Onehunga Branch

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Onehunga Branch
Onehunga Branch, looking east from Galway Street, August 2004
Info
Type	Urban rail
Status	Mothballed
Terminals	Penrose Onehunga Wharf
No. of stations	2
Operation
Opened	December 1873
Closed	1973 (for passenger trains), 2006 (for freight trains)
Owner	Auckland Province, New Zealand Railways Department, New Zealand Railways Corporation, Tranz Rail, ONTRACK
Operator(s)	New Zealand Government Railways, Tranz Rail, Toll Rail, Veolia
Character	Urban
Rolling stock	None, will be ADK class and ADL class
Technical
Line length	3.41 km
No. of tracks	One
Gauge	3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm)
Line map Legend North Auckland Line 00 km Penrose Train Station North Auckland Line O'Rorke Rd Maurice Rd Mays Rd Te Papapa Church St 02 Km Onehunga Neilson St 3.20 km State Highway 20 3.41 km Onehunga Wharf

The Onehunga Branch railway line is in Auckland, New Zealand. The line was constructed by the Auckland Provincial Government and opened from Penrose to Onehunga on 24 December 1873, extended to Onehunga Wharf on 28 November 1878. It is 3.41 km in length.

[edit] History

The Onehunga Branch was one of the first government-funded railways in New Zealand. Along with a further 10 km north to Auckland (now part of the North Auckland Line and the Auckland - Newmarket Line), the Onehunga Branch was the first operating section of the railways in the North Island. Construction had began in 1865 under the auspices of Auckland's provincial government, to international standard gauge, 1,435 mm (4' 8.5"), but due to a lack of funds and disputes between the government and the contractors building the line, construction stalled two years later. The line featured in Julius Vogel's 1870 Great Public Works programme and construction resumed in 1872, with to New Zealand's newly accepted national narrow gauge of 1,067 mm (3' 6"). With the dissolution of the provinces of New Zealand, the line was integrated into the state-run system on the creation of the New Zealand Railways Department.^[1]

Connecting the Port of Onehunga with the Port of Auckland via Penrose, the branch line became a busy link between the two harbours of the rapidly expanding city. Onehunga was a busy port despite its treacherous harbour entrance, and was well served by coastal shipping, some of which plied to New Plymouth. With the completion of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company's railway line in 1886, passengers from Auckland to Wellington rode a "Boat Train" from Auckland to Onehunga, connected with a steamer to New Plymouth, then the New Plymouth Express to Wellington. The boat trains ran to the wharf and in 1878 a small station was sited there and remained in use until 1927. By 1897 there were 14 trains daily, both passenger trains and mixed trains. In 1903 an electric tram was introduced between Auckland and Onehunga running along Manukau Road, and it dealt a severe blow to passenger patronage on the branch. The boat trains finished in the 1920s and the through service from Auckland to Onehunga in 1950, but passenger services from Penrose ran until April 1973. The line then served local industries until it was mothballed. Freight shunts continued to operate as far as Mays Rd until late 2007 and and an annual enthusiast excursion with ADL class DMU ran until 2006. Three visits by the RM class Silver Fern railcars occurred in 1996, 1999 and 2000. The last steam powered train to operate (to date) on the line was a series of excursions over Labour Weekend 1993 with a tank engine and carriages from Glenbrook Vintage Railway.

Onehunga railway station was on the corner of Princes Street and Onehunga Mall. The station building has been relocated to 38 Alfred Street, not far away, and is owned by the Railway Enthusiasts Society and used as their clubrooms and a railway museum. Other stations on the line were at Te Papapa and Onehunga Wharf.

[edit] Currently

Currently there is no rail traffic on the line. It has been mothballed between Mays Road and Onehunga Wharf, and is in very poor condition. The 3-km section between Penrose and Onehunga is no longer used by shunts; the entrance to the Port of Onehunga has been fenced off and two sea-freight containers have been positioned to block the portal under the former Mangere Bridge.

As there is no rail traffic on the line, the current rehabilitation work being undertaken by ONTRACK is able to proceed during the daytime^[2].

[edit] Reopening

The Campaign for Better Transport campaigned to reopen the line, with new stations at Mt Smart, Te Papapa and Onehunga, and in mid 2006 had received 8,000 signatures on a petition to reopen the line. The petition was presented to the Auckland Regional Council, who passed it to its subsidiary, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, recommending that rail passenger services should be started to both Onehunga and to Helensville. The petition was later handed back by ARTA to the ARC, with ARTA stating that the track was the responsibility of government track organisation, ONTRACK. The petition was then presented to the Government. On 13 March 2007 the Government announced that it had given approval for ONTRACK to spend $10 million on reopening the line for passengers and freight. The line is expected to be reopened by 2009.^[3]

In August 2007 coastal shipping firm Pacifica Shipping called for the section of the line between Onehunga Wharf and the end of the line at Port of Onehunga to be reopened,^[4] to allow for export freight from the South Island to be unloaded at the wharf and transferred by rail to Ports of Auckland on the Waitemata Harbour. Currently the freight is carried by road to the port, leading to delays due to traffic. A full freight service reopening could potentially remove around 200 containers to and 250 containers from the port per week from the local streets.^[5]

[edit] Future extension

Extension of the line to Auckland International Airport has been proposed. The main barrier has been crossing Manukau Harbour between Onehunga and Mangere Bridge. Transit New Zealand, the government entity charged with building and maintaining state highways, has announced that a bridge across the harbour may be designed to accommodate a rail link.^[6] In September 2007 ARTA announced that it was willing to pay Transit New Zealand $2.5 million to "future-proof" the duplication of the Manukau harbour crossing in order "to accommodate a passenger rail connection."^[7]

There is a proposal to build an Avondale - Southdown line, connecting the North Auckland Line (the MAXX Western line) near Avondale to Auckland Freight Centre at Southdown. ONTRACK owns most of the corridor, which leaves the North Auckland Line east of Avondale station and follows Oakley Creek and the State Highway 20 motorway corridor (construction of which is making provision for the line's construction), joining the Onehunga Branch in Onehunga and then connecting into the north end of Auckland Freight Centre on Neilson Street.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Railway Enthusiasts Society
• Get Moving
• Photo of first train, 1873