Some good news yesterday with the first electric trains carrying paying passengers now operating from Papakura. Like what happened with the Eastern Line, we’re seeing services start off offpeak only and then over time as any issues (which hopefully there shouldn’t be) get addressed – and
And there she went the first electric train service in revenue service on the Southern Line to Britomart pic.twitter.com/JpKgdZAJ9o
— Ben Ross (@BenRoss_AKL) January 14, 2015
It’s great to see them being rolled out and I suspect we’ll see them go fully electric down south in the next day or so.
While it’s great that these are being rolled out, I can’t wait for them to be on all services
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Oh, goodie. Then we Pukekohe-ites can have the joy of changing trains!
jj
Do you get more service options as the DMU are released from other parts of the network, or is it the same lackluster timetable with a change to make you feel even more under-appreciated?
Overall if it works as I suspect, electrification to Pukekohe will end up being one of the quicker wins, although I’m predicting that there’ll be a lack of capacity in EMU before too long as everyone figures out how much better the service is.
We will get week-end trains – which is good, indeed – but for us who use the trains for commuting it doesn’t change. Swapping trains in Papakura isn’t going to kill me 🙂 But roll on Pukekohe electrification!!
jj
It’s great that we got the electrification project funded and implemented, but extending it further south is going to be the vital next step. Shame it had to stop at Papakura, but I guess there were political realities in the planning phase
Can’t wait for the Western line to spark up (my home line)!
April is when they start on the Western Line, apparently. Seems rather optimistic.
Is there any news on whether timetable improvements will be made at the same time the western line goes electric? Also I’m really hoping that timetable change is the same one which finally brings 10 min peak frequencies to the west- I dont catch it as much as the other lines, but it seems to have the fullest trains by far now.
Yeah hopefully 10 min peak frequencies, some later services mon-thurs, not as much late running services and some improvements in line end to end speed.
Since they will be diesel to pukekohe and patronage has increased tenfold over the years, how about extending to tuakau or pokeno? Even if just a few at peak as a trial? Tuakau is badly connected to Auckland compared to say helensville.
If Waikato Council fund it, then sure.
Tuakau is not part of Auckland, but Helensville is.
But it would benefit Auckland so why not? All waikato council would need to do is approve it
Could the blog guys do a post on the existing rail network, outer reaches what is there platforms etc even possible connection to cities north and south for passengers? Marsden Pt spur for port upgrade? and passenger benefits?. The diesel fleet do we keep because of outer links and also likely EMU shortages without CRL for now. Are there any freight only lines that could be useful for passengers? How many EMUs each line, likely capacity, how many diesel trains? Sorry know about CRL, Mt Roskill spur, Sw line to airport but I don’t know much else.
Thought I was dreaming today as I saw two EMUs go past work in Wiri. Now I know why.
According to Len: “Full roll out on Southern Line due by start of next month with Western Line complete by May.”
Thats awesome, though the AT website says July for the western line though. I move back west in august so that will be awesome. Hope it is may though for all of you out there, sick of west getting everything last…
I agree. It would’ve been nice for the western line to get the electrific trains in time for the cricket world cup. However, I understand patronage is higher on the southern line.
This is really fantastic. We need the frequent bus network with ideally a high frequency core to really make full use of these babies. There is so much car mode share up for grabs. And will that eat into congestion, hell yeah. We are still car fishing with one hook, get the net out!!!
There is one issue with the frequent network though and that is late buses; they will connect with rail but with no rail service after 10pm. To fix this “friday only” services will need to become part of the standard weekday timetable.
That or specific night services, for when trains don’t run, like other cities and every night, not just Friday and Saturday nights.
Yeah but wouldnt the cheaper cost of running emu’s justify running FO’s as weekday service’s. Plus would make it more user-friendly than special Mon-Thurs buses.
What’s the maintenance window?
It’s ok right now that everything is relatively new, but ongoing maintenance needs to occur or the system will return to an unusable state.
Well theres still 12:30am-5am give or take a little depending on where on the network the work is to take place. Plus longer time on Sunday night and Public Holiday nights.
On a similar note, I recall one busy weekend last year AT trialed 24 hour train services. Was there ever any report on how that went?
Yeah it was ok. But honestly 1am-5am is usually dead. But many people work until 11 or 12 and the services stop at 10 Mon-Thurs. So instead of getting a 30 min train i would have to get a 90 min bus plus extra walking
There is now a growing collection of DMUs at the Pukekohe station which don’t appear to be going anywhere….
