Most of you are probably back at work today after what I hope was a good break and probably trying to ease back into a usual routine as slowly as possible. If you are a person who normally catches the train to work that routine is almost undoubted still disrupted thanks to the rail network still being closed north of Newmarket on the Onehunga, Southern and Western lines while closed north of Westfield on the Eastern lines. In those places the network is being kept closed so that work can continue on getting the rail network wired up for electrification. The focus this shutdown has been on getting Britomart and parts of the Eastern line wired up.
Probably the main problem with overhead electrification is the visual impact of it – although in a way it kind of acts like an advertisement of a high quality PT service at the same time. Personally I have found that in most places the impact hasn’t been too bad and the installation is certainly far less intrusive than some other overhead systems I’ve seen. However when it comes to the visual impact, Britomart and the Eastern line across Hobson Bay are arguably the two most challenging sections and the ones where people are most likely to complain. I was out yesterday and so made a slight detour to see how work was progressing.
Eastern Line
The reason I think this section is difficult is that I suspect there are some local residents between Quay Park and the Purewa tunnel for whom any change to the visual landscape will be unacceptable. Along this part of the route it isn’t just houses primarily next to the rail lines that would notice changes but quite a lot all around the bay and the view in the area often plays a large part in property values.
The wires themselves were only installed as far east as Judges Bay however the masts extended all the way past Orakei station (I decided not to both going further as had other things to do). My feeling is that while the wires weren’t installed yet, the masts showed that the visual impact on the area probably isn’t going to be too significant. For example looking from Ngapipi Rd for example across Hobson Bay they certainly didn’t seem to be an issue.
I didn’t get any photos of this section but Luke C got this one looking across Judges Bay. The visual impact across the causeway is similar to what the masts around the Pt Resolution Bridge look like in this shot.
Britomart
Britomart is of course a completely different challenge. One of my favourite things about the station is how open and light part of the station is; it’s like a giant cavern. The risk with electrification is that it the infrastructure makes the station appear cluttered and I understand it has been something the project team have been very well aware of. I remember talking to someone involved with the project a few years ago and they said that early on they were putting a lot of effort in to the station to ensure they got it right.
One of the decisions that was made was that instead of running wires into the station – like across the rest of the network – instead a solid bar system would be used that removes the need for catenary wires thus reducing clutter. The system will also be used in the CRL tunnels once those are built meaning a smaller sized tunnel can be used compared to what would be needed to support catenary wires.
Now that the infrastructure is going in we can finally see what the station is going to look like. Here are a couple of photos of the works although they didn’t come out that well.
Next week the trains from everything but the eastern lines will return to Britomart, it will be interesting to see what passengers think of the changes.
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Yes, as of the weekend it there were masts but not wires up across Orakei Basin and along Purewa valley. Visually, the biggest impact is across Orakei and Hobson looking north. The galvanised steel will fade from bright to dull grey with time which may make them appear less intrusive, but I expect some of the locals will be looking like they’re sucking lemons while they admire their new waterfront views. Especially having only recently buried the ugly old sewage pipe.
Still.. masts and wires feeding quiet, clean, electric trains with mostly renewable power are better than noisy, smelly diesels.. and more frequent, faster trains whizzing along a 20 m corridor are better than a 6-lane motorway.
Now to complement our clean green new trains, what we need is the GI-Tamaki and Hobson Basin cycle highway links, complete with another new bridge or two..
Indeed thank goodness the Eastern Motorway never happened (thank you NIMBYS perhaps!)
Partner and I were pondering the other day where’s the extension of the Orakei basin cycle/walk way through CBD.
Just found Draft Hobson Bay Plan and ta-da
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/AboutCouncil/HaveYourSay/Documents/drafthobsonbayactionplan.pdf:
Develop a network of coastal walkway / cycleway around Hobson Bay, up Purewa Valley and down to Gentleman’s Bay
Lead
$3.8 million
1-10 years
That’s some nice work on the Britomart changes – good to see them considering the feel of the station carefully.
Personally I like the look of the Cantenary as to me it appears modern but I do know a lot of people that don’t like the visual impact. I will be interested to see what the “Bar System” looks like.
I was surprised how well they fade into the background across the bays, thought visual impact would be worse. Residents will be more than compensated my making this much area much quieter, the ADK’s especially make a big racket crossing the basin.
I think it looks smart and modern and in time it will just become part of the normal background. What would be worrying is if it decays and rusts to resemble the catenary pylons between Wellington and Petone along the seafront.
