Newmarket Upgrade
News that work is about to commence on the Newmarket station is welcome, but could ARTA and Ontrack please put some thought into the purpose of redeveloping the station and tracks?
Ontrack appear to be addressing a couple of operational issues:
- minimising signal and point changes
- saving time by reversing West trains once instead of twice
However, CBT believe passenger needs also include:
- delays in transferring between West and South trains, caused by timetable schedules not matching trains
- duplicated West and South trains running between Newmarket and Britomart, causing congestion at Parnell and Britomart tunnels, which limits future increases in train frequency.
In particular, current timetables force an average wait at Newmarket of 14 minutes going from West to South, and average 20 minutes wait going from South to West. For example, short trips like Ellerslie to Kingsland at 8:15am have 17 minutes actual travel time, but a 10 minute wait at Newmarket, a 59% time increase. Leave Ellerslie at 8:37am and the wait increases to 25 minutes. For most commuters this makes rail trips impractical, and consequently patronage transferring between the lines is relatively low.
There is huge potential to increase passenger numbers between stations other than Britomart. All it would take for this to work right now would be for ARTA and rail operator Veolia to implement a couple of simple timetable changes to correctly sequence train arrivals at Newmarket. This is CBT Option 1 - click the flash file below to see how trains connect under Option 1:
As our rail network expands, more thought needs to be put into how services interconnect, rather than terminating all trains at Britomart which has a limit on the number of trains per hour. Having both West and South trains run through Parnell and Britomart tunnels means 10 minute peak frequencies actually require a train every 5 minutes. Clearly, this 'doubling' effect of all trains starting at Britomart limits future expansion of train frequencies.
In particular, Britomart currently has 3 services running from it - East, South and West trains. Will Onehunga trains (scheduled to start in 2009) also run to Britomart? And any future Southdown-Avondale trains? (scheduled in ARTA's 20 year plan). Apart from congested tracks, this 'doubling' increases ARTA's operational subsidy payouts, reduces rolling stock and staff availability, and creates uneven frequencies across the network.
CBT has 3 options developed that could solve the 'doubling' of trains between Newmarket and Britomart, and fix the transfer delays at the same time.
Option 2
Option 2 reduces the number of passengers transferring by simply terminating West trains at Newmarket.
Option 3
Option 3 merges South and West trains into one service running between Papakura and Waitakere via Newmarket directly, but requires Britomart passengers to transfer to East trains.
Option 4
Both options 2 and 3 use existing tracks and platform, with an extra platform built to the West of the existing platform. Option 4 is closer to what Ontrack plan, with the same 3 tracks separated by 2 double-sided platforms, but no new triangle. This offers easeiest trasnfers, but requires rebuilding the existing platform and tracks at one end of the station site.
Key to any redevelopment is the need for ARTA, Ontrack and Veolia to spell out what trains they envisage running on the planned full triangle of tracks. This new triangle will allow trains to run direct from Britomart out West, but due to steep gradients and space constraints, no Newmarket platform for such trains is possible - ARTA plan possibly shifting Boston Rd station to Park Rd to bridge this gap, but that leaves an 800m walk to Broadway, and more to 2Double7 shopping mall.
CBT has been told by Ontrack that freight trains won't need the direct triangle link, but we are told ARTA and Veolia may run alternate West trains - one running directly West without stopping at Newmarket, the next stopping at Newmarket platform by reversing once. Surely the above options offer a starting point for a better solution for Newmarket?
At the very least, most CBT options can be achieved with existing tracks and platform, cutting out most of the construction cost ($65m) and disruption (which will limit short term passenger growth), and freeing up Ontrack staff to speed up the repair of Onehunga Branch rail Line (OBL) - now approved for reopening by 2009 after our campaign.
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