Subscribe to RSSManukau Ahead Of Schedule
Drought-like autumn conditions enabled KiwiRail to finish excavation of the Manukau rail trench well ahead of schedule.
Contractors have finished the excavation of 47,000 cubic metres of earth being dug out between the already-constructed trench walls.
The 300m-long trench will house the new rail station.
“The long dry spells we had before the rain hit were a real bonus,” says Project Manager Paul Crawford. “It allowed two long-reach excavators to work every week day since the earthworks started in April, so we have finished about
a month earlier than planned.”
The 300m trench is part of a 2km rail link that brings rail to the centre of Manukau for the first time. The Manukau Rail Link is the first new rail route to be built in the Auckland region since the Eastern Line in 1930.
The trench and station are being built in conjunction with the New Zealand Transport Agency’s SH20-1 motorway link, by principal contractor Leighton Works.
9 Comments
Hope it looks as classy as the New Lynn trench station. That one has really impressed me - not the depressing “slot” which I thought it might become, not at all.
Though - is the Manukau Branch double-tracked? I hope so, otherwise it might well feel cramped after all.
Ingolfson - yes I do think it is double tracked, the single track part is where it joins the main line.
Based on all of the recent upgrades I think this should look ok, our suburban stations look nice, the recent new stations of New Lynn (still being done), Grafton and Newmarket all look great so there is a good chance this will too.
Yes they say it is ‘mainly’ double tracked, so the whole station section is double tracked - should look very similar to New Lynn I’m guessing. This should become quite popular once the bus station surrounding it is complete, and should have a major boost when the MIT campus opens next door.
DART projects were supposed to be completed by 2009 so don’t really know how you can this is ahead of schedule!
One assumes the contractor kept HIS schedule, even if he had not been given the go-ahead in time?
Maybe the powers that be will relent and allow the spur to link to both north and southbound traffic, rather than the current plan for it only to be able to receive trains from the north.
You’d assume that would be easy to retrofit, though?
I don’t know how easy it would be to build the southern link, from what I heard the south link should have been easy, NZTA built the new motorway in a way to allow it however when Kiwirail built their new inland port at Wiri they built it over where the link would go. This may be wrong but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Yes, KiwiRail built the port sidings and hardstand over the southern connection alignment. Provision of the southern link in future will require ripping out the port sidings.