Those Caternaries are made of wood and untreated steel though…..
…and for some reason structural timber in NZ gets a reddish lichen growth that looks like rust.
I was under the impression the ones through Orakei were going to be painted green or something to make them less conspicuous?
I did a cycle round the waterfront along Tamaki Drive on Friday to check the progress of the Eastern line.
Not as much as I’d expected to be honest.
Masts and Wires were strung up as far as Judges Bay from the Britomart end and no wires further on (and not fully tensioned/aligned for some of those wires that were up either).
Masts were up all along the railway past Orakei basin, Purewa valley and almost as far as GI station on the other side.
Further down near GI station they were getting the trees/shrubs beside the station trimmed back out of the rail corridor (to prevent trees touching wires obviously), and working on those towards Panmure on Friday. At Panmure (which is probably just past the half way point of the Eastern Line), there is no real change since December that I could see and the station looks as unfinished as it did some time ago – with less than 2 weeks to the official opening!
KR appear to be using the area/yard near the old Tamaki Station as their storage area/yard for the work with masts and cross beams so there was a lot of activity there but not a lot elsewhere.
They started at the Britomart end (where the trains resume soonest, which makes sense), and are working back from there towards Sylvia Park (presumably to meet the same coming from the NIMT junction) somewhere between SP and Panmure.
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But given they are 2 weeks into this 4 week shut down on the Eastern Line, they don’t appear to me based on how far they’ve got, to be likely to finish the work this month, even allowing for the long weekend when they are going to close the Eastern Line again.
So do we have to put up with yet more delays from KR over this project?
I think when just doing the wires like what will be over the causeway they can do that pretty quickly. Focus is clearly on getting Britomart sorted and possibly even ready to be livened so testing can be done to there.
I appreciate thats what they’re doing as as Rob Mayo says below, they are going to liven up the Newmarket to Britomart section soonish.
Its the rest of the Eastern Line that I am wondering about though as that will impact Manukau and Papakura trains mostly and should ideally be back and fully working by the time schools reopen early Feb.
And if they don’t it done by then, they will be shutting down the Eastern Line nightly for months trying to complete the work they were supposed to have done in January.
“they will be shutting down the Eastern Line nightly for months trying to complete the work they were supposed to have done in January” ..AGAIN??!!
By 12 Jan 2014, they’re apparently planning to commission the section between Newmarket and Britomart (including the Britomart tunnel, station and Quay Park area).
Not quite that soon Rob, but certainly well before permanent train running in April. Newmarket- Britomart (NBL) will most probably be commissioned in February. As Matt L has said in a previous post, the sequence will be NBL, eastern line, southern line, and finally the western line.
Am aware of the sequence Jonno. I was told a couple of weeks back that its a 12 Jan commission date for the NBL as they need to test an EMU on that 25kph curve into Britomart ASAP. Has it been pushed back to Feb now? At the rate KIwirail/HILOR are currently working, it looks like an end Jan commission date to me.
Not this weekend Rob; NBL commissioning will be mid to late February as mentioned below, provided all goes well (which it has so far), with handover early March. This hasn’t changed from last year’s programme, although HILOR may be a little further ahead. Testing involves not only the traction system, but the station platforms and the earthing and bonding of extraneous metal as mentioned below by Alphatron.
I was worried that Britomart was going to look ugly with overhead lines, but actually that system looks rather elegant. Kudos where due.
Agreed – it’s much neater than I expected, and doesn’t look like a band aid retrofit 10+ years after the station was built. Well done.
The primary reason for the overhead conductor rail system being used at Britomart is that it considerably reduces the earthing and bonding effort needed to ensure that the chain link mesh used on the station roof could not become live. Reducing visual impact is a desirable but secondary outcome
I don’t agree, I think the visual appearance of the overhead cables was a big part of the decision. Not all of Auckland is happy to accept the cheapest ugliest solution to every problem.
(inside Britomart station, not whole network)
I know this is just inside Britomart, elsewhere they did go for the usual Auckland cheap, ugly and poorly designed look.
I don’t think that is fair, elsewhere they have gone for robust, functional, safe and long lasting… just like New York, Tokyo, Paris etc etc.
By in large the electrification infrastructure doesn’t look too bad. The standard masts are fairly unobtrusive and it’s only really the gantries or portals that are noticeable.
Has much more testing of electric trains going on, and can we look forward to one being taken (towed) to Britomart soon?
