Not everyone's aboard for station canopy remodelling

The Glen Eden station's canopy and platform needs snipping to allow further development. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

The sweeping veranda of Auckland's oldest railway station is likely to be trimmed back by Government agency Ontrack amid promises any such work will be done "sensitively".

However that prospect has alarmed Auckland Regional Council heritage chairwoman Sandra Coney who thinks the trademark canopies of the Glen Eden and Henderson stations may end up being mutilated if they have to be made narrower for the duplication and possible electrification of Auckland's western line.

A council staff report has referred to extensive negotiations over alternatives for the original Henderson station, built in 1881.

These include either cutting the canopy by about 300mm or to move the station 30m south, an option Waitakere City no longer wants because of the cost.

Advice had been received from the Auckland Regional Transport Authority that the platform and canopy of the even older Glen Eden station, which dates from 1880 and is believed to be the oldest on the network, may also need to be cut to make way for a duplicate track.

Ms Coney told the regional council's transport committee Ontrack was out of step with the public.

She said people loved the few heritage station buildings left from about 260 which once graced Auckland's tracks and made good use of those still open at Glen Eden and Swanson.

The stations were falling prey to "a kind of reductionist engineering mindset" that saw them as an impediment rather than an asset to the rail network. Ontrack "are not on the same page as the public and the ARC".

Ms Coney said she had held meetings with Ontrack, which the Government has put in charge of a $600 million rail upgrade for Auckland, but encountered inflexibility.

She had heard talk of cutting back canopies by as much as two metres, an "unconscionable mutilation of a railway station", but corrected that to 1.3m after checking records outside the meeting.

Ontrack spokeswoman Jenni Austin said it would cut only about 200mm off Glen Eden's verandah and platform, to create a safe clearance from the tracks, and would not touch its counterparts at Henderson.

"This will be done as sensitively as possible and will in no way affect any of the decorative features of the building," she said.

The existing rail track needed to be moved closer to the building to make room for a fence and a duplicate track to be laid on the other side, where a second platform would be built. That was being done to stop people crossing the tracks in an area of high risk of trespass.

Although a non-heritage platform and shelter would be removed at Henderson, the original building and platform would be untouched.

Ms Austin said a safety fence would be erected along the platform to stop people boarding trains from the wrong side, as it was partly opposite a new island platform. Trains would be reached over the duplicate tracks from an air-bridge between Railside Avenue and Waitakere City's new civic centre.