Mount Eden railway station
Mount Eden railway station is a Western Line station of the Auckland railway network in the Auckland suburb of Mount Eden in New Zealand. It has an island platform, is reached via a footbridge from Mount Eden Rd or from the level crossing between Ngahura Street and Fenton Street. 1880: Opened as one of the original stations on the North Auckland Line. 1912: The present island platform and a new station building were constructed. 1914: A signal box was established. 1964: Lost much school traffic when some trains began to stop at St Peter's College. 1967: Following the introduction of centralised traffic control, the signal box was removed. Mid-1990s: The old station building was sold and removed, is now located further up the track, past Morningside station, is in use as a private home. 2004: An upgraded station was opened. Auckland Transport changed their City Rail Link plans by removing the proposed Newton Station and adding another platform at Mt Eden with a trench styled layout similar to New Lynn railway station.
The benefit, according to the Mayor of Auckland Len Brown, was a saving of NZD$150 million. AT chairman Lester Levy said that there had been concerted effort to optimise the design and drive value for money. "The change that has resulted from this focus will reduce cost by removing the deep Newton station, which will reduce construction disruption in upper Symonds St by 12 to 18 months. The improved design will connect passengers at Mt Eden Station to the CRL which bypassed them and improve operation reliability through the provision of a separated east-west junction so train lines won’t need to cross over each other." Dr Levy said the changes will result in an improved customer experience with the CRL platform at Mt Eden to be built in a trench similar to the New Lynn station, be open to the sky, rather than deep underground as was the case for the proposed Newton station location. This open air location and the separated train junction will lower operating costs. To allow the CRL to connect to the west toward Swanson and to the east toward Newmarket, Mount Eden station will be closed and rebuilt.
The Western Line will be realigned between Dominion Road and Mount Eden Prison, with consequent changes to overhead line and signalling systems. Mount Eden Station is serviced by routes 25B, 25L, 27H and 27W, the SkyBus services between central Auckland and Auckland Airport; the Mt Eden Local Control Panel was installed in the station building in 1967 and removed from service in 1995 when the station building was removed. The panel has been preserved in working order. List of Auckland railway stations Public transport in Auckland
Sunnyvale railway station
Sunnyvale railway station is located on the Western Line of the Auckland railway network. The station was opened on 28 February 1924. In 2006/2007, the station was closed over summer to be upgraded, lengthened for 6-car trains. Sunnyvale railway station was seen during the fourth episode of Outrageous Fortune's fifth season. List of Auckland railway stations
Auckland Regional Council
The Auckland Regional Council was the regional council of the Auckland Region. Its predecessor the Auckland Regional Authority was formed in 1963 and became the ARC in 1989; the ARC was subsumed into the Auckland Council on 1 November 2010. There had been earlier attempts to rationalise Auckland's local government dating back to the early 1900s. Dove-Myer Robinson in standing for Mayor of Auckland City in 1959 campaigned on wanting to unify all of Auckland. Once elected he sought to build a consensus for reform, starting in 1960 with a meeting of 400 local body politicians from 32 local bodies. An Auckland Regional Authority Establishment Committee resulted. Robinson used the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works as models, he started with a draft comprehensive empowering bill but soon ran into opposition, with some Establishment Committee members deliberately avoiding meetings, the Mayors of the many small boroughs fearing for the ability of their bodies to continue to govern themselves, lobbying against the proposal.
Auckland City was the principal supporter of the initiative. A Bill to create the ARA was introduced to Parliament in 1961 but the Establishment Committee thought better of it and it was withdrawn from the Parliamentary process by the Government. Robinson sought compromises about what was to be included, on representation, on funding and restricting the role so only empowered functions were allowed. Opposition continued with some parties implacably opposed, others wanting sub-regional councils and some promoting an alternative, much more limited Bill to Parliament. Through a good relationship with the Prime Minister Keith Holyoake, Robinson persuaded the Government to support his second compromise Bill in 1962, passed. Many of the compromises persisted though the duration of the ARA and its successor, the ARC. Robinson was rewarded with his election by the Authority members as its first chairman; the ARC was preceded by the Auckland Regional Authority, formed in 1963. The ARA took over a number of existing operations from other bodies.
One of its first areas of responsibility was bulk water supply, which it assumed from Auckland City Council. Other functions taken over were regional planning, from the Auckland Regional Planning Authority, bulk sewage collection and treatment from the Auckland Metropolitan Drainage Board, bus passenger transport from the Auckland Transport Board. Water supply activities included constructing further bulk water storage dams, treatment and water distribution works. Other achievements were completing and upgrading the Manukau wastewater treatment plant, creating the largest bus fleet in the country at the time, constructing Auckland Airport representing local government in a joint venture with central government and creating the regional parks network, founded on the Centennial Memorial Park in the Waitakere Ranges, transferred from Auckland City Council control and added to first with the purchase of what became Wenderholm Regional Park. Functions added at dates included a regional role operating and regulating refuse disposal, regional roads, the regional water board under the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 and harbour master and marine regulation.
