Photos: Auck Rail Exactly 1 Yr Ago

 

If you want a reality check of how far Auckland has come with rail in the last 12 months, think back to the frenetic rail work being done last Labour weekend, exactly one year ago.

Now, we enjoy the spoils of that major station upgrade work including such new stations as Newmarket and Grafton.

Here is a snapshot of photos of the work going on or the status of the development, on Labour Weekend 2009, one year ago.

Newmarket’s new station 1 year ago:

New Lynn’s new transport hub & trench 1 year ago:

Boston Rd /Park Rd I year ago:

Site of Onehunga station 1 year ago

Kingsland RWC 2011 extensions 1 year ago

Mt Eden to Kingsland bridge work to lower tracks for electrification

Avondale’s new station 1 year ago

Photo Coverage of Labour weekend rail work this year 2010 starts here!

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7 Comments

 
  1. rtc says:

    Huge number of improvements have come on stream, the irony being that they only occurred because of existing funding, National’s cuts mean we can’t expect the same over the next few years.

  2. Andy says:

    Wow, with all the complaining that goes on sometimes makes me happy to see that there have been plenty of great achievements. Great look back!

  3. BrentP says:

    The end of year report card would be full of pretty positive comments about progress and achievement. It is great to reflect on how much progress has been made in a year. Thanks, Jon!

  4. William Ross says:

    Very fascinating.
    Jon, you have a goldmine of hundreds if not thousands of images of the changes in the last few years.
    You’re the only person who has gone out diligently every week and so extensively recorded it on a site for the world to see.
    If you decide to close down the site we’ll lose that important historical record.
    Something should be done to ensure your extensive record is preserved publicly for history.
    In a decade’s time, people will have forgotten the struggle to get such rail improvements or what it looked like back then.

  5. karl says:

    “National’s cuts mean we can’t expect the same over the next few years.”

    Actually, we will be seeing trainloads of such further work being done over the next few years (electrification, integrated ticketing and related track, bridge and station work). So it’s all good - work will continue to improve things (and disrupt schedules ;-)

    And it STILL won’t be thanks to National (“lets cancel the fuel tax, then dawdle for a year, keeping everyone in suspense, then hand Auckland a LOAN to pay for what they were prepared to pay for themselves*).

    *And then they (like Bill English) dare to give us lectures about “expecting the Nation to pay for our rail rather than pay for it out of our own pocket”.

  6. karl says:

    “If you decide to close down the site we’ll lose that important historical record.”

    Internet archiving services will in all likelihood pick it up without a hitch. Not sure how often they “do the rounds”, but a blog like this isn’t actually so much data that it would pose a problem (the couple images don’t actually end up as much data seeing today’s drive sizes). So the hope is indeed there that in 500 years this will still be accessible.

  7. Matt L says:

    I think that this year is unique in that quite a few different projects that have been worked on for a number of years have all been finished at the same time.

    It’s a shame we don’t see this much improvement every year but with the exception of Manukau and Electrification I think the only works we will see in the next few years will be ongoing sleeper replacement and track renewals as well as a few minor station upgrades to the current standard.

    Even if the CBD tunnel was approved tomorrow (wouldn’t that be nice) it will still be some time till we actually saw anything happening on the ground as it goes through the design and consenting processes.

 

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