Kiwirail and Auckland Transport have revealed that the rail network will be closed or partially closed for nearly 149 days between Christmas this year and the end of January 2026, almost 38% of the time, as part of what they’re calling the final push to get the rail network ready for the City Rail Link. That’s made up of 96 days of full closure and 53 days of partial closure.
The biggest of these will be the two Christmas shutdowns, each of which will be for about full month. It also appears they’ll be taking advantage of the short week between Easter and Anzac day to get another longer closure. The details of this year’s Christmas shutdown are below.
Christmas 2024 works includes a full rail network closure between 27 December 2024 to 27 January 2025. Parts of the network will be reopened on 28 January 2025, including the Western and Onehunga lines. There will be an additional week of service changes for the Southern and Eastern lines south of Otahuhu where buses will replace train. More on this will be released closer to the time.
The work being undertaken includes:
- those associated directly with the CRL, like Henderson Station
- projects like the third main between Otahuhu and Puhinui and new Southern Line Stations
- completing the Rail Network Rebuild, which the government provided an extra $159 million for earlier this year
- a bunch of other overdue renewals and upgrades which are funded out of Auckland’s $48.8 million share of a $107 million package in year’s budget (the Wellington is getting the remaining $58.2 million).
Putting aside the content, Kiwirail should clean this map up to make it more legible, for example, how about just three colours, Completed, In Progress, Upcoming
The press release also gets me a bit frustrated too:
Critical rail network upgrades being delivered before City Rail Link (CRL) opens in 2026 will support big cuts in journey times, fewer delays and trains every four to five minutes at peak.
Details were shared today on the transformational benefits coming for Aucklanders and the delivery plan for the network upgrade required before the opening in 2026. At the newly developed Maungawhau Station, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Acting Auckland Mayor Desley Simpson, KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and City Rail Link Ltd shared the scale of what will be achieved between now and 2026.
Auckland Transport Director Public Transport and Active Modes Stacey van der Putten says everything is on track for opening in 2026, and Aucklanders can start to get excited about the new ways they will be able to travel around the city.
“CRL will bring quicker public transport journey times, it doubles the number of Aucklanders within a 30-minute train journey to the central city. Customers travelling from
the west will get the benefits of direct new connections, for example Henderson to the new Te Waihorotiu Station in the central city will be about 24 minutes quicker – just a 35-minute trip.“Passengers will be able to just turn up and go with trains running more frequently – at peak, every four to five minutes through the central city, east and south from stations north of Puhinui Station. From the west there’ll be a train every eight minutes and from Pukekohe every 10 minutes.”
How the work will be delivered
“Additional funding provided by the Government in the latest Budget has allowed us to move forwards with certainty to plan and deliver much-needed upgrades on the rail network. These are essential to enable the faster, more frequent journeys that CRL and the other major projects we are delivering will bring,” says KiwiRail’s Chief Infrastructure Officer André Lovatt.
“The majority of the next and final stages of the Rail Network Rebuild will be delivered in extensions to the usual closures when all services are suspended during major holidays so our teams can safely work on the tracks and inside tunnels. This will include four weeks over Christmas 2024, and a couple of extended blocks around Easter 2025 and Christmas 2025 with some shorter periods of reduced frequencies on certain lines. A full network closure may not be needed for all those blocks, but this is the maximum time needed. There is also some contingency allowed throughout the programme for unexpected events.
“We know it’s vital to get the most out of this time period. That’s why we will be working 24-7 wherever possible. The hard work being achieved through Rail Network Rebuild is achieving a decade’s worth of work over 18 months – ultimately this will enable more efficient and faster train services. We thank commuters, passengers, and freight customers for their patience with these disruptions as we safely deliver the huge amount of work.”
This approach means relatively short sharp closures and less ongoing disruption when passengers and freight suppliers need the network most.
Talking about faster travel times is great but it’s notable that they continue to talk about travel times based on the current timetable. As we learnt and highlighted a month ago, there’s as much as five minutes of speed restrictions on some lines and even more time to be saved if AT were to speed up dwell times. I remain concerned that AT are not planning to incorporate these savings or make fixes to dwell times.