Despite the massive public support for Regional Parks they were the subject of political division with the rural based district councils resisting paying a contribution towards them. They were built for the urban population and paid for by them; the ARA turned its attention to commuter transport. It commissioned a comprehensive transportation plan completed in 1965 – the De Leuw Cather reports; the rail aspect of this made little progress with minimal support from Authority politicians and staff, from Central Government and opposition from other Auckland councils. The return in 1968 of Dove-Myer Robinson to the Auckland Mayoralty and as a member of the Authority marked a return to progress. A more detailed plan of a rapid transit system was worked on, a planning committee known as Auckland Rapid Transit was formed; the scheme design as finalised in 1972 had a tight inner city underground ring, operating in one direction only. The existing suburban rail line routes were to be used with track duplication to avoid freight conflicts, with extensions to Hobsonville and Howick and two new lines.
The station spacings were larger than the existing system and travel speeds would be much higher. Local opposition and obstruction within the elected ARA members continued, as there was from the New Zealand Railways Department and railway unions; the ruling Labour government showed little enthusiasm for the scheme and proposed a cheaper alternative in 1973 which the ARA seized upon, to Robinson's dismay. The OPEC oil price shock and the 1975 election of the Robert Muldoon lead National government was the end of the scheme, it has been mythologised since as "Robbies Rapid Rail". ART was disbanded in 1976. From on and despite the focus of successor organisations on public transport, ARA had a mixed record on the matter, in 1983 going so far as to propose abolishing the Auckland railway system altogether; as late as 1987, major ARA transport strategy reports were still paying little attention to public transport. In 1975 a documentary was released which charts the short history of the Auckland Rapid Transit project, presented by project manager Ian Mead.
In the late 1980s the Fourth Labour Government, consis
Sturges Road railway station
Sturges Road railway station in Henderson is on the Western Line of the Auckland railway network. It has a ride facility available; the station was opened on 30 April 1934, with other improvements to the Northern Line services. For many years this station's name was mis-spelt as Sturgess Road; the road was named after a local family living in the area in the 19th century called Sturges, but the incorrect spelling remained in use for many decades until it was corrected in the 1990s. Western Line suburban train services, between Swanson and Britomart, are provided by Transdev Auckland on behalf of Auckland Transport. List of Auckland railway stations
Baldwin Avenue railway station
Baldwin Avenue railway station, in the suburb of Mount Albert, is on the Western Line of the Auckland railway network. The station has offset side platforms connected by a level crossing. 1953: Opened as a wayside halt on 28 September. 1966: The line between Morningside and Avondale was double-tracked, leading to two new platforms being built. These platforms were off-set from each other. 1993: The platforms were raised to meet the standards of the new ex-Perth trains. 2011: An upgraded and lengthened station was opened, with the platforms directly opposite each other. List of Auckland railway stations
Slurry wall
A slurry wall is a civil engineering technique used to build reinforced concrete walls in areas of soft earth close to open water, or with a high groundwater table. This technique is used to build diaphragm walls surrounding tunnels and open cuts, to lay foundations. While a trench is excavated to create a form for a wall, it is filled with slurry; the dense but liquid slurry prevents the trench from collapsing by providing outward pressure, which balances the inward hydraulic forces and retards water flow into the trench. Slurry walls are constructed by starting with a set of guide walls 1 metre deep and 0.5 metres thick. The guide walls are constructed on the ground surface to outline the desired slurry trench and guide the excavation machinery. Excavation is done using a special clamshell-shaped digger or a hydromill trench cutter, suspended from a crane; the excavator digs down to design depth for the first wall segment. The excavator is lifted and moved along the trench guide walls to continue the trench with successive cuts as needed.
The trench is at all times kept filled with slurry to prevent its collapse, but the liquid filling allows the excavation machinery and excavation spoil to be moved without hindrance. Once a particular length of trench is reached, a reinforcing cage is lowered into the slurry-filled pit and the pit is filled with concrete from the bottom up using tremie pipes; the heavier concrete displaces the bentonite slurry, pumped out and stored in tanks for use in the next wall segment, or recycled. Slurry walls are successively extended to enclose an area, blocking water and softened earth from flowing into it. Once the concrete has hardened, excavation within the now concrete-wall-enclosed area can proceed. To prevent the concrete wall from collapsing into the newly open area, temporary supports such as tiebacks or internal crossbeams are installed; when completed, the structure built within the walled-off area supports the wall, so that tiebacks or other temporary bracing may be removed. Stability of the trench is essential in trench cutting.
