’t be finished by the time the station opens, but shouldn’t be too far behind that. While I’m mixed on Park and Rides in general (particularly in town centres such as Onehunga) I think it will be useful in “kick-starting” patronage on this line. I imagine in the future this part of the site could be redeveloped into a large-scale mixed-use development. But the current economic conditions means that might be a while away. The photo above shows more clearly the access path I discussed earlier, which skirts around just next to the wooden retaining wall. I understand that the station platforms can be extended in this direction fairly significantly when required. The extra 20m available here should make it possible for three-car electric train sets to service the Onehunga Line.This photo shows the station platform itself. As I said earlier it’s pretty basic but should suffice. I really look forward to catching a train from here.The above photo shows that there is some gap between the station platform and the apartment building, which I understand to be around 14 metres. The platform could also potentially be extended in this direction, although consenting might be a bit trickier given the effects of that on the apartment dwellers.

It seems as though ARTA got caught between a bit of a rock and a hard place with this station, in that they were being pressured (and quite rightly so given the many many delays to the opening date of the Onehunga Line) to get the station open as quickly as possible, while at the same time to build the station platforms to their full length would have required a more lengthy consenting process. I think in the end ARTA has made the right decision – at least get the station open now with a platform long enough to cope with two-car trains. I just hope that by the time we shift to three-car electric trains as the shortest train type we have, the consenting issues will have been resolved and extending the platform will be possible.

Opening day is September 18th and there will apparently be a steam train hired for the event. I’m actually a bit gutted that I’ll miss it as I’ll be out of the country at the time.

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