More train services from December

Auckland’s train times are getting a makeover with more services from 8 December.

Train timetables are being updated following the introduction of electric trains on the Eastern and Onehunga Lines and at the same time Auckland Transport is increasing services at the weekend.

Auckland Transport’s Group Manager Public Transport, Mark Lambert says “We are pleased to be able to give our customers more choice. We can now schedule a service on all lines at least every half-hour day and night, seven days a week.”

The Eastern and Southern Lines will now have consistent frequency meaning six trains an hour at peak times on each line, three trains hourly during the daytime inter-peak and half-hourly services at night and on the weekend.

The Onehunga Line will have half-hourly services all day, seven days a week.

On the Western Line services will remain at 15 minutes during peak and half-hourly off-peak but there will be extra trains on the weekend. Mr Lambert says as more diesel carriages are freed up from other lines, we will be able to put some bigger trains on the Western Line to help with the increased demand until electric trains are introduced in the middle of 2015.

Auckland Transport will also be introducing a weekend train service to Pukekohe, there will now be hourly trains from Papakura to Pukekohe on Saturday and Sunday.

Mr Lambert says these extra services will help manage the big jump in the number of people travelling by train. In the year to October there were 12.1 million rail trips, an increase of more than 17% on the same time last year.

Key changes:

Eastern Line

• increased capacity including double electric trains (six cars) at peak times

• a quicker journey time between Manukau and Britomart

• all services heading south terminate at Manukau, customers will need to transfer to the Southern Line if they want to travel to stations south of Puhinui

• more frequent services for Manukau: six trains an hour during peak, three trains each hour during the day and a half-hourly service at night and on the weekend

Onehunga Line

• half-hourly service all day/every day including extended Friday night and weekend hours

Southern Line

• all services will go through Newmarket so passengers south of Puhinui will need to transfer to the Eastern Line if they want to go to Sylvia Park, Panmure, Glen Innes, Meadowbank or Orakei

• The Southern Line is next to get electric trains in early 2015

Pukekohe

• there will be an additional evening service leaving Britomart at 8.58pm and arriving in Pukekohe at 10.07pm

• new hourly weekend services to Papakura to connect to trains to Britomart

Western Line

• extra half-hourly services on Friday night between 10pm and 12.30am

• all weekend services will now run half-hourly but will terminate at Swanson, a new hourly scheduled bus service will operate between Swanson station and Waitakere

Check out the new train timetables here: https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/timetables/

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