PRESENTATION – The City Rail Link Project

When – Thursday 20th July 2017 //

Abstract

The City Rail Link (CRL) is a rail project in Auckland. The project consists of an electrified, double-track rail tunnel underneath Auckland's City Centre, running for approximately 3.5 km between Britomart Transport Centre and Mount Eden Railway Station, where it will connect bidirectionally to the Western Line.

Two underground stations will be provided in Auckland's CBD: Aotea Station (located near Aotea Square) and Karangahape Station (located in the vicinity of Karangahape Road)and a redevelopment of Mt Eden station with a near surface additional island platform and new station entrance building. The current project is an adapted version of previous proposals to improve rail access to Auckland's City Centre since the 1920s. The CRL was highlighted as the number one transport project in the 2012 Auckland Spatial Plan and has enjoyed strong public support in a number of polls. In June 2013 the central government announced its support for the project, albeit with a later construction commencement date of 2020 subject to meeting 20m passenger journeys per annum on the rail network, compared to Auckland Council's preferred start date of 2016. Early works (approximately 10% of the project) commenced construction from Britomart to northern half of Albert Street in 2015. The Prime Minister announced in September 2016 that central government funding for main works had been confirmed, allowing Auckland Council to start construction of the main works. The procurement process has started for these works that are planned to be completed in 2023 with a final stage of works after commencement of operations in 2024.

Registration

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ASG - City rail Link Train

Benefits

The key benefits of the City Rail Link are intended to be:
• Turning Britomart Train Station from a terminus station into a through station, allowing more than twice the existing train capacity through the core of the network (from a maximum of 20 trains per hour, to be reached in 2016, to a projected 48 trains per hour)
• Providing two new train stations in the Auckland CBD and significant upgrades to two existing stations, making most of the city centre easily accessible by train rapid transit. This will boost economic activity and development in these areas and relieve projected transport access constraints
• Reducing the duration of trips on the Western Line significantly, by removing the need to deviate to Newmarket and around the east of the CBD
• Allowing lines on opposite sides of the city to be through routed via the tunnel, providing direct crosstown rail connections
• Providing train capacity to allow new lines to be added to the network - including, but not limited to, other potential longer-term projects such as North Shore Rail
• Doubling the number of Aucklanders who have 30 minutes duration rail access to the CBD

Biography

John Fellows

ASG City Rail Link Presentation - John Fellows

Degree Architecture (North London)

Areas of Expertise
Station Architecture
Design management of major rail infrastructure projects
Management of multi-discipline design teams

Project Highlights
Joined British Railways Chief Architects department in London as a spotty 18 year old in 1974. By the age of 25 John was designing and supervising the construction of station reconstructions and completed a total of 20 new station builds in the south east of England before moving into client side design management of projects, including the design and construction of Ashford International station in his home town in Kent as part of the Channel Tunnel rail link project.

Throughout the 1990’s John was the Architecture and Design manager in Railtrack for the $6Bn Thameslink project, developing the designs for stations and engineering infrastructure and representing the organisation as expert witness at public hearings. He moved into UK’s Major Station team as asset manager and budget holder for the redevelopment of five major stations, including London Waterloo, London Victoria and Birmingham New Street.

In 2004 John became Network Rail’s Head of Station Design for the 2500 station rail network in the UK, leading the national specialist team of architects and designers, being a member of the NR engineering executive, setting design standards and design managing the delivery of station projects to meet growth in rail patronage and the rejuvenation of the rail network.
John joined Mott MacDonald in 2007 as a station design specialist in the commercial team advising Transport for London’s Overground team on the delivery of the $3.2Bn East London Line Project and became package manager for the delivery of the $1Bn Liverpool Street station design package for Crossrail in London. John lectured at Birmingham University for 5 years providing a Master’s Degree module on station and rail infrastructure design.

In 2012 John moved to New Zealand with Mott MacDonald and headed up the station design development in the Principal Advisor Team for the Auckland City Rail Link project, developing the winning design for Sydney North West Rail, peer reviewing the KL Blue Line stations in Malaysia and the Melbourne Metro project.

John joined the Auckland Transport team in 2014 as Manager Station Architecture for the City Rail Link team, has married a Kiwi and would not want to live in any other city in the world.

Darryl Wong

BE (Civil), MIPENZ, MICE, C Eng

Areas of Expertise
Civil engineering, underground engineering, design and construction management

Project Highlights
Hong Kong
• KCRC Kowloon Southern Link
• MTRC West Island Line
• MTRC Shatin Central Line