Auckland City Rails 1 & 2 COMBO

Welcome to Auckland City Rails 1, where you’ll see New Zealand’s rail carrier TranzRail in action.

We begin our tour with a look at various North and South bound trains running at main line speeds through South Auckland as they depart and enter Auckland on the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) railway.

We then hop over to the Auckland City Port to witness the delivery of a load of containers and sit back as we see the straddlers at work - one has to admire the driving skills involved.

We then take a visit to the two Auckland City tunnels: the Newmarket Branch tunnel under Parnel Road, where we see TranzMetro DMU’s (Diesel Multiple Units) and then a longer look at the Orakei Branch tunnel under Glen Innes - where once again we see the DMU’s, as well as the local freights between Westfield Yard and the Ports of Auckland.

The show rounds off with a long look at the various shunting operations at Westfield Yard in Otahuhu, as well as arrivals and departures of the inter-city freights. Westfield is a flat classification yard and servicing facility where most southbound trains depart from. We’ll see a multitude of diesels in action: the DH and DSG shunters, the mainline DC and DFT’s, and the versatile DBR.


Auckland City Rails 2 - Heading West.

In this production we keep to a Heading West theme by focussing on the North Auckland Railway which begins at the triangle at Newmarket, and terminates at the city of Whangarei - although we won’t be going much further north than the town of Helensville.

We begin with a look at two steam excursions: Jb 4-8-2 from Mainline Steam and Ja 4-8-2 from the Railway Enthusiast Society with lots of close-ups and a few run-by’s.

We then track No.122, a freight which departs Westfield Yard 6:25pm every weekday evening. We begin tracking its journey at Henderson and catch it at Waitakere, Kumeu and Helensville where it meets No.121 from Whangarei.

Between Waimauku and Helensville, the tracks run parallel to Highway 16, which allows us to view No. 122 at 75 km/h in some dramatic pacing shots.

Run-by shots of full length trains are included.