I’m also concerned that the Western Line, the one with the greatest travel time savings from the CRL, will get one of the smallest frequency improvements, going from six trains an hour at peak time to eight.
While these works are definitely needed, they are extremely frustrating and have been so frequent that most weekends my 3-year old will now say “there’s no trains, they’re fixing the tracks“. We’ve also had these long Christmas shutdowns for at least 20 years now. It would be good to get from Kiwirail confirmation of what their plans are once these are finished. Will we continue to see the network closed over summer and long weekends or will the closures we’ve had to put up with become much less frequent?
New Southern Stations
One of the wider network projects about to finally kick off is the building of the first of the new Southern Line stations, with Kiwirail saying:
We’re excited to announce construction is officially kicking off at Drury Railway Station in South Auckland, with our contractors expected to be on site from mid-November. It’s the first of the three new stations between Papakura to Pukekohe to start main construction.
They’ve also shown these renders of Drury and Paerata stations.
We’ve been concerned about these stations for a long time due to costing around $500 million combined and that they seem to be designed entrench auto-dependency the greenfield areas being built nearby them.
If these renders are accurate, they raise that concern even higher. For half a billion dollars, it seems they’re getting very narrow platforms with just a few bus shelters for protection from the elements, not even the standard suburban station shelter design.
I guess they spent all of the money on the park and rides
Like with the question of why didn’t they fix the tracks while the line was closed for electrification works, I also wonder why they these stations weren’t built during the closure.
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I am confused by the map showing the various components of track work referring to “ turnout and level crossing works” at Maungawhau station. What level crossing works are they referring to as Normanby Road has already been grade-separated and Porters/Wynyard closed and replaced with a pedestrian bridge. There are no other level crossings between Dominion Road and Khyber Pass over- bridges.
There are a Couple west of the Station between there and Kindsland that may need to be done .
You’re forgetting the George Street level crossing.
wow – could the Drury station platform be any narrower ?
With long dwell times and low duty cycle commuter trains, are they planning for low usage rates, or just laying the requirements for another round of station upgrades.
Im genuinely excited about the Active Mode Corridor (AMC) between Drury and Pukekohe. This will be a highly utilised game changer – and maybe the reason for such narrow landings.
AFAIK, the active mode corridor stops east of the new SH1 bridges / underpasses (with active modes to continue on GSR). So no, that’s not the reason. I think the reason for the narrow platforms at Drury is that they are allowing for four-tracking and have some other constraints from streams and private property…
And the active mode corridor to Pukekohe – with Labour “Cycling is a luxury while we have climate change damage to repair” and National “Cycling is woke nonsense”, I despair of seeing that corridor in place before I am too old to get even on an e-bike. It has some protections in place and at least the SH1 bridges allow for it (phew). But it’s not funded, and not likely to be funded any time soon.
and here’s a timing video about platform design:
* timely
How in the hell do those two stations cost half a billion dollars? I know civil infrastructure can be pricey but that doesn’t seem like good value for money.
The one at Paerata is having a new road bridge being built to get access to the carpark on the Easternside of the station with also a new road fron the Great South Rd being built .
And if you get the Te Huia you can seethe Works happening .
I think the Drury cost may include the new overbridge (with 4 lanes to the final Waihoehoe road layout) as well.
Agree with Phil, these stations seem terribly integrated with the surrounding area. What an awful waste of money.
As a regular user of the Eastern line I find this deeply frustrating, we had a 9 month shut down last year and have to endure this.
However if it’s what it takes to get the rail network fixed functional for the decades ahead then so be it. I just need to know that it’s not going to repeat every single year.
The train network needs to run over the summer and on holiday weekends, these should be busy times as families enjoy the city, it shouldn’t just be a commuter service.
The work this time on the Eastern Line will be the Meadowbank Tunnel which was not done 1st time around .
