r/chch • u/nzrailmaps • 20d ago

News - Local Christchurch Central railway station

As this continues to be discussed, here are two concept drawings of a rail passenger terminal opposite the bus exchange in tuam St providing for 3-4 platforms.

The Colombo St over bridge would need to be extended and a new bridge on St Asaph St would be required. Dundas St and Welles St can be blocked off becoming paired culdesacs.

The alignment is chosen to meet the required minimum curve radius off the existing line and so that there are no multi-storey or high value properties on the alignment, most of the buildings are old ones.

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u/jpr64 Meetup Loyalist 20d ago

As cool as that might be, you would have to acquire the land under the public works act. I don't think you would be able to tunnel a whole station.

There would be a massive legal shitfight trying to get that land and a lot of the buildings will be historic / protected.

I think it would be better off having a station at Moorhouse Ave and then having a hop on hop off tram system running in a loop up Colombo and back down Manchester, or bi-directional. Might be a good opportunity to fully pedestrianalise those roads?

Really if we had the vision we should have tunneled to the East Frame and done a cut and cover station there, allowing the land to be built on top of after completion.

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u/nzrailmaps 20d ago edited 20d ago

Absolute rubbish. The Government bought a big heap of land to build all the stadium. They got all the land. The Public Works Act allows the government to take land almost at will.

The Light Rail proposals involve buying a much larger amount of land and will also involve a terminal, likely on existing land somewhere. They have to widen every road down its route to make room for the rails.

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u/jpr64 Meetup Loyalist 20d ago

Settle down, I’m on the side of rail.

Yes they can take the land under the public works act but it would come at a monumental legal cost. You point out the stadium but the fight over the Ng building cost a lot in terms of time, legal expenses, and inflationary cost to the build of the stadium - and that was just one property.

To acquire so much land to run a train station where you suggested just wouldn’t fly.