Not towed (no point) but certainly a lot of EMU testing will take place between Onehunga and Britomart prior to the launch of that route.
I think Luke is suggesting they tow one down to Britomart so the public can have a look through.
Oh, OK, I suppose that’s a PR option.
Not much towing one into Britomart, wires will be live soon so can just drive it in after that. AT are planning an open day for March
Yes, should be commissioned by March (probably mid to late February).
thought they may do clearance tests with EMU being towed around the curves during the shutdown period?
I suppose that’s possible Luke, but not necessary. Live EMU testing involves registration, stagger, platform clearance etc all at the same time. Everything is measured pretty carefully beforehand so problems are not expected, it’s really just confirmation.
Just came back from a walk down Tamaki Drive and the crews were just finishing for the day. Lines now across Hobson Bay.
How far?
Rob – Not sure how far across Hobson Bay the wires are, but this morning there was a lot of activity at Orakei (there is an access point there) and they seemed to be getting ready to put the horizontal bits on the vertical masts. Sorry about the non-technical descriptions!
Rode home via Orakei board walk today to check on progress [expecting wires all the way across the bay].
Disappointed, poles are up with the “wire hangers” on them ready for wires, but no actual wires that I could see from my vantage point at Orakei Station looking west across Hobson bay.
So if they’ve strung wires up its not too far along from Tamaki Drive end and little else – hardly stunning progress..
I did notice on the Eastern side of the Orakei Road rail overbridge, that two of the big uprights had those big stacks of weights hanging off them, ready to hook wires on to for tensioning. Which is recent as over the weekend the weights weren’t there.
But… progress…. on…. this…. is … so …. slow ….
And they have 12 more days left on the shutdown to go and they don’t appear to be near half way done.
I’ve seen them put up the wires pretty quickly once the other parts are in place. I would expect them to at least get to Orakei during the remaining shut down.
I must say those steel beams look really good in Britomart and look they’ve been there since day 1. They’ve really made them blend in well with the materials chosen. Much nicer than a lot of other comparable stations who went with wires
It’s not what I would have done.
Hi Mario, do tell, what would you have done? [Mario was a/the lead designer on the original conversion of the PO into the Britomart we now know and love]
Hi Patrick, we spent sometime future proofing the station for a number of different scenarios, one of them being electrification. Now that the future is here it’s not quite what I imagined. We contemplated an elegant catenary system, similar to the Golden Gate Bridge, which followed the lines of the woven wire mesh ceiling.
Thanks for the love.
Hi Mario
I spoke to the project team recently and asked about what other options were considered. They said they also considered a catenary system but the end result didn’t look as good and would have seen huge amounts of work needed to isolate and ground the wire mesh.
Hi Patrick, is there a decent photo of the Britomart electrification installation I can see?
Can make you one….
What is the impact of the bars noise-wise? Are they any noisier than wires, cause I’m trying to imagine had steel rubbing against each other
If I understand it correctly the ‘bars’ are actually a sort of slotted bracket that a standard contact wire clips into. Presumably this is so the contact edge can be easily replaced as it wears. So I guess that means it sounds the same as any other section of wire (but maybe without that peculiar tensile twang you occasionally hear).
Meanwhile, back on the Western Line, aside from a bit of long outstanding track work, pretty much nothing happened over the Xmas shut down. Certainly no electrification work, no pest plant clearance (it’s getting quite jungle-like in places) and no necessary minor infrastructure improvements, e.g. a fence between the side platforms at Avondale station to prevent the growing practice of passengers crossing the track or resolving the recurring matter of heat restrictions Guess that means we can look forward to another year of extended weekend closures, track restrictions and noisy Bayes rail bus replacements (their drivers relish the prospect of imposing their musical tastes on passengers via the bus pa system).
Saw them replacing sleepers at Henderson the other day on the bridge that was then hit by a truck yesterday. Also saw them removing plants from the side of a bank near Sturges and the platforms at Sturges have been lengthened (think they may have been lengthening the platforms at Ranui too.
3rd rail for an unobtrusive electric system. Cheap too.
A live rail at ground level is not really an option on a network like Auckland’s that is mostly unfenced and has lots of pedestrian and vehicle level crossings.
Not cheap when contemporary safety standards are applied. Not cheap when the implications of low supply voltage are factored in.
RE: “I remember talking to someone involved with the project a few years ago and they said that early on they were putting a lot of effort in to the station to ensure they got it right.”
If they really wanted to ensure they got it right, surely they would have consulted the architect that designed the station? Wondering why that never happened.