History Of The Western Line

The Auckland Western line Stretches from Britomart Transport centre in The City,All the way to Swanson in West Auckland.It is also the service that stops at the most stations.with a total of 18 stations including the new Parnell station.

By the early 20th century, The railway ran between what's now known as Auckland strand,to Henderson with some mixed services extending to Hellensville.You can still see evidence that there was a service to Helensville over at the local station.But by 1980,Colin Mclaughlin who was the minister of railways at the time,decided to stop services to helensville meaning trains would stop at Waitakere station.Colin Mclaughlin was famous in New Zealand railway history because he was known for closing most of the all of New Zealands passenger railway services.Including the train from Christchurch to Dunedin.In 2015,while the electrification programme was going on in Auckland's railways,The council decided to close the service to Waitakere due to ever decreasing numbers.So today the western line only extends to Swanson.

Suprisingly,The Western wasen't double tracked until 2005.When "Project Boston" Happend.Project boston was the double tracking of the western line between Boston road station( Now known as Grafton) and Morningside station.Double tracking rapidly came to quickly to the whole western line and by 2010,The whole western line was double tracked.With a bunch of extra upgrades to stations like Mt Albert,Henderson and much more.This finnaly made trains come more frequently and more importently,give way to electrified railway

The Western line may probably be the Railway that is the most Dangerous and has had the most closures,But this railway is absolutely full of history that I could not possibly fit into this one blog post.This railway opens up all of west Auckland and brings it to the City and back again.But although it is an amazingly historical line,it still can take up to 70 minutes to get to the city from Swanson.I wonder if there is a railway being built to help fix this problem?