The ARTA Years 2004 – 2010 - Auckland Transport

ANNUAL HIGHLIGHTS – CASE STUDY
2005: Double tracking the Western Line (Project DART)
Auckland has had four rail lines, built between 1873 and 1930. By 1939, both the Eastern and Southern rail lines
were fully double tracked. The first section of the Western Line to be double tracked was Morningside to Avondale in
1966. No further progress was made until 2005, when ONTRACK (later KiwiRail) began works for stage one of what was
then known as Project Boston and is now Project DART. The section of track from Boston Road to Morningside was
completed in 2005 and integrated with construction that same year of a new station at Kingsland. Double tracking of the
entire line from Britomart through to Waitakere was completed mid-2010.
Double tracking work and extra carriages allowed the services in peak times to run every 15 minutes from July 2008,
which contributed over half of the 12.6% patronage growth on trains in the following year. Peak time services on the
Western Line now run every ten minutes.
Partners: KiwiRail, ARTA
A crew of more than 600 worked around the clock over Christmas 2008/9 on rail infrastructure projects. They laid 7km of new track and excavated over
50,000m 3 of dirt in less than a week.
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