They should have given the unpaid/waivered parking fines list to Pukekohe and said collect these and you can have electric trains would have almost paid for half of it.
Rail is No1 let’s maximise full use of tracks, platforms and trains be it electric or diesel to the outer reaches. Fire up No2 (bus) full scale the whole 1000 with priority and feeding as many to No1 as possible. Politicians piss off and let the teams carry on with it. Then fire up No 3 cycle. Then No4 walking. Then No5 ferry. Car at No6 the first 5 will clear the way for you. Change of focus, change of outcomes like a fully functioning network in a city.
Buses far out suck, kumeu/helensville, waiwera/orewa, beachlands/maraetai, waiuku/tuakau. They would be more use if they had proper operating hours and frequencies but even under the consultations they’re pretty rubbish.
Cutting off the border of Auckland at Buckland was a political decision of Rodney Hide and his National cronies. The arbitrary stopping of rail as public transport at Pukekohe makes no sense when there is significant road commuter traffic to Auckland from as far south as Hamilton. Any commuter rail service extension south of Pukekohe will have an effect of reducing road traffic on SH1 and on the Southern Motorway. This will have a positive effect on road travel times for Auckland motorists. Connecting Hamilton to Auckland with a regular commuter link would have wide economic benefits in both cities.
Agreed. Should be looked at seriously. The tracks are there and now diesel trains for Africa. Cars off the motorway even further back or a long way out make a lot of sense in clearing congestion and maximises efficient transport on long distances. Some fair operational cost share with Waikato and/or an equiv fare allowance?
Completely agree with this DMU shuttle trains should run south papakura-tuakau and west swanson-huapai. Infrastructure is there, trains are there, platform is there, do it and they will come.
In concept this is great idea, in practice there are two issues that I can think of:
– speed a Hamilton/fringe service will always take longer, especially while resourced by DMU
– frequency, this is the reason for the spectacular growth in PT, turn up and go, most of the trials at the fringe of the rail network have been pretty sparse in frequency, which decreased it’s usefulness
Wihtout dealing with the objections, you are unlikely to get the mode shift that is possible.
Well I guess electrified rail to fringes, a north western busway probably plus some others and a shit loads of physical separated cycling is the opportunity cost of NZTA spending right now.
Anyway, they’re really great to travel on!
And that means they will be a plus for us in Pukekohe even if they don’t go all the way. When they made the recent timetable change so that the 1644 evening train to Pukekohe (via GI) became the 1638N, they also gave us the really old diesels, which are louder, air-conditioning poor, and really grossly bad PA system.
jj
I catch that train as far as Ellerslie sometimes and I’m pretty sure that it hasn’t left earlier than 16:42 ever.
True. It’s usually a few minutes late leaving. I just wish it were less noisy – and cooler!
jj
Was this a one-off change (the EMU to Papakura) due to network issues, or a planned introduction? There was also an ADL on Onehunga services yesterday. Today Papakura is all diesels, as per the usual operating plan.
There was an EMU off-peak yesterday as per the times on voakl blog.
EMU testing on the Western Line this morning. Spotted one heading towards Britomart, at Baldwin Ave.
Really want to see this, anyone manage to get any pics? The only pic I have seen is a evening/night shot at Ranui station.
I do hope that Pukekohe patronage does not plummet as a result of the forced transfer once diesel service is phased out altogether on the south line.
Does anyone know if the timetable will change again, or will all current Pukekohe departure times just become those of the shuttle, and will Papakura departures wait for inbound Pukekohe shuttle services in the event they are delayed?
I’m predicting patronage from Papakura will skyrocket once all-electric services begin. So would Pukekohe’s if the wires went that far.
Should improve pukekohe patronage since the service is by emu most of the way, plenty of people bus and train, a diesel shuttle train is kinda the same except also timed perfectly for transfer. Hopefuly they run pukekohe more frequently than the current timetable since thats easily done from just papakura to pukekohe, but doubt they will due to the apparent shortage of train drivers.
Fully electric in the next day or so??
Try a few months!
Yeah apparently theres a shortage of drivers. Hope something is done about it soon…
Once the service from papakura to britomart is fully electric will they bring back papakura britomart via glen Innes ?
No according to the timetables AT have published.
Their argument is that you transfer at more than one station to the Eastern Line lines, and with a 10 minute (at peak) headway.