Interesting, it’s not on the graphic of projects
Really? It shows that stage as complete.
I think that everyone on the eastern line is a little more than frustrated at this point. We just cannot trust the trains as ours always seem to be the first to go whenever there are problems.
Let’s all be realistic however, everything that KiwiRail says is complete garbage and we are going to continue to have shutdowns all the time because they are useless. These shutdowns should only be happening overnight.
AT also needs to put in a better rail bus service as well as the current service is terrible – after many times where I waited more than 30 minutes for them last time, I just gave up and took other buses to get home. Will take a car in future to protect myself from AT’s nonsense.
“We just cannot trust the trains as ours always seem to be the first to go whenever there are problems”
Tell me you don’t use the Western Line without saying you don’t use the Western Line
I think you mean tell me you don’t use the Onehunga Line without saying you use the Onehunga Line.
Eastern Line shutdown must have been over 10 months all up and that was on top of the shutdowns in 2020/2021 when they replaced the tracks. I now just assume trains don’t run at weekends.
Maybe I am misremembering but a swear in 2019 the trains just worked, were mostly on time with minimal cancelations. I hope we get back to that level of service soon.
Totally agree. How many visits to the city were lost during the none month closure? How much $ wasn’t spent there?
Then the powers that be not get on and sort that Gowing Ave connection to the GI to Tamaki path while it was shut down. Such a wasted opportunity, now to top it all off I just hear today that it’s been deferred to 2027 or something due to not enough funding thanks to this new shitty government coalitions war on cycling.
I really hope that’s not the case. AT could have funded it years ago – and said they would – but their priorities are clearly elsewhere.
Gowing Drive is a classic missing link connection crying out to be filled, I hope that AT and/or the Council can see sense and fund it in one of these blocks of line…
We all deserve trains.
I don’t really like to remember but I grew up walking most of the tracks, because we did not have trains three decades ago, so another year of disruption seems better than no light rail, because the CRL will be, and in a land where things can be, then not be, then be; at least in JAFAland we can be sure that we will become a city with a subway, and therefore slightly more respectable upon the world stage.
Having previously lived in Sao Paulo, I know how important trains are, and that is a city that is well beyond the twenty million population mark.
Here we still have a bit of small town syndrome, and the fact that car insurance is more expensive in Auckland, while home insurance is more expensive in Wellington, tells a particular story about the motor normative addiction that Auckland suffers.
I choose not to drive, and am a far more relaxed person because I never drive. It allows me to be a better father, and a better citizen.
To look positively at the future, perhaps the CRL will make us all better persons?!?
Eventually.
bah humbug
So half that Drury station’s catchment is a park and a car park? And the other half is a road and some commercial buildings? Seriously what is the point. Who designs this crap?
Feeder buses and cyclists/scooters (most of the new Drury resi is still within easy distance for that). Agree it’s not ideal the station isn’t further south. The town centre developers actually pushed for that.
The we have the 2nd Drury Station on hold while they sort out the legal crap with the developer there.
I’m starting to ponder if it would have been a better idea to build a station at opaheke instead of ngakoroa. slow the pace of suburban sprawl a bit, there’s already subdivisions happening within 400m of where the railway crosses opaheke rd which i presume is where a station would be sited, and honestly Auranga seems better suited to a frequent bus feeding into Drury station proper since where the developer wanted Ngakoroa station is less than 1.5km away from Drury station which for a rural-urban boundary commuter rail station seems wastefully close together.
Previously rail buses on the Eastern line didn’t stop at Meadowbank. Now they do and passengers are treated to a tiki tour around the basin which adds miles and miles plus wasted time to their journey. I have enjured it many time but I can’t recall any passengers being picked up or dropped off. I think it’s time to revert to the old route which was reasonably direct from Glen Innes through to Orakei even if the loop into the station was a bit tedious but probably unavoidable. I am not to sure what alternatives could be provided for Meadowbank but since it is only 800 metres along a shared path to Orakei maybe there is no need. How about some e scooters or an electric golf cart service for passengers.
