Auckland has trains!

In Auckland trains used to run so infrequently, I for one ignored them. But today I was amazed to find trains running every half hour in both directions.

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Travel & Events

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• Trains

[buyerprobe]

I congratulate auckland on the trains - i like them and the staff are nice and talkative people - tooo many people complain and complain maybe you should run for council and the transport office and see how they like the complaints - ive had no probs i get to work ontime and home thats the main thing - so yeah big ups to auckland trains:)

[HenryFalkner]

I recently visited Britomart Railway Station on my way back to the ferry. There were up to FOUR TRAINS in the station!!! The first time Sandra and I looked at that station, it was empty. Sandra called it a White Elephant then.

[trainz10]

man it comes so infrequently, do the people mostly use their cars now because of all this?

[HenryFalkner]

Yes, they do mostly use cars. But a train each half hour is FANTASTIC, when before you only had about six suburban trains each day.

[GeoffBlackmore]

Friday 29th July 2011 saw Auckland hit 10 million passengers per year, up from 2.5 million per year in 2003. Patronage growth has really taken off, and when electrification happens it'll take off even more.

[Saljen6]

At the moment they are trying to get a commuter train from Auckland to Hamilton going. There is a meeting next Tuesday in Hamilton about it, and if it works and is popular we might see a bit of a renaissance of rail in NZ. Maybe after that, Auckland-Tauranga. New Plymouth could jump on the bandwagon. Now is a good time to talk to your council about it.

[bored1980]

At least you actually have a train service up there. New Plymouth's passenger rail service was closed in 1981.

Plenty has been spent on kiwirail but not a cent has gone into reconnecting a rail link to one of our fastest growing cities.

[alnic1975]

Trains do run late on Saturday nights too! I should know, I drove the 00:10 Papakura service via Newmarket in the wee hours of Sunday morning! Should be a new timetable out soon guys, sometime in July, not too sure of the date yet. And more weekday late night trains are on the cards too!

[GeoffBlackmore]

It says "Friday only" on the weekday timetable, but don't forget there's a separate timetable section for Saturdays, and another for Sundays.

[svartmetall48]

Must have changed recently then as the timetables only show it as "Friday Only" on those services so the timetables from MAXX must be wrong (I've never had to catch a train that late at night so I'd not know personally).

[GeoffBlackmore]

The last run out of Britomart on Saturday nights is at 12:10am. Same as Friday.

[svartmetall48]

They complain because ontime running is sitting at only around 70% running on time (within 6 minutes of scheduled time) for the network at large with the Western Line being the worst for on time running.

Perhaps that, along with the terrible frequencies is exactly why people complain.

[svartmetall48]

Wrong - the trains only run until midnight on Fridays, not on Saturdays.

Currently signalling capacity is at maximum so the signalling needs to be upgraded before increased capacity can be realised. Not only this, but on-time running is suffering due to capacity constraints at Britomart (2 tracks only, so one track in both directions) meaning maximum frequency can't be realised until the city loop has been built to sort this issue.