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KiwiRail and Auckland Transport have an open day on Saturday to display info about the electrification of the Auckland rail network and the Christmas works programme.
The details are:
Newmarket Station, Saturday 10am-3pm
Newmarket's open day before the new station opened
17 Comments
I saw info about this the other week but they are really talking this up (there was even mention of it in the herald today) so hopefully it gets a lot of people interested in attending. I like that they are having it at Newmarket and using the space (and the square?) for something.
Personally I thought I would go have a look and then do some christmas shopping before heading home.
@Matt L Christmas shopping? Cool. I will have a new Macbook Pro please.
I’ll settle for a CBD tunnel, Jon. Lasts a lot longer than a Macbook
@Karl If you behave yourself in the next few weeks, I will see what Santa Steven can bring you.
Will Santa Steven have any cash left in his sack for all those nice little boys and girls using PT?
Make my Pro the 17″ Matt screen please Santa
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10689638 Regarding Hobson Bay, letting the poles “weather” to a dull grey might not be ideal. In Italy they have them painted green or brown to match the landscape. Maybe this approach could be used as well? All and all I’m all for the electrification so don’t want to put up any brick walls but just a suggestion.
Dan I disagree, painting a building or structure green or brown does not make it into a tree or hill. Pylons are pylons and look better when they are allowed to look like what they do. They can of course be well or poorly designed, but this idea that only natural things can look good becomes an excuse to do the laziest cheapest design job- but painted green. There is a suppressed premise here that all human work is, by definition, ugly. And only nature is good. In my view this idea [unexamined] is in part to blame for the poor quality of our built environment.
Patrick, quite agree with your observation re the patination of the pylons. The unfortunate thing is that within seconds of them going up they’re sure to be tagged just like the new signal boxes being installed on the Western line, just like the new walls and bridges associated with the New Lynn trench, etc. And this ain’t urban art, just egomaniacal and seemingly permanent detritus.
Apparrently Len Brown is making an announcement today on the CBD Loop!!! Just saw it on One News Midday.
Who is that other Andrew above?
Anyway, disappointed that this open day clashes with the Lake Taupo Cycle Challange - I’m part of a relay team so I can’t be in town to see this.
I guess because of the clash there will be few, if any, cycling advocates there…
I agree with Patrick here. it would be pointless to paint every mast green to make it look better, i think brown would actually make it hideous! I know grey has an industral look to it but i think if it is designed nicely then it would be fine. Im currently quite annoyed with how Wellington made their masts and wiring quite a jumble.
Andrew, some will be there, though I don’t think electrification as such has much to do with cycling. There’s some projects around it that could have synergies - like cycle access to new stations such as Parnell, or potentially keeping some of the construction access roads as cycleways after the work - and that is being worked on.
I popped along to the open day today at Newmarket, they had about half a dozen people there made up of people from Kiwirail, Laing O’Rourke (company with the traction contract) and AT including the project director. There wasn’t huge numbers there but it seemed a constant stream of people interested. I was able to get quite a bit of good info from them, some I knew but it was good to have it confirmed.
Signalling – The signalling being installed is capable of allowing sub 5 min headways on the main lines, this was indicated in the CBDRL study. They will be completing Quay Park at Christmas and they will then work out to Westfield to relieve pressure on the Junction there. After that the focus will be further South towards Puhinui. Everything between Westfield and Morningside will be completed by RWC. Interestingly they are looking into grade separating Sarawia St, this is mainly due to the complexity that is created by having a level crossing so close to a junction and station.
Traction – The biggest issue they have is Britomart, it wasn’t designed for electrification so getting the wires in will be tricky. They had wanted to just put some masts that would match the pillars or hang arms off the existing pillars however the architects didn’t like it as it would affect the image they wanted of a big open space when you walk down the stairs. Instead they will be hanging wires off the roof which will then have join rods/wires that will go right across the station.
Western Line – The will be improving the track to increase line speed to 80km/h across the entire line with the exception of some of those sharper corners. Not sure if it is part of electrification or just the planned maintenance.
Southern Line – Obviously a lot of work going on replacing bridges at the moment, they confirmed they will definitely be big enough to handle three tracks under them so they don’t have to be rebuilt for triplication. Papakura will be rebuilt/modified to have a separate platform that the diesel shuttles will use to keep them separate from the electric services, they will also have a separate track for freights to avoid the station altogether.
Network wide – They won’t be fencing off the entire corridor but have identified the places that most trespassing occurs and will be fencing off those areas. There will be a big education campaign close to the time of completion about safety issues with the wires, particularly schools near the rail corridor. The AT guy I spoke to wasn’t aware of any planned grade separations across the network. No one seemed to have any idea of what impact the electric trains would make on the time table other than “oh the trains will be able to accelerate faster so that will help”
Hope max speed will be higher on the other lines. What`s the use of 110km/h speed running capable EMUs when the track is not up to it.
I thought with all the new track laying and upgrading that issue would` ve been sorted.
Simon - Other lines are higher at around 100km’h I believe. The western line is slower due to the all of the gradients and curves on it and double tracking didn’t do anything to straighten them out. It is up around 70-80 from Mt Albert onwards with the exception of a few sharper curves like at Avondale but between Newmarket and Morningside it is only about 50km/h
“Western Line – The will be improving the track to increase line speed to 80km/h across the entire line with the exception of some of those sharper corners. Not sure if it is part of electrification or just the planned maintenance.”
This is great news! Nothing more third world about our rail network than crawling for kilometres at 35Km/h!
The western line will be completely transformed after electrification, CBD line and this -patronage will skyrocket
@Sam - It won’t be transformed if capacity restraints at a certain terminus aren’t dealt with quickly. In other words stop mucking around Joycey and lets get that tunnel built!