Minister of Transport Simeon Brown and Acting Mayor of Auckland Desley Simpson talk to the media in Mt Eden. Video / NZ Herald
Auckland’s train services will be suspended for almost 100 days between this Christmas and January 2026 as improvements are made to the rail network ahead of the City Rail Link project’s completion.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Acting Auckland Mayor Desley Simpson revealed today that Aucklanders would face up to 96 days without an operational train service across those 13 months, with closures centred around holidays, weekends and evenings.
That’s on top of up to 53 days of partial network closure during that time, during which trains would run on a single line at a reduced frequency.
All up, it would mean Auckland commuters could have either a partially or completely closed rail service for up to 40% of the 369 days between Boxing Day this year and January 26, 2026.
Brown and Simpson both acknowledged the disruption KiwiRail’s Rail Network Rebuild would cause but they argued it was necessary to have it completed before the City Rail Link (CRL) project was finished.
“These closures will be disruptive but will enable Aucklanders to realise the substantial benefits of City Rail Link the day it opens, with faster and more frequent services, and means the Rail Network Rebuild will be completed prior to the City Rail Link opening, not afterwards which would be the alternative,” Brown said.
Simeon Brown and Desley Simpson reveal significant closures of Auckland's rail network next year.
“This will remove temporary speed restrictions from the network to deliver increased reliability and enable more frequent and faster trains when the CRL opens.”
Describing the rebuild as “one last push”, Brown said his expectations of KiwiRail and Auckland Transport were for disruptions to be minimised and for work to be undertaken “around the clock to make the most of every single hour the network is closed”.
Simpson said the disruption was an “unavoidable necessity” if CRL was to be effective when it opened in 2026.
She added her expectation that Aucklanders were given “ample notice of any changes to services” as well as explanations of the improvements being made and what alternative public transport options were available.
When will the trains be closed?
The longest closures occur across the two summer holiday periods, according to a calendar released by Brown.
The network will be closed from December 27 this year until January 27. As a contingency, the six days after January 27 could see the network partially closed.
About two weeks of full closure would occur over the Easter break. The network would be closed during public holiday weekends in May and June too.
It would be partially closed for five weekends between July and September and closed over Labour weekend. Four further weeks had been identified for partial closure.
The second long full closure would begin on Boxing Day, 2025, and finish on January 26, 2026.
In March, the City Rail Link moved beyond the civil stage and hundreds of kilometres of cables are being laid to run the stations and trains. Photo / Corey Fleming
What upgrades are being made?
The Rail Network Rebuild has been under way since January 2023 and has already improved the Southern Line from Penrose to Newmarket, the Eastern Line from a rail junction just south of Sylvia Park Station and the Western Line from Newmarket to New Lynn.
It is now in its fourth phase, focusing on lines between Papakura and Pukekohe. KiwiRail has estimated this phase will be completed in early February.
Information released by Brown today showed the work would include “replacing ageing track foundations, including in the busiest part of the network in South Auckland; making the network more resilient to weather by improving drainage and culverts; replacing worn rail and sleepers, improvements to bridges and a tunnel, and upgrades to critical track infrastructure, signals and power supplies”.
Replacement work and drainage improvements would be done on the Western Line between New Lynn and Swanson, the Southern Line between Newmarket and Britomart and between Ōtāhuhu and Papakura.
Ageing sleepers on bridges around Newmarket, Parnell and near Tamaki Drive would be replaced. Work would continue on the Parnell Tunnel, while old track infrastructure would be replaced to allow trains to switch between tracks at Kingsland, Tamaki and Quay Park.
“I think Aucklanders are feeling a sense of frustration with the constant delays. However, this work must happen,” Brown said, citing the improvements CRL would provide.
“Auckland is in a state of transformation. This is one last push as we get ready for that.”
He said it wasn’t yet confirmed when the CRL would finish but the project was now entering one of its “most complex phases”.
Rail closures a “necessary evil”
Public Transport Users’ Association national co-ordinator Jon Reeves told the Herald the closures were a “necessary evil” but warned Auckland Transport needed to “lift its game” in finding alternative transport options like buses.
“Especially late at night – they just don’t arrive. And AT has no way for people to contact them after the phone customer service closes at 8pm,” he said.
“AT are going to have to pull finger to deliver exceptional rail replacement bus services over the next year.”
Reeves claimed wheelchair users were left behind because rail replacement buses either weren’t accessible or catered for only one wheelchair.
He suggested the Auckland Council-controlled transport arm cut fares by 30% when customers have to use rail replacement buses.
“That’d be a ‘thank you’ for bearing a much slower and inferior service.”
Campaign for Better Public Transport’s convenor Jodi Johnston was concerned for both on and off-peak rail users.
“Now they’ve got a rail replacement bus, and I know from personal experience one of the issues is they’re slower than trains.
“It can take half an hour to 45 minutes longer for end-to-end travel (a full line journey).”
He accepted public transport closures were part of living in the city, but rail users had already put up with a lot of disruption in the last few years, Johnston said.
“It all just discourages people from using the system … at what point do you reach breaking point?”
There’ll be a range of public transport options during closures, including rail buses, express rail buses and increasing frequency and capacity on some urban routes, AT’s public transport operations group manager Rachel Cara said.
They’d already worked with KiwiRail to retain weekday peak services as much as possible, with less disruption than during earlier stages of the Rail Network Rebuild.
Auckland bus reliability is more than 98% and they aimed to provide similar levels with rail replacement buses.
“We’ll be offering both ‘all stop services’ and ‘express’ services for our rail replacement buses across the network, and we’ll also use double-deckers when available.
“We appreciate it can be frustrating for our customers on the rare occasions when a bus service does not show up.”
The AT Mobile App or Journey Planner feature on AT’s website showed the latest information on disruptions or cancellations, including for rail replacement buses.
Where possible, rail replacement buses with modern accessibility would be used, but “very rarely” some buses would be older models because of availability, Cara said.
Auckland Transport had no funding to discount trips on rail replacement buses, she said.
Early last month, KiwiRail said it would cut delays from five-and-a-half minutes to a maximum 45-second delay on the Western Line, 30 seconds on the Southern Line and 1 minute 20 seconds on the Eastern Line.
With the 3.4km CRL project between Britomart and Mt Eden nearing completion, KiwiRail is working to complete the $550 million Auckland Rail Rebuild – replacement of railway foundations, tracks and sleepers over the existing network – before the CRL opens.
When the CRL finally opens, it will offer faster journeys across the city. For example, the journey from the central city to Mt Eden, via Karangahape Rd, will take about six minutes.
A further spinoff will be the 10-hectare site at Mt Eden where trains will emerge from the tunnels to a new station, Maungawhau.
The land has been levelled and sold in parcels for apartments and commercial development, along the masterplan lines at Wynyard Quarter.
Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.