Usage of bentonite with precise density prevents collapse of trench walls The slurry wall technique was first introduced during the excavation of Line 1 on the underground rapid transit system of Milan, Italy by the company ICOS just after the end of World War II. This new technology became an important component of the top-down tunnelling method known as Metodo Milano. Slurry wall construction was used to construct the "bathtub" that surrounded the foundations of most of the World Trade Center site in New York City. In the 1980s, the Red Line Northwest Extension project in Boston was one of the first projects in the US to use the modern form of the technology, with hydromill trench cutters and the "Milan method". Slurry walls were used extensively in Boston's Big Dig tunnel project. Retaining wall Building of the World Trade Center Grout curtain Slurry Wall Construction by Diaphragm Machine Video Overview of Slurry Wall Construction WTC-slurry wall construction-1967 Slurry Trenches A technical resource for slurry wall construction, slurry trenches and cut-off walls Natural shale appears to be ideal material for landfill liners Barrier technologies for environmental management Pictures of slurry walls «"Lakhta Center".
Diaphragm wall»
Britomart Transport Centre
Britomart Transport Centre is the public transport hub in the central business district of Auckland, New Zealand, the northern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk railway line. It combines a railway station in a former Edwardian post office, extended with expansive post-modernist architectural elements, with a bus interchange, it is at the foot of Queen Street, the main commercial thoroughfare of Auckland city centre, with the main ferry terminal just across Quay Street. The centre was the result of many design iterations, some of them being larger and including an underground bus terminal and a large underground car park. Political concerns and cost implications meant. However, at the time of its inception in the early 2000s the centre was still Auckland's largest transport project built to move rail access closer to the city's CBD and help boost Auckland's low usage of public transport, it is one of the few underground railway stations in the world designed for use by diesel trains. Seen as underused and too costly, it is now considered a great success, heading for capacity with the growing uptake of rail commuting.
Limitations on further patronage are due to the access tunnel from the east which provides only two rail tracks, the lack of a through connection via a rail link to the North Shore or to the Western line via an underground tunnel, which would change it into a through station. A tunnel to the Western Line is now as part of the City Rail Link project. Britomart is on reclaimed land in the middle of, it is named after a former headland at Commercial Bay's eastern end. In the 1870s and 1880s the headland was levelled in order to extend the railway line to the bottom of Queen Street, was used to fill in Commercial Bay. Auckland Railway Station moved west from its original 1873 site to Britomart in 1885 and remained there after the Post Office was built on the Queen Street frontage in 1911. In 1930 the station was relocated 1.2 km east to Beach Road and the former station site became a bus terminal in 1937 and car park in 1958. Many proposals were made to locate the station back in the CBD, most notably in 1973 and 1987, with the 1970s proposal of the Mayor of Auckland, Dove-Myer Robinson, envisaging an underground station at Britomart and a tunnel loop, but, stopped by the Muldoon National Government, which claimed it was unjustified and too costly.
In 1995, Auckland City Council purchased the old Post Office building and proposed to redevelop the area as a transit centre. Early designs called for both the bus terminal and the railway to be underground, but these plans were scrapped as consultation showed that buses were preferred above ground by both users and operators, projected costs soared due to the difficulties with potential water ingress; the developer defaulted on contractual deadlines, the project failed. In 1998, a cheaper option was decided on after a consultation process with stakeholders and citizens; the architectural design was chosen via a competition. It used part of Queen Elizabeth II Square and surrounding streets as a bus terminal, with the existing dilapidated bus terminal redeveloped to incorporate both bus services and a pedestrianised area; when nearby Quay Street was realigned in the late 1990s, a tunnel was built to provide the underground railway link. Bus services using the old bus terminal were diverted to other locations in June 2001.
Designed by California architect Mario Madayag in collaboration with local Auckland architects Jasmax, construction of Britomart commenced in October 2001, with structural design having been provided by OPUS. It involved 14 km of piling, some being 40 m long and driven 16 m into the underlying bedrock to provide good earthquake protection, to futureproof the area for potential construction of buildings on top of the station. 200,000 cubic metres were excavated for the station, 40,000 cubic metres of concrete poured. The station includes 236 m ² retail area; the main chamber of Britomart is one of the best interiors in New Zealand and shows the influence of the main hall of the Austrian Postal Savings Bank building by Otto Wagner. The station opened to passengers on 7 July 2003, with the official opening on 25 July 2003 by Sir Edmund Hillary and government ministers. Services to the Beach Road terminus ceased, except for some peak-time commuter services and excursion trains using the former Platform 4, renamed'The Strand'.
The commuter services ceased after a few months. Cost over-runs and differing tastes made the centre politically controversial, the design being described as a large hole in the ground and figuratively. Despite this and a NZ$204 million price tag, it has won numerous design awards and is internationally recognised for its innovative but heritage-sympathetic architecture; the main source of contention was the great expense of this public transport development in the Auckland Region, where for many decades the focus had been on private vehicle ownership and travel. Initial plans included underground pedestrian walkways to Queen Elizabeth II Square, the nearby downtown ferry terminal and the main shopping street of Queen St. Due to cost over-runs only the short walkway under Queen Street to the square was built, the other two being dropped in favour of a sizeable rain-proof canopy that ran from the square's above-ground exit northward toward the ferry terminal and southward toward the Queen Street-Customs Street intersection.
The underground walkway was closed to pedestrians from 29 March 20
