Rotokauri railway station (formerly Te Rapa railway station), also known as The Hub, is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system ( ...

, and

bus station A bus station or a bus interchange is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. While the term bus depot can also be used to refer to a bus station, it generally refers to a bus garage. A bus station is ...

in north

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilt ...

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 ...

serving Rotokauri and Te Rapa. Located on the

North Island Main Trunk 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 se ...

, it was previously a

flag station In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, s ...

, and was closed in January 1971. It reopened as an integrated transport hub in 2021 as part of

Te Huia Te Huia is a passenger train service between Hamilton, Papakura, and Auckland (Strand) in New Zealand. The service is a five-year trial with subsidies from the NZ Transport Agency and Waikato local authorities. The opening was delayed because of ...

services between

and Papakura. Services started on 6 April 2021. Te_Rapa_railway_station

History

Te Rapa Railway Station

Opening with the

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

to Hamilton extension of the railway from

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

on Wednesday 19 December 1877, Te Rapa railway station was originally south of

Horotiu Horotiu is a small township on the west bank of the Waikato River in the Waikato District of New Zealand. It is on the Waikato Plains north of Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton and south of Ngāruawāhia. From early in the 20th century it devel ...

(then named Pukete) and north of

on the NIMT. A through siding was added in 1878, it appeared in the April 1879 timetable and, by 1884, it had a

passing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or ...

for 21 wagons, a shelter shed, platform and loading bank. In 1916, it was equipped with distant signals and was part of the extension of automatic signalling from Ngāruawahiā to Frankton from Sunday 30 June 1929, when the sidings were switch-locked and automatically controlled and the former single track doubled. The sidings were extended into the RNZAF stores depot, to the south east, when it was built during the war There were also bulk cement and Apple & Pear Board sidings. In July 1965 it was noted that, for the past nine months, passenger bookings had been nil and, in September, approval was given to remove the station building and low-level platform. Construction of a new marshalling yard near the Racecourse began in December 1967.

Rotokauri Transport Hub

Rotokauri_station_and_footbridge_looking_south

Modern plans for a transport hub in north Hamilton started around 2007 in the Rotokauri Structure Plan and District Plan. Eventually, land was bought in 2017, and funding for the transport hub was announced in the 2018-2028 10 Year Plan. At a meeting of the Hamilton Public Transport Joint Committee on November 28 2018, the Council estimated the cost of a new station, park and ride and

transport hub A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include railway stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stops, airports and ferry slips. F ...

at Rotokauri to be $21m, with $6.4m allowed to land purchasing. The plan was for an integrated transit hub in north Hamilton to connect with a proposed Hamilton to Auckland passenger train. These plans were dependent on NZTA funding for both the train and the hub itself. At the time of the Joint Committee meeting in November 2018, the opening was scheduled for March 2020. In 2019 the Sixth Labour Government announced funding for a passenger rail link between Auckland and Hamilton, at the time called Tron Express but later called Te Huia. This funding included the construction of a transport hub in Rotokauri, alongside maintenance facilities. In March 2020, the original planned opening date, Hamilton City Council announced new opening date of the park and ride scheme on August 3 2020, and an increased cost estimate of $29m, this was planned to coincide with the commencement of Te Huia services. The new station was built just south of the site of the original station. The March 2020 announcement also stated that the transit hub would have a rail platform, park and ride carpark, bus interchange, roading upgrades, passenger bridge and stairs. The council also highlighted a delay in lift installation was due to "due to international supply chain issues". On January 29 2020, a blessing ceremony was held at the transit hub ahead of its opening week. The signs around the hub include both

English Language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

and Reo Māori names. The station has two through-platforms, three lifts, and three sets of stairs. The over-bridge links the bus terminal, the platforms, and The Base shopping mall. The

Hamilton City Council Hamilton City Council is the governing body of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Since 21 November 1960, Council has met at Hamilton City Hall at 71 Main Street West. The current council consists of the mayor In many countries, a mayor i ...

has purchased land next to the carpark in order to allow for a potential carpark expansion, or another development. There have also been changes in the road layout around the hub, including the construction of a new road called Kiriwai Drive, named after a local ().

Services

Currently the only train is

linking Hamilton to Auckland (changing trains at Papakura), four times daily on weekdays (two in each direction), and once each way on some Saturdays. These services started on 6 April 2021. These were the first passenger services since the original station closed. Even though 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). Thre ...

passes through on the NIMT, it does not stop at this station. Rotokauri Transport Hub is also a major point along several of Hamilton and Waikato's bus routes. It was planned that the hub would have 180 daily bus movements at the start, but this will increase to 400.

Accidents

In a fog in 1934, a southbound train from

collided with a goods train. The only casualty was a pig, but the AB locomotive was thrown on its side.

References

{{reflist

External links

Rotokauri Transport Hub
information page on

's website
Google Street View of station site

Aerial view of construction site in 2020

Station information page on Te Huia website

Retrolens aerial image of Te Rapa
from 3 December 1948
Facebook Post
from Dr Gaurav Sharma MP (Labour) from the blessing ceremony Railway stations in New Zealand Rail transport in Waikato Buildings and structures in Waikato Railway stations opened in 1877 Railway stations closed in 1971 Railway stations opened in 2021 1877 establishments in New Zealand