The NZ Herald reports that the rail upgrade work taking place over the next couple of weeks – which will involve significant improvements to big chunks of the network in preparation for electrification – has swung into action:
About 200 rail workers threw themselves into a hectic summer construction programme throughout Auckland yesterday, including erecting the first of 3500 power supply masts for the $1 billion electrification project.
Several masts were erected through the Newmarket railway junction and above a new platform being built at the Baldwin Avenue station on the western line, as work began elsewhere around the region demolishing bridges and lowering tracks to create enough head-room for electrification.
I went to the cricket match at Eden Park yesterday and there were a number of KiwiRail staff around Morningside Station doing upgrade works.
Although five bridges are being replaced between Papatoetoe and Papakura and the 800m Purewa railway tunnel is being lowered this summer, Mr French he said the premier job of the season was probably the re-signalling around Quay Park.
That is needed to ensure trial runs of “bi-directional” Rugby World Cup rail operations can take place early in the New Year, in which trains will run in the same direction on both sets of tracks from Kingsland Station.
The first such trial is due on February 19 for a rugby clash between the Auckland Blues and Canterbury Crusaders at the opening of the Super 15 season at Eden Park.
I would agree that the signalling work at Quay Park is the most interesting and useful part of the upgrade works that will happen over this break. Not only will it allow bi-directional running of trains for one-off events like matches at Eden Park, it will also enable Britomart to handle a few more trains at peak times. That should it won’t be too long before we can have 10 minute peak frequencies on the Western Line.
I’ll try to get out and about – particularly around Baldwin Ave station – over the next week and a bit to take some photos of what’s happening.
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Drilling is being done for mast bases out west, today I have seen them doing it at both Sturges Rd and around Bruce McLaren Rd
I just walked through Baldwin Station. The tracks are completely ripped out, work beginning on the station.
Stopped past the Pukekohe station today. Why are the using the stables as a metro port?? Is it being used in substitute of the Manukau metro port while the summer works take place??
They are having to do a road bridging operation due to the southern line being closed, basically they are stopping all freight trains there and putting the stuff on trucks to get it to Westfield and doing the same in reverse.
Why is the rail network shut down for Boxing day? Last I heard there Auckland had a number of events happening.
I would have thought they would have kept the lines open for the 20/20 and the Races. They are big train events in Wellington (especially the races). It’s one extra day before they would have started work on the lines. Not really a big deal!
What Chris said. And road traffic in Auckland drops down to its lowest levels for the week immediately following Christmas Day, so there’s no congestion or travel time benefit to using trains. It’s quieter than most week-day evenings during the rest of the year.
Better to get the extra hours, especially since the events would require keeping Southern and Western lines open so you’d lose the time on both lines.
Because they need every minute that they can get to complete the work in time.
I see the Herald have a rather schizophrenic editorial about this today. Somehow it is both an outrage that passengers are left high and dry from this critical service and also a complete waste of money spending anything on this critical service. Also the usual broken record of arguments about why road transport is a waste of money. Incidentally I am at work today and the CBD is like a ghost town, so this time best to have a complete shutdown.
I agree, I am in today as well and the city is dead, it took only 20 mins to get from home to town as no one was on the roads.
I think you mean “Also the usual broken record of arguments about why rail transport is a waste of money”, however your error is quite amusing as with that editorial’s same argument applied to our free-flowing motorways – which often close at night – any investment in roads too could be seen as a waste of money.
Remember the closed Newmarket Viaduct in September? Obviously this means we don’t need it. Nor the southbound clip-ons on the Harbour Bridge, which also happen to be closed this week.
Yeah that was what I meant :-).
The Southern Parking Lot is being closed for 10 hours a night on three consecutive nights next week. Clearly a complete waste of money.