NZ Rail History - Early Lost Opportunities
Auckland's Queen Street Railway Station (1904)
The muddy start to Auckland’s historic journey towards the City Rail Link (CRL) was highlighted in last month’s newsletter – the blossoming of a public transport service across the district’s scattered and remote communities where decent road/rail/tram networks were a distant dream.
After construction had dragged on for decades, the North Island main train line was finally completed in 1908, better connecting Auckland with the rest of the country. A train trip to Wellington from Auckland was a “speedy” 18 hours.
But rail progress around the city itself was a lot slower at the start of the 20th century - a saga of missed opportunities for local and central Government, leaving a legacy that had to be fixed up later and at a greater expense.
In 1923, Auckland looked set to take a visionary step towards the future when the Government gave its support for a city-to-Morningside underground railway.
The so-called “Morningside Deviation” was planned to run from Beach Road near Parnell under the CBD, with a station at the Auckland Town Hall, before joining the Western Line at Morningside.
The vision never got off the ground, let alone under it! The scheme was scrapped because of costs, what were described at the time as “engineering difficulties”, lack of economic benefits, and concerns about rail’s future trying to serve a growing Auckland’s expansion into the suburbs.
The old Auckland Railway Station
That decision coincided with the closure of the busy CBD station near the bottom of Queen Street. A new station had been built on reclaimed land at Beach Road – decision-makers believed the city would develop further towards the eastern fringes of the central city. The impressive station did win architecture awards but failed to win the hearts of rail commuters. People stopped catching trains because the new station’s location was off the beaten track and meant an inconvenient hike for many working in the central city.
Auckland’s rail link to Northland for passengers and freight had opened in 1925. Development of the city’s Eastern Line in the 1930s was the last expansion of Auckland’s rail network for 80 years.
Talk of reviving the Morningside Deviation did rumble on through the 1930s – mainly as a job creation project for unemployed workers during the Great Depression – but a looming World War II silenced the idea for good.
Next month, rail’s own battle in Auckland – with the motor car.