Subscribe to RSSHow It’s Looking: Inside Manukau
Tenders are being let now for the stage one of the new Manukau rail station fit-out and this includes lifts, stairs and all the station furniture but not the escalators.
This will allow the station to be fully operational for the RWC. Stage 2 which includes the escalators and above ground fit out will proceed after that. The Manukau Institute of Technology building which is part of the station will be open for students from the first term of 2013 but the station and associated bus interchange from next July.
Here is how the first stage looks today:
Summer Rail Programme series: How It’s Looking At…
Baldwin update with 10 days to go
Rossgrove Tce and Baldwin update
St George St, Papatoetoe rail bridge replacement
Purewa Eastern Line track work
17 Comments
With the trenching and electrification masts work ongoing - does anyone know if this can cope with double-decker trains in the future - such as the ones they have in Sydney and for example Holland.
So is this trench side platforms, rather than the island platform as with New Lynn? Can’t quite see from photo, but it looks like side platforms with a rather narrow centre area. But surely this branch is double track, isn’t it?
Adg - No the network would need a lot of modification to be able to handle trains like that and it is unlikely to be needed as we have lots of other options to increase capacity. Electrification will give us a train every 10 minutes on the three main lines with a seated capacity of 500 and space for another couple of hundred standees. The signalling being installed will actually allow for 4 minute frequencies so if the CBD tunnel was built and we brought more trains we could easily have a train every 5 minutes on each line. Just for comparison the 4 car SA trains we have now have seated capacity for about 260 people.
Ingolfson - Yes it is double track, it might just look small because it is empty.
One thing that is interesting is that they have laid asphalt down where the tracks will go. This was raised on the CBT forum the other day and as yet know one knows why.
Have they future-proofed this station, i.e. that without much disruption they can extend this line towards Botany?
I know that this will not happen soon, but hopefully they did some planning.
GJA, given that Botany is best reached from further north on the Southern Line and is on the opposite side of the motorway in any case, I don’t think that’s a big problem.
The better question would be “Can they extend this towards the Airport easily?”, to which I answer “I haven’t the foggiest.”
@GJA - yes I’m hoping they have future proofed it. That dog leg area with the beginnings of what looks like the lift well looks like it might encroach on the path
I had the pleasure of flying over the trench on Sunday on the way back to Aus
Have I misunderstood where the station is located? I thought it was running roughly parallel to Wiri Station Road, heading west. I remember there being a stink on here about how it wasn’t being run all the way to the shopping centre.
Matt - the Manukau station would be the southern end of a new link from Panmure to Botany to Manukau Central. It would make only limited sense to have another spur that only went from Panmure to Botany. Not useless, but less useful.
So the station is directly on the Southern Line? Or on a spur heading west (east?) in the vicinity of Manukau mall?
Matt,
It is on a spur line heading east, alongside the southwestern motorway. See http://transportblog.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/manukau-link.jpg for a description of the route.
Ah, of course, the line is west of the mall. That’s where I was getting confused.
@Matt L - thanks for clarifying lack of need for double decker trains into the future. Agree that six car trains and up to 5min frequencies would cope with considerable increased patronage.
The French manage 4200 mm high double-decker trains. What is our loading gauge (disregarding issues with platform heights and so on), could it work?
[Edit] Meh, checked that just now. 3800. Okay, we won’t get double-deckers with THAT.
I think I read somewhere when I was in Sydney that the reason that Sydney got the double decker EMUs was because it would have cost cityrail even more to extend platforms to get the same capacity from longer trains.
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