I’ve suggested this to AT many times, but they don’t care and absolutely refuse to consider any other options, including micromobility solutions across the boardwalk to Orakei.
Not only does the current Meadowbank detour add considerably to time on the bus (meaning, in fact, that when they close the line overnight and run rail buses for the last couple of services, the rail buses actually leave before the last train because they take so much longer, so who’s going to take that option!?), but they run the oldest, nosiest diesel buses down previously quiet suburban streets, rendering sleep impossible for local residents. On the worst days, these go to from before 6am until 2am, on average every 5 minutes (buses both north and southbound follow the same route from Remuera Road to the station and back again). It’s got to the point where we now have to either leave town or stay with family every time they put on rail buses, as the sleep deprivation otherwise impairs normal functioning. That’s bad enough at weekends, but is going to make working and schooling near-impossible for the next year….
Nuts, and you can see why they didn’t use to run them to Meadowbank Station. They must think they have to be super friendly to those that have accessibility needs or just too hard to do anything else?
Yes – I’ve specifically asked AT what other options have been considered, and they specifically avoid answering, so I think the answer is ‘nothing – too hard’. There is also the regular 782 bus that goes to Meadowbank Station and connects to Ellerslie and Sylvia Park, plus crosses Remuera Rd and so connects with the frequent 75 to the city…and for those without accessibility needs, you can walk (or cycle or scooter) across the boardwalk to Orakei Station faster than the bus can drive there. And if you’re heading South -at least when the Eastern Line was closed but the Southern was running – it was quicker to cycle to Remuera / Ellerslie / Greenlane and get on the train there than to use the rail bus, which is what my partner ended up doing (though admittedly it involves taking your life in your hands along Remuera Road and the like).
I 100% agree with your comments the lack of coordinated planning astound me. As you quite rightly point out why on earth were the new stations built when the line was closed for an extended period it’s maddening and the lack of a rail network over summer is so frustrating.
At least they built the platforms and put up screens at the new stations, so hopefully the rest of the station construction can happen without disruption to trains. I don’t understand why so many closures need to happen. I’m sure that in NZR days and abroad it happens much less.
And here is what and where those new Southern Line stations will be ;-
@Martin
Your level of confidence that you are familiar with the details of the planning and your big assumption that no coordination was done astounds me.
Small things like resource consents since the new stations project was started later than the electrification.
As someone else pointed out, what was allowed to be built early was built. eg station fronts.
Man, those new southern train stations are grim.
Here is a video of 2 I made the 1st with the Full press conference ;-
And the 2nd with a Calender of the Closure Date and the news items
Has Kiwirail been picking up management staff from the Australian Rugby Union or something?
It’s past time their role gets reduced to managing the rail infrastructure and private companies be brought in to shift freight.
Otherwise, there’s nobody to make them accountable.
i’d argue that KiwiRail stay the public rail operator but the infrastructure side gets bundled into NZTA and treated the same as roads. that should do something to mitigate the ‘freight over passenger’ bias kiwirail has
Who answers to the public and would publicly answer questions as to why the stations were
a) in the middle of nowhere
b) cost so much
If you are going to choose something, e.g a location, a design, anything then I want to know the evidence used to make those decisions.
I agree the extended shutdowns are very frustrating and will do nothing to help recovery ridership. The skeptic in me also wonders if the minister has agreed or even encouraged this approach as it helps with the “look, no-one uses PT agenda”.
However, I think when complaining about all the shutdowns over the last 20 years, GA should also post some pictures of what the network looked like 20 years ago (both stations, but also track, OHLE (lack of) and signalling) compared to today. The change is massive, so we have got something for all this pain. Compare this with shots of most stations on Sydney, Melbourne and London suburban networks and you’ll see that in most cases there is little change as they already had functioning, high capacity networks.
Also, be careful what you wish for… when the money taps get turned off, there will be no more engineering shutdowns for improvements, just back to to good old days of managed decline….
