Porirua | |||||||||||
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 2013 aerial view of Porirua City Centre and Station | |||||||||||
| General information | |||||||||||
| Location | Station Road, Porirua, New Zealand | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 41°08′15″S174°50′36″E / 41.1376°S 174.8434°E /-41.1376; 174.8434 | ||||||||||
| System | Metlinksuburban rail | ||||||||||
| Owned by | KiwiRail (platform and track);Greater Wellington Regional Council (building and subway) | ||||||||||
| Line | North Island Main Trunk | ||||||||||
| Platforms | Island Platform | ||||||||||
| Tracks | Mainline (2) | ||||||||||
| Construction | |||||||||||
| Platform levels | 1 | ||||||||||
| Parking | Yes | ||||||||||
| Bicycle facilities | Yes | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| Opened | 21 September 1885 | ||||||||||
| Rebuilt | 1960 | ||||||||||
| Electrified | 24 July 1940 | ||||||||||
| Services | |||||||||||
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Porirua railway station is an important intermediate station inNew Zealand on theKāpiti Line fromWellington and is part of Wellington'sMetlink suburban rail network operated byTransdev Wellington.
Theisland platform urban railway station is on a double track section of theNorth Island Main Trunk which was opened in 1885 as a single main line on the alignment of today's Down (southbound) line. There is subway access to Porirua city centre and bus stops serving the Porirua area.
Porirua is served byelectric multiple units owned byGreater Wellington Regional Council and operated on its behalf byTransdev.
Porirua is served byKāpiti Line commuter trains operated byTransdev Wellington under the Metlink brand operating betweenWellington and Porirua orWaikanae. Services are operated byelectric multiple units of theFT/FP class (Matangi). Twodiesel-hauled carriage trains, theCapital Connection and theNorthern Explorer, pass through the station but do not stop.
Off-peak trains stop at all stations between Wellington and Waikanae. During peak periods, trains from Wellington that stop at all stations may terminate at Porirua orPlimmerton and return to Wellington while a number of peak services run express between Wellington and Porirua.[1][2]
Travel times by train are twenty-one minutes to Wellington, and thirty-nine minutes to Waikanae.[1]
Trains run every twenty minutes during daytime off-peak hours, more frequently during peak periods, and less frequently at night.[1] Before July 2018, off-peak passenger train services between Wellington and Waikanae stopping at Porirua ran every thirty minutes[3] but were increased to one every twenty minutes from 15 July 2018.
The station is the hub for bus services west to Titahi Bay and east to Porirua East and Ascot Park. Hoy wrote in 1968 that the importance of Porirua[4]
In 2010–11 improvements costing over $1 million were made to the station building, platforms etc.[5]
In 2014 it was described as, "the region's second busiest station".[6]
On 10 March 2014, work, expected to take 3 months, started on improvements to the southern part of the commuter parking.[7] Further expansion in 2015 brought thepark and ride provision to 480, with 172 to be added in 2017.[8] Car parking is free,[9] whereas fares on connecting local buses were $2 in 2017.[10]
The line was built by theWellington and Manawatu Railway Company (WMR), and the section viaJohnsonville through Porirua toParemata was opened on 24 September 1885. The line was taken over by the government in 1908, and electrified in 1940 after the opening of theTawa Flat deviation. Electrification allowed the replacement of steam locomotives withED class electric locomotives, purchased for use on this line and first introduced in 1938, to haul passenger and goods trains.DM/Delectric multiple units first ran to Porirua on 5 September 1949 and replaced the majority of locomotive-hauled passenger trains.[11]
The line was double tracked fromTawa to Porirua on 15 December 1957, and the new island-platform Porirua station opened when the Porirua-Paremata doubling and deviations were opened by theMinister of Railways[12] north toMana on 7 November 1960,[13] which had been authorised by the Finance Act 1958.[14]
Shortly after the release of the filmGoodbye Pork Pie in 1981, a car got stuck in the station's pedestrian subway after the driver tried to imitate the Wellington railway station chase scene.[15]
