Patrick Reynolds is deputy chair of the Auckland City Centre Advisory Panel and a director of Greater Auckland
In 2003, after much argument, including the election of a Mayor in 2001 who ran on stopping it, Britomart train station in downtown Auckland opened. A mere 1km twin track terminating branch with a subsurface station, it nonetheless led the transformation of the whole run down Auckland waterfront area and supercharged the revival of passenger train services in Auckland. Now rebuilt to enable through-running, and rechristened Waitematā, it is plainly obvious what a hugely valuable investment this was and continues to be for our city. This investment, itself building on the very cheap and clever earlier revival of passenger rail in Auckland, led a massive urban regeneration programme all along the city's neglected waterfront and city centre in general. It also made network electrification a no brainer, further encouraging private investment in the revival of Auckland's relatively weak city centre. The value of this modest investment led a massive shift in the city's pattern, culminating in the much bigger and much more ambitious City Rail Link. The country's biggest ever infrastructure project, now spreading its city shaping all through the Auckland region, and even, I argue, way beyond it. A project unthinkable without the preceding much more modest Britomart one, which has very much turned out to be a small pebble in the pond creating massively outsized ripples. Below I argue there is a similar opportunity hiding in plain sight in Hamilton.
This is a follow up to this Te Huia post which sets out the value and opportunity of this service which ideally should be read first.
The similarities of the railway stories in the centres of both cities are striking. Hamilton, just like Auckland, also once had a city centre railway station. Hamilton, like Auckland, had its city centre station closed in favour of one on the urban periphery, more convenient for the movement of trains, but way less useful for passengers. Hamilton, like Auckland, saw a rapid decline in passenger volumes, and then services. Hamilton, like Auckland only requires a short and inexpensive spur and new subsurface station to bring back passengers to an ideal location in the city centre.
So could the return of a people focused dedicated city centre station be successful in Hamilton, as it has been in Auckland? Add a short spur and a subsurface station to bring reviving services back into the city centre to both grow the utility and demand for the use of the service, and spark new investment in an undervalued urban area? In this case the services would be a primarily intercity ones rather than intra-city, which makes sense as it is the scale and gravitational pull of the much bigger city that makes the mode viable. But I wouldn't underplay the opportunity this presents for journeys to the already existing second Hamilton station at Rotokuri/The Base, and, later on, potential new ones in East Hamilton. With further possiblities eastwards to Morrinsville, Cambridge, Tauranga, and Rotorua. But here let's look at the much more modest first step.
This is not a new idea. Back in 2021 Stuff reported:
This plan is to use the single track East Coast Main and never-used platform that current exists under this block. This line was moved below grade in 1964 in order to grade separate the north-south city streets and is pretty heavily used by Kiwi Rail diesel freight services. At first Hamilton Station remained on this alignment in a trench, here are some pics from the Hamilton Libraries collection showing the old station building stranded up above with its redundant platform. But now this block has been considerably built on (see the red line in the aerial pic below) :
Here's the never used 'Hamilton Central' - the country's first underground station, but just enjoys fumey freight trains blasting through:
Here is an urban explorer's 5 min youtube on showing the current state of it, in its full graffito-glory:
I believe the platform is towards the north-eastern end of the Centre Place block outlined in green on map below with the existing ECMT in red:
While the enthusiasm of the private sector and Tainui to help deliver a city centre station in Hamilton, and a station entrance directly onto Victoria St as shown in the render, is very welcome indeed, it is likely we can get both a better outcome and less complicated and cheaper process by separating the station project from the ECMT from the start. Better because separating freight and passenger services as much as possible, especially at stations, simplifies everything, especially safety and ventilation. Lowering conflict, complexity, and cost. To add the amount of platform space and safe separation from ongoing diesel freight services below existing buildings looks very expensive and complicated even with the owners support. And would be disruptive to freight services between the port of Tauranga and Auckland.
Happily too there is another opportunity. By adding a dedicated passenger branch just a bit to the north under Bryce St (in blue on the aerial). We can leave the freight line be, while integrating the new rail station with the existing bus interchange (in orange above), while still delivering the passenger volume to support private and Iwi led urban renewal on surrounding city sites. All under publicly owned streets, without the costs and complications of land acquisition and alteration of existing buildings.
Because the ECMT is already in a trench duplicating and extending it via the cut and cover method under the street is a pretty simple project. Above I have stopped it short of the Bus Interchange as this is a lower cost, least disruptive option. It could have entrances at either end one directly into the Bus Station and the other into the park. Of course instead it could be continued as far along Bryce St as desired, delivering passengers closer to the city centre including to the Centre Place site. These are options with various trade-offs to be studied.
But considering the ideal longer term form would be a through-running multi-platform station with track below the full length of Bryce St to a new bridge over the river and onto stations in East Hamilton (say at Peachgrove and Ruakura/uni, before heading to Morrinsville and Tauranga), below, it might be best to build the shorter cheaper version first up, to leave future options more open.
As described in the previous post, the opportunity here, with new bi-mode battery/overhead electric trains, is to enable the service to terminate at stations in the heart of each city centre and at each city's highest concentration of other transit services. From Waitematā (Britomart) in downtown Auckland to Kirikiriroa Central in downtown Hamilton is a transformative upgrade for the service. It is such fantastic good fortune that Hamilton's existing transit interchange is already right there. As is the proximity of both the cricket and rugby grounds, both in easy walkable reach from this station, and the bars and restaurants of the city centre.
Dedicated game day trains would move Auckland's huge sports fan base within easier reach for Hamilton events, great for international fixtures and derby matches between the teams representing each region.
For arts fans too, the soon-to-open regional theatre complex and long established Waikato Museum and Art Gallery are also within the catchment.
Hamilton city centre has suffered the common disinvestment fate of city centres everywhere through the post-war sprawl era, and so, also like city centres everywhere, is ready to be rediscovered for its natural advantages: Its centrality to a growing population, existing physical and cultural infrastructure, and undervalued developable land.
Perhaps counterintuitively to some, the completion of the Waikato Expressway is actually supportive of this plan. At last through traffic can now fully bypass the city, freeing city arterials from any interregional carriage role, and demanding of the city to develop its intrinsic value as a place to be, work, study, and visit on its own terms.
A walk around this part of the city centre and it is easy to see that the recent development pattern is of the ex-urban strip mall form; fully focused on car born trade. This is true of much of the recent development in the city, though the surviving pre-war shops and offices still hold their pedestrian orientation, just waiting for people to return in greater numbers. This is also a common story, and will change again over time, as more place based infrastructure and services return to attract them. So many at car parks just waiting to be built on. This station would be a great lead in that direction.
I would love to see this project in the Waikato RLTP, and some real technical feasibility and cost work undertaken. However like Britomart 1.0, this is a transport project that's also an urban renewal one, and our planning processes are not well set up for ideas that involve multiple agencies and have multiple benefits. This is an idea that would never be generated by the generally unimaginative minds at Kiwi Rail, and conversely, because it has rail at the core, it is the type of idea that other planning agencies will ignore or believe to be out of their scope. Britomart 1.0 was driven by the City and Regional Council, not the rail agency, and certainly not transport agency.
Note the very first building the ECMT goes under, to the right of the rail trench, with the white roof in the pic above. That's the offices of the Waikato Regional Council at the Ward St end, this area is clearly at the very heart of the Waikato region, just screaming out for both better regional connectivity and way better place quality and vitality, and who might be best placed to explore this idea further...?
