A modern, glass-fronted building with people walking outside. In the foreground, an orange silhouette of a person raises broken chains above their head in a gesture of triumph.
A depiction of what the CRL’s opening could look like.

Societyabout 7 hours ago

The City Rail Link might be opening sooner than you think

Senior writer
A modern, glass-fronted building with people walking outside. In the foreground, an orange silhouette of a person raises broken chains above their head in a gesture of triumph.
A depiction of what the CRL’s opening could look like.

The official line is still ‘it’s opening in the second half of the year’. But those closest to the project are making increasingly hopeful noises.

Tau Henare couldn’t hold himself back any longer. “When’s the opening?” the Houkura board member blurted out, in the middle of the City Rail Link team’s presentation to Auckland Council’s transport committee on Tuesday. They wouldn’t tell him. They wouldn’t tell anyone. Instead they kept repeating a well-worn mantra: “It’ll be opening in the second half of this year.” 

That phrase has been the stock response since last November, when transport minister Chris Bishop first conceded the rail line wouldn’t be opening before June. The pessimism around the opening schedule increased after timetable testing in January turned up a long list of issues. For a long time, if you asked a transport official or politician what time they expected the CRL to actually get up and running, they’d look at you like you’d just asked them to explain quantum. 

When pressed, most guessed later rather than sooner. November. December. Maybe missing 2026 entirely. Lately, though, the tone has started to change. At their briefing to council, officials seemed almost giddy by bureaucratic standards. “I’ll just say, without trying to jinx it, that things are going well with the testing and we’re positive about a prompt opening,” said CRL Ltd chief executive Patrick Brockie, in response to queries from Waitākere councillor Shane Henderson.

A render of the Waihorotiu station, which will soon become NZ's busiest train hub.
A render of the Waihorotiu station, which will soon become NZ’s busiest train hub. (Image: City Rail Link)

Auckland Transport’s rail services manager Mark Lambert is also making hopeful noises. He tells The Spinoff the hitches in the CRL’s timetable have been straightened out and safety testing is going well. Recently they put trains through the tunnels with smoke machines running and alarm bells ringing to simulate an emergency situation. It went relatively smoothly. Actually, it kind of seems like there shouldn’t be that much testing still to do. At this point aren’t they kind of just taking the piss? “No we’re not,” he says, adding testing is needed for council building certification and to ensure people don’t die horribly if there’s a disaster in the new tunnels.

Lambert also stuck with “the second half of this year” when asked when the CRL will open. He wouldn’t participate in a word association game involving months of the year. Off the record, transport officials are more forthcoming. Though Lambert insists the election isn’t a factor in when the CRL will open, a high-ranking AT source says officials are determined to ensure its  launch doesn’t conflict with the campaign period. “Nobody wants it to be in the middle of a central government election,” the source says. “There’s motivation there to make sure it’s not.”

Another top Auckland Council source has been engaged in a long-running effort to get a read from AT staff and other CRL officials on when the $5.5bn railway will open. Those staff used to start looking hopeful at the mention of September but lately that optimism has been moving up the calendar. “The vibes that used to feel Septemberish now feel Augustish,”  the source says.

Additionally, as noted by The Spinoff’s Now You Know presenter Robbie Nicol, CRL advertising material now says it’s “arriving soon”.

A poster on the ground shows a colorful map for Auckland’s City Rail Link, with the text “Bringing you closer” and “Arriving soon.” A sticker says “👀 ‘soon’” and another tag at the bottom reads “Maungawhau.”.
October is not soon. November is not soon.

Putting these bits of evidence together, you can likely rule out November and October for the CRL launch on “interfering with the election” grounds. December would be even more terrible, clashing with Christmas, New Year and Winston Peters’ deliberations on who to put in government. Auckland Transport just ruled out July as an opening date. That leaves a couple of months. The Spinoff informed mayor Wayne Brown that by a process of elimination we had figured out that the CRL would open in August or September. His reply? “You’d be right”.

So, we can safely assume the CRL will open by the end of September. But the end of September is quite a long way away for something we’ve been told is “arriving soon”. By lighting some incense in the MOTAT model train room and engaging in an additional vibe reading, we can guess that officials are feeling increasingly good about August. 

It’s not the best possible opening time. But it’s at least in the first half of the second half of the year. We won’t still be bunged up at the station formerly known as Britomart when the Chrises start going at each other on the election trail. We won’t be taking a dog leg to Newmarket on our way to see Auckland’s giant Christmas tree getting lit up. Hope is on its way. It’s chugging in along a 3.4km-long underground tunnel. Its ETA is a weekend about three months from now. 

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