A happy medium going forward would be to aim get back to ~2 week shut at Xmas for major works and shut downs of only parts of the network at other major public holiday weekends (not whole network).
Agree, you can’t compare the massive changes in Auckland to maintenance in other countries.
Although it felt like last year we were told “we are going to close the rail to fix everything as quick as possible”, and then the next year we are told “we didn’t fix much last year, so now we need to close it again”
Kingsland station was a wooden shed, a single rickety track and an ancient overbridge made out of rails.
Cardboard box in middle of road..
To be fair, the minister has seemed to be supportive of getting rail right for the CRL. Probably helps that it was (eventually) started by National so has become less of a partisan issue.
But then again He might just want to get his name on the Brass Plaque for the opening of the CRL to prove he was a lover of Rail .
Re future shut downs post CRL opening. I’d rather they kept it open at Christmas for those visiting from other parts of the country or world & those that stay home (as some can’t afford a holiday) to show off our cool new network and provide a cheap way to get to activities & visit family, friends for those staying at home over the break. It’s nice and quiet in Auckland on the streets etc when all the peps have driven out of the city to stay at the beach etc.
They can do the work over other long weekends and nights / normal non-event weekends when necessary.
Well, if we want to hold David Gordon to his word at least I think he was the one that presented the KiwiRail update to council. Post CRL there will be fewer blocks of line required, most maintenance will be done at night.
Any bus priority improvements during the rail network shut downs?
Oh wait, we asked for that during 2021 rail shut downs, 2022/23 rail network shut downs.
Common AT please, please, please, get more bus lanes along Great South Road & Great North Road.
As someone who lives in the catchment of onehunga train station, I’m very disappointed to know that they’re doing nothing to improve the service of the rail here.
By double tracking the line, upgrading the Penrose interchange and integrating the onehunga bus and train stations, there would be so much potential to improve rapid transit here. I would absolutely use the train from onehunga if they just put in some effort to increase frequency/ integration. So much potential to connect the greater onehunga/ one tree hill area via rail.
No rail for you, but you will be able to cut a few minutes off your drive with the new East West link that costs 10x as much.
Well ask the Minister to fund it instead of spending everything on roads. S Brown diverted just about all the planned PT infrastructure funding to Ron’s and potholes.
Think AT were betting entirely on light rail as the primary rapid transit connection to Onehunga, and now that’s dead in the water
Unfortunately upgrading the Onehunga branch isn’t that simple or cheap, the SMART report was talking $500 million for double tracking and grade separation back in 2016 (so probably inflated out to $1.5 billion or more today) and that didn’t even cover a flying junction at Penrose or the necessary relocation/redevelopment of the station there.
Best on-the-cheap thing that could be done is probably a passing loop somewhere near Te Papapa, and turning the line into a shuttle service terminating at Penrose but running every 12-15 minutes instead of half hourly.
“Like with the question of why didn’t they fix the tracks while the line was closed for electrification works, I also wonder why they these stations weren’t built during the closure.”
Comments like this is why I’ve stopped attending this blog and providing feedback.
I’ve replied previously about the tracks but guess it’s ignored or forgotten. But nevermind that’s okay.
Re the stations. Just some small things like Resource Consent and property purchases. But easier to just put some uninformed comments on the blog than to research I guess 🙂
Hopefully everyone having a good day.
Hi Dave, I agree with you that AT, KiwiRail & Auckland One Rail must improve the frequency of the Onehunga Line to at least 3 services per hour. (20-minute frequencies)
This would match up better with the Southern Line connections at Ellerslie & Penrose stations for transfers for the Onehunga Line.
More people would use the Onehunga Line again & fill up again the near empty Onehunga train station carpark.
Classic AT. Nothing changes. Glad we just bought a second car. Went from 0 to 2 in few years. We are free of AT rule now! Highly recommend it to anyone. I hate driving but finally can go to places quickly and reliably. Huge time saver.
