Inside Auckland’s deepest train station, with the country’s longest escalator
Thursday, 9 July 2026
Officials are still staying mum on when passengers will be allowed onboard Auckland’s long overdue City Rail Link (CRL).
Media were invited deep underground on Thursday for a tour of the freshly completed Karanga-a-Hape Station, one of the two new inner city stations set to open as part of the CRL.
The platform sits 33 metres ‒ or 10 storeys ‒ below the ground, making it the city’s deepest station. It also has the country’s longest continuous escalator, with each trip between the platform and the road above taking about a minute. If there’s an emergency and people are expected to use the stairs, expect a lot of walking to make it back to ground level, officials said.
Once down to the platform, there’s a space-age feel with soft white lights illuminating the curved walls and ceiling.
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But the $5.5 billion question remains: when will the CRL finally welcome passengers? As Auckland Transport boss Stacey van der Putten said, it’s “the one question everybody wants answered”.
But all she can say is that it will be “soon”.
“It will be in the months ahead,” van der Putten told reporters. “Obviously, today's a really big part of that journey, in terms of getting to that milestone, where we have the confidence to recommend a timeline for it to be opened.”
Auckland’s entire train network was closed on Thursday so Auckland Transport could trial the CRL’s planned weekday timetable in preparation for the eventual opening day. Officials promised this will be the last full network closure of the year, though smaller network maintenance is scheduled for around Christmas.
Trains were whizzing past Karanga-a-Hape Station’s two platforms every couple of minutes, but with nobody onboard except for essential staff.
The project reached “practical completion” last month, which was when the assets were handed over to Auckland Transport and KiwiRail for final testing ahead of opening.
But businesses around the new stations are desperate to know when the network will open, citing years of disruption from construction that has led to a loss of foot traffic.
Transport minister Chris Bishop told the Sunday Star-Times last month that the Government wanted to see the CRL open “as much as anyone else”, but that they also wanted it “open safely and smoothly on day one”.
Asked whether officials knew the date or if it had still not been determined, van der Putten said there was a timeline that had to be followed. That included carrying out extensive safety checks across the network.
“Once we have a surety of that, we'll then provide a recommendation, and then there will be an announcement on opening, and that'll give a six week timeline in order for the doors to open to the general public.”
It’s previously been reported that the CRL will open on a Sunday, presumably to allow casual users the chance to board the train before the Monday rush of commuters. Add on the fact that there will be at least six weeks’ notice and there has been speculation that September is the most likely month that the network will finally open.
The Post asked a few officials on-site at Karanga-a-hape Station what they thought about September 6 as a potential opening date ‒ but all we got back was laughter.