Hamilton railway station, New Zealand


Hamilton railway station serves the city of Hamilton in the Waikato region of New Zealand. It is located in the suburb of Frankton, hence the station's former name Frankton Junction, its name for most of its existence. The station is located at the junction of the North Island Main Trunk and East Coast Main Trunk lines. Only the NIMT still carries passenger services, which consist only of Northern Explorer services between Auckland and Wellington on six days of the week.

History

Frankton Junction station consisted of an island platform located on the NIMT just north of the junction between the ECMT and NIMT. It had two signal boxes, and a locomotive depot was located in the Vee of the junction. In 1909 a new, larger station was built to cope with the extra traffic of the through line to Wellington, to the north.
Due to the end of steam operation in the North Island in 1968, the depot was closed and a new station was opened on its site in 1975 with a side platform on each line. The station was renamed to its present name at that time. The listed Frankton South End signalbox was relocated to the Hamilton Miniature Engineers' site at Minogue Park, opposite the new Te Rapa loco depot.
The station was important in the growth of Hamilton and historically the trains calling included The Overlander, Blue Streak, Scenic Daylight, Daylight Limited, Northerner, Silver Star, Night Limited, Waikato Connection, Rotorua Express, Geyserland Express, Thames Express, Taneatua Express and Kaimai Express.
The scale of past use of the station is indicated by a 1936 report that 3 months' revenue was £7065 for tickets, £1482 for parcels and £24,143 for goods, including 43,357 sheep, 5,849 cattle and 1,756,450 feet of timber. The 2016 equivalent would be about $15m a year.
Traffic grew steadily, as shown in the graph and table below.
yearticketsseason ticketsstaffref.
18811
18825,8831
18836,0391
18847,4751
18855,8091
18863,6342
18874,64823
18881,7191
18892,0772
1890
18911,8102
18922,1783
18932,2713
18942,7583
18953,7353
18963,5054
18973,9346
18985,1887
18995,1477
19005,7158
1901
190211,26439
190319,530313
190431,8455512
190530,6785612
190624,5555816
190719,4208318
190821,09812420
190924,6844826
191031,8306333
191141,65911643
191257,00920448
191379,65523557
191480,769313
191575,594335
191683,163266
191788,855194
191884,12989
191989,67287
1920105,146127
1921127,03498
1922130,40390
1923121,33486
1924121,75173
1925123,02155
1926119,31292
1927116,451331
1928101,809254
192996,565181
193082,596342
193196,979142
193285,485129
193391,79566
193498,18474
193599,678113
1936102,40357
1937111,915133
1938110,555575
1939105,799102
1940109,17492
1941119,49387
1942140,77993
1943206,43742
1944212,40354
1945171,10318
1946169,58974
1947124,930128
1948100,369181
194991,44647
195091,36033

Services

About 2008, the canopy over platform 1 was reduced in length. The ECMT carries no passenger services and its platform is used infrequently by excursion trains.
Passenger services are limited to the Northern Explorer, which replaced The Overlander in 2012. Previous services include the Kaimai Express and Geyserland Express railcars to Tauranga and Rotorua respectively, which were cancelled in 2002, and the overnight Northerner, which ceased operation in 2004 under Toll Rail.
The Waikato Connection commuter service to Auckland ran in 2000 and 2001. It is planned to reintroduce a similar service in 2020 using refurbished SA and SD coaches; initially to Papakura railway station. This proposed service, to commence from 3 August 2020, has been branded as Te Huia.