Why is the Western Line so slow?
Yesterday I caught up with a bunch of fellow transport enthusiasts and we all trundled out to Swanson Station, near the end of the Western Line, to have lunch. It was a good chance for me to actually see all the Western Line (with day-passes we all caught the train out to Waitakere station after lunch and then rode it back to town), as I hadn’t been past Henderson in a great number of years.…
18 Comments Further info on Western Line changes
A couple of days ago I wrote a blog post on the changes being proposed to the Western Line’s timetable. I was critical of two aspects of these changes: I criticised the three minute lay-over at Newmarket on the grounds that it just adds to the length (time-wise) of Western Line trips, which have already been inconvenienced in terms of time compared to how things were when the Newmarket West temporary station was in operation.…
Tweaking the Western Line
From Sunday April 11th there are going to be some minor changes to the timetable for the Western Line. These are explained in ARTA’s media release (which I had emailed to me but doesn’t seem to have shown up on either the MAXX website or the ARTA website):
Train timetable tweaked
The Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) announced today the timetable for Western Line train services will change from Sunday 11 April.…
Finding out what’s wrong with our trains
Put simply, 2010 has been a pretty shocking year so far for rail in Auckland. Despite two significant milestones: the opening of Newmarket station and the New Lynn rail trench, I think generally things have been worse than last year. This is illustrated in the problems faced around when Newmarket station opened, long waits suffered by Western Line travellers while drivers change ends at Newmarket, shocking performance statistics for January, numerous breakdowns occurring (including on Monday last week on the first day university was back) and poor press resulting from shocking customer service.…
Discounts for Newmarket Train users
While my comments on the Newmarket station have been mixed, and there are still certainly some unresolved issues relating to timetabling and trackwork, it does seem as though some thought and effort is going into getting people to try out the station and getting people to consider new ways in which to get to a place like Newmarket – which has excellent public transport connections and a shortage of parking.…
Newmarket Station visit
After writing a fair few blog posts on Newmarket station over the past week (and not all of them particularly complementary) I thought I should go check it out for myself. Arriving from Broadway, I do think something needs to be done to improve the connectivity of “station square” with the main street.…
Avoiding the end-change at Newmarket
One the biggest hassles about the old Newmarket Station (the old old one, not the Newmarket West or South stations) was the “shunt” movement that has to be used to get trains from Britomart out to the west. In 2006 I used the train service between Britomart and Avondale for a couple of weeks after writing off my car, so experienced the “Newmarket shunt” first hand.…
Newmarket timetable mismatches
The Newmarket train station is an important hub for the rail network – being the point where the Southern Line connects to the Western Line. In recent times, the split of Newmarket into two stations (Newmarket West and Newmarket South) which was necessary while the new station was being constructed, rather killed off any chance for people wanting to transfer between the services, but now that we have one single station again it should be fairly easy to transfer from one train to the next (especially if the ticketing system is improved to ensure you don’t have to buy a second train ticket).…
Breaking News: rail stuff-up
Just when we were looking forward to the rail system being fully operational tomorrow for the first time this year, it seems like something’s thrown a spanner in the works. This is the latest update from ARTA:
As at 10:15pm Sunday 17 January 2010: As a result of unexpected technical difficulties at Newmarket, train services across the region will be operating to a revised timetable on Monday 18 January 2010.…
Newmarket Station officially opens
I popped over to Newmarket to see the official opening of Newmarket station today, and also to take a few photos of the place. It ended up being quite an interesting opening, as I had the opportunity to speak to quite a few people – a fair few councillors, KiwiRail Chairman Jim Bolger and even Steven Joyce himself (briefly).…
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