The Eastern Line is the name of the suburban rail service in
Auckland,
New Zealand between
Britomart and
Manukau via the
North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) and
Manukau Branch
The Manukau Branch is a spur railway line off the North Island Main Trunk railway from Wiri to Manukau City Centre in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the first fully new section of railway line constructed in Auckland since the Eastern Line i ...
. Services are operated by
Auckland One Rail under the
Auckland Transport brand.
In December 2014, all Eastern Line train services began terminating at
Manukau, rather than alternating between Manukau and
Papakura
Papakura is a southern suburb of Auckland, in northern New Zealand. It is located on the shores of the Pahurehure Inlet, approximately 32 kilometres south of the Auckland CBD. It is under the authority of the Auckland Council.
Papakura is a M ...
.
Electrification of the Auckland suburban network was completed in July 2015, and all passenger services on this line are electrified.
Construction
The line from Auckland to Westfield via Glen Innes was constructed as the Westfield Deviation of the North Island Main Trunk. This eastern deviation had been proposed as early as the 1870s, but various events meant that it was never constructed, until traffic on the Auckland – Newmarket section of the NIMT began to experience significant delays. The Westfield Deviation avoided the major grades of the route via Newmarket and
Remuera, which had a highest point of above sea level, compared with the new line's highest point of .
A small reclamation was made between 1905 and 1916, out of
Queen Street into
Mechanics Bay for goods yards and maintenance sheds. The remaining 14.28 km (8 miles & 70 chain) section was built as the "Westfield Deviation" between 1924 and 1930 by the
Public Works Department as part of general improvements to Auckland's rail network, and authorised (estimated cost £375,000) by the Railways Improvement Authorisation Act, 1914.
The
Purewa Tunnel
Purewa Tunnel is a rail tunnel in Auckland, New Zealand. It is on the North Island Main Trunk line and is located in the suburb of Saint Johns, to the west of Glen Innes. The tunnel is concrete-lined. Eastern Line passenger services operat ...
, a major engineering work halfway between the city and Glen Innes, was built in the mid-1920s by experienced miners who had worked on the construction of the
North Auckland Line.
The section from Mechanics Bay to Ōrākei required significant reclamation over Hobson Bay. At the same time a new road,
Tamaki Drive, was built alongside part of the railway line. A notable feature of the deviation is that no road-rail level crossings were created by its construction.
The Westfield Deviation via the Purewa Tunnel opened for goods traffic on 1 September 1929 using the ''down'' line to Westfield for single-line working, but was not used for passenger traffic until after the ''up'' line to Auckland was opened on 11 May 1930. The construction and opening of this line coincided with the then new
Auckland Railway Station.
The first passenger train over the line was a
Wellington Limited express, when a derailment at
Penrose caused it to be diverted on 18 September 1930. The new station and deviation were officially opened on 24 November 1930.
See also
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Public transport in Auckland
*
List of Auckland railway stations
References
External links
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{{NZR Lines
Railway lines in New Zealand
Public transport in Auckland
Rail transport in Auckland