Otahuhu Railway Station

Otahuhu Railway Station MAXX Urban rail
The station in 2010
Station statistics
Address	Titi Street, Otahuhu, Auckland
Coordinates	36°56′50″S 174°50′0″E / 36.94722°S 174.83333°E / -36.94722; 174.83333
Line(s)	Eastern Line Southern Line
Levels	1
Platforms	Island platform
Tracks	Mainline (2)
Parking	No
Bicycle facilities	No
Baggage check	No
Other information
Opened	1873
Electrified	25kV installed, not yet in service.[1]
Owned by	New Zealand Railways Corporation and Auckland Transport
Traffic
Passengers (2011)	954 passengers/weekday[2]
Services
ONTRACK     Preceding station   MAXX (Veolia)   Following station Westfield toward Britomart (Auckland) Eastern Line Middlemore toward Pukekohe or Manukau Southern Line

Otahuhu Railway Station is located on the Eastern and Southern Lines of the Auckland rail network. It has an island platform layout and can be reached by pedestrian overbridges from Walmsey Road Road and Titi Street. Otahuhu station features a signal box and is the point where both freight and passenger trains enter and exit the main line from the Westfield locomotive depot.

The station was opened in the 1870s to serve the increasing settlement at Otahuhu, with a road eventually constructed to the station. The station included a goods shed and a main building, which however burned down in 1909 after a fire in the oil room got out of hand with no water supply available to suppress the fires.^[3]

In 1927, Otahuhu Railway Workshops opened on a site west of the station. This facility became the North Island's foremost wagon and carriage construction and repair facility. It was progressively closed from 1986 to 1992.

Further south, between Otahuhu station and Mangere station, a rail fabrication facility was built. This facility is still in use. Otahuhu also possessed Auckland's second-largest locomotive depot, which was opened in 1905, and closed in 1968, with the opening of the Westfield facility.

The station, as of 2010, remains one of the worst-maintained on the Auckland network. Concerns have also repeatedly been raised in previous years about the security situation (especially at night) and the distance to the nearest bus services, with the station located in an out-of-the-way industrial area.^[4][5]

Upcoming upgrade

In May 2011, Auckland Transport and KiwiRail started work to lengthen the platform to accommodate longer passenger trains. The platform area around the signal box will be raised and further platform installed around the base of the pedestrian over bridge to Walmsley Road.

In July 2011, the signal box at the station will be one of the last to be decommissioned in Auckland, as part of a project to upgrade the signaling of the Auckland suburban network in preparation for electrification. Mainline signaling in the Otahuhu station limits will be operated from the National Train Control Centre (NTCC) in Wellington, along with the rest of the Auckland network.

References