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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 7 (December 1, 1930)

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The opening of its new railway station is a great day in the history of Auckland. The event is the culmination of a long period of railway development during which the facilities available for the transaction of transport business in and around the Northern metropolis had gradually become quite inadequate for the requirements of the times.

In providing this magnificent building and modern railway terminal facilities heavy expenditure has been incurred. It remains for the people of New Zealand, and particularly the people of Auckland Province, to see to it that the enterprise which has made available to the public this superb station, with its magnificent platforms, extensive yards, intricate systems of power signalling and interlocking, and modern passenger amenities, together with the waterfront railway outlet from the city, is justified. Such justification can only come from public patronage.

The designers and builders of the station yard and deviation believed that the need of the times was for just such facilities, that they would meet the public demand, and that they would augment business sufficiently to more than pay interest on the capital outlay. I sincerely trust that this faith may be justified and that the people of the Northern province, in whose hands the success or failure of railway operations associated with Auckland station largely lies, will show their pride in this noble addition to the transport facilities of their main city by supporting the railway to the utmost.

I wish here to pay a tribute to the officers of my Department, who have vied with each other in efforts to make the new station worthy of the scale and importance of the business which will be transacted there.

The outward revenue collected in Auckland station during the financial year which ended on March 31 last amounted to the substantial sum of £690,259, or one-twelfth of the total gross earnings of the railways for all New Zealand. Ten years ago the revenue was only £475,703; twenty years ago it was £195,685; whilst in 1900 it was only £55,518. Yet the station which last year accounted for 324,361 ordinary passengers, 18,068 season ticket holders, and 660,070 tons of outward and inward goods, was the same station, with but slight additions as to structure, which served Auckland when the passenger business (as in 1900) was less than half and the goods tonnage less than one-sixth of what it was last year. One disquieting feature, the drop in ordinary tickets, which the survey of successive years reveals, is chiefly due to competition by public or private road vehicles. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the fine effort now being made to supply a service of super-excellence for the convenience of passengers will again deflect this traffic to the rail and that substantial improvements in the financial situation may result to the lasting benefit of the whole Dominion.

Minister of Railways.

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