Rotokauri railway station (formerly Te Rapa railway station), also known as The Hub, is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, Rail transport, r ...

, and

bus station A bus station, bus depot, or bus interchange is a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can st ...

in north

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

serving

Rotokauri Rotokauri is a semi-rural locality in Waikato District in New Zealand. The outskirts of Rotokauri have an impressive orchid farm, all under glass, exporting blooms across the world, and providing ample local employment. The New Zealand Mini ...

and

Te Rapa Te Rapa is a mixed light industrial, large-scale retail and semi-rural suburb to the northwest of Hamilton Central, central Hamilton, New Zealand. It is built on a flat area that was previously the bed of an ancient river, the forerunner to the ...

. Located on the

North Island Main Trunk The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) is the main railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, connecting the capital city Wellington with the country's largest city, Auckland. The line is long, built to the New Zealand rail gauge of and ser ...

, it was previously a

flag station In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a bus stop, stop or train station, station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or drop ...

, and was closed in January 1971. It reopened as an integrated transport hub in 2021 as part of

Te Huia Te Huia is a passenger train service connecting the major cities of Hamilton and Auckland in New Zealand. The service is a five-year trial with subsidies from the NZ Transport Agency and Waikato local authorities. The opening was delayed beca ...

services between

and

Papakura Papakura is a suburb of South Auckland, in northern New Zealand. It is located on the shores of the Pahurehure Inlet, approximately south of the Auckland CBD, Auckland City Centre. It is under the authority of the Auckland Council. The ar ...

(extended to The Strand in 2022). Services started on 6 April 2021. Te_Rapa_railway_station

History

Te Rapa Railway Station

Opening with the

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

to Hamilton extension of the railway from

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

on Wednesday 19 December 1877, Te Rapa railway station was originally south of

Horotiu Horotiu is a small township on the west bank of the Waikato River in the Waikato District of New Zealand. It is on the Waikato Plains north of Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton and south of Ngāruawāhia. From early in the 20th century it devel ...

(then named Pukete) and north of

on the NIMT. A through siding was added in 1878, it appeared in the April 1879 timetable and, by 1884, it had a

passing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains o ...

for 21 wagons, a shelter shed, platform and loading bank. In 1916, it was equipped with distant signals and was part of the extension of automatic signalling from Ngāruawahiā to Frankton from Sunday 30 June 1929, when the sidings were switch-locked and automatically controlled and the former single track doubled. The sidings were extended into the RNZAF stores depot, to the south east, when it was built during the war There were also bulk cement and Apple & Pear Board sidings. In July 1965 it was noted that, for the past nine months, passenger bookings had been nil and, in September, approval was given to remove the station building and low-level platform. Construction of a new marshalling yard near the Racecourse began in December 1967.

Rotokauri Transport Hub

Rotokauri_station_and_footbridge_looking_south

Modern plans for a transport hub in north Hamilton started around 2007 in the Rotokauri Structure Plan and District Plan. Eventually, land was bought in 2017, and funding for the transport hub was announced in the 2018-2028 10 Year Plan. At a meeting of the Hamilton Public Transport Joint Committee on November 28 2018, the

Council A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...

estimated the cost of a new station, park and ride and

transport hub A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between mode of transport, transport modes. Public transport hubs include train station, railway stations, metro station, rapid transit stations, bus ...

at Rotokauri to be $21m, with $6.4m allowed to land purchasing. The plan was for an integrated transit hub in north Hamilton to connect with a proposed Hamilton to Auckland passenger train. These plans were dependent on NZTA funding for both the train and the hub itself. At the time of the Joint Committee meeting in November 2018, the opening was scheduled for March 2020. In 2019 the Sixth Labour Government announced funding for a passenger rail link between Auckland and Hamilton, at the time called Tron Express but later called Te Huia. This funding included the construction of a transport hub in Rotokauri, alongside maintenance facilities. In March 2020, the original planned opening date, Hamilton City Council announced new opening date of the park and ride scheme on August 3 2020, and an increased cost estimate of $29m, this was planned to coincide with the commencement of Te Huia services. The new station was built just south of the site of the original station. The March 2020 announcement also stated that the transit hub would have a rail platform, park and ride carpark, bus interchange, roading upgrades, passenger bridge and stairs. The council also highlighted a delay in lift installation was "due to international supply chain issues". On January 29 2020, a blessing ceremony was held at the transit hub ahead of its opening week. The signs around the hub include both

English Language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

and Reo Māori names. The station has two through-platforms, three lifts, and three sets of stairs. The over-bridge links the bus terminal, the platforms, and The Base shopping mall. The Hamilton City Council has purchased land next to the carpark in order to allow for a potential carpark expansion, or another development. There have also been changes in the road layout around the hub, including the construction of a new road called Kiriwai Drive, named after a local ().

Services

Currently the only train is

linking Hamilton to Auckland (stopping at

, Puhinui, The Strand), four times daily on weekdays (two in each direction), and once each way on some Saturdays. These services started on 6 April 2021. These were the first passenger services since the original station closed. Even though the

Northern Explorer The ''Northern Explorer'' is a long-distance passenger train operated by the Great Journeys New Zealand division of KiwiRail between Auckland and Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand, along the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT). Three se ...

passes through on the NIMT, it does not stop at this station. Rotokauri Transport Hub is also a major point along several of Hamilton and Waikato's bus routes. It was planned that the hub would have 180 daily bus movements at the start, but this will increase to 400.

Buses

Accidents

In a fog in 1934, a southbound train from

collided with a goods train. The only casualty was a pig, but the AB locomotive was thrown on its side.

References

{{reflist

External links

Rotokauri Transport Hub
information page on Hamilton City Council's website
Google Street View of station site

Aerial view of construction site in 2020

Station information page on Te Huia website

Retrolens aerial image of Te Rapa
from 3 December 1948
Facebook Post
from Dr Gaurav Sharma MP (Labour) from the blessing ceremony Rail transport in Waikato Buildings and structures in Waikato Railway stations in New Zealand opened in 1877 Railway stations in New Zealand opened in 2021 Railway stations in New Zealand closed in 1971