Agree. about lack of cover. At the stations and the walk to it is lacking. Have they not seen Albany Parkin Ride with cover?
on a much more trivial note it looks like the Eastern Busway will be inheriting the Eastern Line yellow/amber on the rapid transit maps when the CRL is open
“…Kiwirail should clean this map up to make it more legible, for example, how about just three colours, Completed, In Progress, Upcoming”
Yes, and this is an improvement on their badly subtlety used different colours on their older maps when we were going through earlier shutdown for the rebuild.
I live close to Sturges Road Station and the 14 Bus Route.
Using the 14 and the WX1 is a relatively quick journey to K-Road and a little longer to Britomart.
The WX1 has been a life changer for me while these BOL’s are occuring.
KR needs to be broken up. AOR, and AT are also at fault, but they’re the smaller offenders.
AOR would be fine if AT properly managed AOR and KR, and if they don’t work out we can always switch them out with someone else or run it ourselves.
AT just needs to get their mojo back and realise their job is to fight for Aucklanders, not to roll over and let other contractors etc. take advantage of them (and therefore Auckland).
But KR is a whole different kettle of fish. They need to be split into KR (who runs services like now) and Ontrack 2.0 (which manages the tracks/access to the tracks).
Rn KR prevents competition and holds back PT from Dunedin to Auckland. When you have an org that simultaneously competes for rail slots also deciding who rail slots go to, it’s time for a rethink.
And their infra arm is abysmal. I agree the work needs to be done. Sure there is underinvestment. But there is no reason that they have to do mass closures for long periods, as opposed to short sharp concentrated closures.
Splitting up rail let’s the Ontrack set the fees higher if they’re underfunded, and the Comcom can smack them down if it’s unfair like with airports etc. And more importantly there would be appropriate pressure on Ontrack by KR/other rail users to get their act together. If Auckland Airport/the motorway/port/bus network was shut for 1/3 of the year…
As a daily train user for commuting to work weekdays, I was gutted to hear this news last week, and am resigned to having to purchase a second car as backup during all of these shutdowns and all of the unexpected ones which still occur.
I too would LOVE Kiwrail and AT’s answer to the question about the long Christmas shutdowns and long weekend shutdowns once CRL is running. I’m going to assume the worst for now.
Just thinking at least they have frequent buses roughly echoing the route of sections of track still to do like the 32, 33 but not for Swanson to Henderson.
For out west they should have a 15 min rail replacement and more at peak or similar running to make up for it.
From memory I think the other major shut down areas had replacement express buses etc. Due to not been normal routes, it seems hard for them to contract buses for disruptions especially if not planned.
Our Penrose/Ellerslie/Greenlane etc area Gt Sth Rd used to have most of the southern buses come up through there pre-network and electric trains. Like I keep saying we need that 321 hospital bus to be every 20 mins at least all day and run later into the night and on weekends to help with disruptions etc.
This is very disturbing news.
Full track closures should not be happening as KR simply do not have enough staff (and contractors) to possibly do big work on all 3 (well 4 if you include Onehunga) lines at once.
They should simply concentrate on 1-2 lines at a time and leave the other operating to avoid such massive disruption (and strain of rail replacement buses for the whole city).
Now rumour has it that the reason why they are doing this is that they went elcheapo on the OLE back in the day and so it’s hard to isolate parts of the lines to allow work to proceed safely (coincidentally this is also why so many disruptions affect the whole network). If true this is ridiculous and needs to be rectified.
As for the new stations out South. $500m for that? WTAF?! Even with the park n rides that is way more than it should be costing for decent stations, let alone these basic setups. Ridiculous.
Just on a side note,
How feasible would it be to run light rail through a tunnel from Waitematā station to the motorway& then down the middle of the harbour bridge & then convert the rest of the northern busway? Or to even have trackless trams? I know the harbour bridge isn’t too steep for light rail, but would the amount of people using the system justify closing one lane of the bridge? Surely using things like congestion fees for the harbour bridge (say $1.50 per trip etc) would be enough to encourage people onto public transport instead? Just a thought
Just to clarify, I mean one lane each direction, reducing it to 3 lanes per direction