Pukerua Bay railway station is located on the

North Island Main Trunk Railway The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) is the main railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, connecting the capital city Wellington with the country's largest city, Auckland. The line is long, built to the New Zealand rail gauge of and ser ...

(NIMT) in

Pukerua Bay Pukerua Bay is a small seaside suburb at the southern end of the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand. In local government terms it is the northernmost suburb of Porirua City, in the Wellington Region. It is 12 km north of the Porirua City Centre on ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and is part of the suburban rail network of

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

. It is

double track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lin ...

ed, has an

island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...

layout, and is 30.4 km from

Wellington railway station Wellington railway station, or Wellington Central station, is the main railway station serving Wellington, New Zealand, and is the southern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk, Wairarapa Line and Johnsonville Line. The station opened in ...

, the southern terminus of the NIMT. It is one of two railway stations in

, the other one at Muri being closed.

Services

Pukerua Bay is the fourth station north of Porirua on the

Kapiti Line Metlink's Kapiti Line is the electrified southern portion of the North Island Main Trunk railway between New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, and Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast, operated by Transdev Wellington on behalf of Greater Wellington Re ...

for commuter trains operated by

Transdev Wellington Transdev Wellington is the operator of Wellington's Metlink rail network in New Zealand. The entity is a partnership of Transdev Australasia and Hyundai Rotem, who were awarded the contract to operate and maintain the commuter rail system in De ...

under the Metlink brand contracted to the Greater Wellington Regional Council. Services between

and

Porirua Porirua, ( mi, Pari-ā-Rua) a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide swee ...

Waikanae Waikanae (, ) is a town on the Kapiti Coast, 60 kilometres north of the Wellington CBD. The name is a Māori word meaning "waters" (''wai'') "of the grey mullet". The town lies between Paraparaumu, eight kilometres to the southwest, and Ōtak ...

are operated by

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

s of the FT/FP class (Matangi). Two diesel-hauled carriage trains, the

Capital Connection The Capital Connection is a long-distance commuter train operated by KiwiRail between Palmerston North and the capital city of Wellington on the North Island Main Trunk. In 2018 the service faced funding issues, but the Government ensured that ...

and the

Northern Explorer The ''Northern Explorer'' is a long-distance passenger train operated by The Great Journeys of New Zealand division of KiwiRail between Auckland and Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand, along the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT). Three ...

, pass through the station but do not stop. All suburban services running between

and

stop at Pukerua Bay. Off-peak trains stop at all stations between Wellington and Waikanae. During peak periods, some trains from Wellington that stop at all stations may terminate at Porirua or Plimmerton and return to Wellington while a number of peak services run express or non-stop between Wellington and Porirua before stopping at all stations from Porirua to Waikanae. Travel times by train are twenty-four minutes to Waikanae, fifteen minutes to Porirua, thirty-six minutes to Wellington for trains stopping at all stations, and thirty-two minutes for express trains that do not stop between Porirua and Wellington. Trains run every twenty minutes during daytime off-peak hours, more frequently during peak periods, and less frequently at night.metlink Before July 2018, off-peak passenger train services between Wellington and Waikanae ran every thirty minutes but were increased to one every twenty minutes from 15 July 2018. The commuter trains were formerly of the DM/D class or EM/ET class.

History

The line through Pukerua Bay was originally part of the

Wellington - Manawatu Line Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

, built by the

Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company The Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company (WMR or W&MR) was a private railway company that built, owned and operated the Wellington-Manawatu railway line between Thorndon in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, and Longburn, near Palmers ...

(W&MR). The W&MR was a private railway built as an alternative to the government's

Wairarapa Line The Wairarapa Line is a secondary railway line in the south-east of the North Island of New Zealand. The line runs for , connects the capital city Wellington with the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line at Woodville, via Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt ...

. The railway from Plimmerton to Pukerua Bay was constructed during 1885 under the no. 12 or "Pukerua" contract. Pukerua Bay railway station was opened on Christmas Day 1885, while the full line to

Longburn Longburn (or Karere) is a rural settlement just outside Palmerston North in the Manawatū-Whanganui area of New Zealand. Made up of large dairy processing plants Longburn is often mistaken to be a small township and not seen as a large satellite t ...

was completed in November 1886. Following the completion of the railway line between Pukerua Bay and Paekākāriki, the train station was called Pukerua. For a short time between 1919 and 1921, the train station was called Waimapihi, named after the Waimapihi block of land most of Pukerua Bay was situated in. In 1923, the station was renamed to Pukerua Bay to distinguish it from the South Island station Pukerau. From the 1920s onwards, Pukerua Bay station was a popular destination for weekend visitors from

, with a road from the train station to the beach opened in 1926, well before the road into Pukerua Bay from

Plimmerton The suburb of Plimmerton lies in the northwest part of the city of Porirua in New Zealand, adjacent to some of the city's more congenial beaches. State Highway 59 and the North Island Main Trunk railway line pass just east of the main shopping an ...

. At one time a short service siding with trailing crossover on the down side was used to allow (steam) banking engines from

Paekākāriki Paekākāriki () is a town in the Kapiti Coast District in the south-western North Island, New Zealand, and one of the northernmost suburbs of Wellington. It lies north of Porirua and northeast of the Wellington CBD. The town's name comes from ...

to return down the bank. The station building once had a long drop, and three other buildings next to the siding. Sheep were driven along the now restored path through the bush at the bottom of Seavista Drive, to be loaded onto wagons at the station. Once double-tracking of the railway line from Wellington was completed, the original station building was replaced in 1940 with the current island platform. The station's platform upgrade in 2010 raised platform height, bringing it into line with other stations on the network and added safety features such as yellow tactile strips and put electrical ducting in place to support a real-time passenger information system later introduced by the Greater Wellington Regional Council.

References

Bibliography

* * {{refend Railway stations in New Zealand Rail transport in Wellington Buildings and structures in Porirua Railway stations opened in 1885 1885 establishments in New Zealand

Services

History

See also

References

Bibliography