Kia ora neighbour,
This month we celebrated Te Wiki o te Reo Māori at our toolboxes by reflecting on the gifted name for our station - Maungawhau - as the weather warms up and daylight savings begins.
Spring has sprung and so has a bright and beautiful plethora of finishing touches around the station. Throughout September the focus of the mahi at Maungawhau Station has been on little things with big impact. After all, it’s the little things that count. Even while those small things are underway, there has been big breaking-out of the concrete slabs across the station’s landscape.
Spot the Reo-rannosaurus Rex!
Watch the latest drone footage below for recent views of the finished station buildings and the near - finished blocks for future development. Speaking of which, check out the Auckland Transport link below to stay abreast of interim development plans.
This month we share with you some of our small but important achievements here at the station, and we look back across the past in celebration of the huge efforts made to get here.
As always, if you have any questions about our construction activities coming up, don’t hesitate to get in touch at mteden@linkalliance.co.nz or 0800 CRL TALK press 5 for Maungawhau Station.
You can also follow Link Alliance’s progress by clicking the social media buttons below.
Ngā mihi,
The Maungawhau Station team.
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In celebration of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori earlier this month, it is timely to look back at how the station names are spoken, and what they mean – for this journey, we turn first to our tamariki from Te Uru Karaka Newton Central School to teach us https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17DTVUc7Xh/
The station names were gifted by CRL Ltd’s Mana Whenua Forum and honours the long-standing partnership the Forum’s eight iwi have had with CRL since day one of the project in 2012. Following a process, the NZ Geographic Board formally adopted the names for the four stations that connect the CRL tunnels.
Maungawhau Station directly references the significant nearby dormant volcano, Maungawhau (the mountain of the whau, so named for the whau tree growing on its slopes and which was an important resource for Māori).
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It’s noisy rock-n-reo but we like it! It is a bit loud but it’s also music to our ears. This month mahi breaking out the concrete slabs on site at Maungawhau Station could be heard around the neighbourhood. It’s the sweet sound of a project near construction completion, and the last disruptive work in the Maungawhau Station community by the Link Alliance team.
The rock breaking is noisy for obvious reasons, the reo is not as straightforward. In fact, it’s gnarly. Reo is the term used for the strong metal bands throughout the concrete slab that give it additional strength and support. It’s short for reinforcing steel, or reinforcement. The reo in the concrete slabs is commonly referred to as rebar, and rebar is literally gnarled steel bars running through the concrete to give it strength.
The crews working on the rock and reo have put up noise mats, including on the rock breaker itself, and they are using the machinery most likely to cause the least, or the shortest disruption. We are grateful to our neighbours for their support and understanding through these final stages, and while our Reo-rannosaurus Rex does its thing.
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The Reo-rannosaurus Rex pulls mangled reo cables from the concrete slab.
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Celebrating the future, looking back
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Join us over the next three newsletters as we explore the most momentous moments of the project at Maungawhau, work package by work package. You might say it’s our own version of ‘back to the future’.
Work packages delivered at Maungawhau include the design and construction of the rail tunnels and station, connections to the existing rail network, and all the essential rail systems (track, power, signaling, communications, etc.) required for operation and integration.
We’ll start with North Auckland Line works this month. Connecting the new underground line by bridge, road, tunnel and trench, to the existing metro rail network via the Western Line, known post-CRL as the Onehunga West Line (O-W), and to surrounding communities. The most impactful in the city streets around Maungawhau Station, this work included five new bridges and one temporary bridge, and it was the first package to reach the finish line back in 2023.
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The work involved incredible feats of engineering. Lifting the entire Porters Ave Bridge into place as a single structure, using three 500-tonne cranes and GPS tracking, hanging between two buildings as onlookers watched in awe. Even the transport of the Porters Ave Bridge to site was extraordinary. In the middle of the night from Ōtāhuhu to Eden Terrace, with road closures required just so that the mammoth structure could get around corners using the entire width of Auckland roads.
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The Porters Ave Bridge on the streets of Auckland at 5am – a 5-hour journey from Ōtāhuhu to Eden Terrace.
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After Porters came Fenton, equally awe inspiring, lifted and placed with perfect precision on two pre-built pedestals to be bolted into place. Looking out from the fifth-floor common room in the Station R building, this giant structure appeared to float off the ground and into the air. Re-live those breathtaking moments back in 2022.
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The operation was one of the heaviest single lifts for City Rail Link (CRL). It took a team of 70, supported by three titanic cranes, four hours to maneuver a steel span 46-metres long and weighing 160-tonnes into position.
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This 105-tonne bridge lift is almost too hard to believe, it looks like CGI, or an incredible toy bridge in a toy city – but it’s another real and spectacular feat of engineering.
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In addition to those bridges that were built up, three more bridges were created by building down. Under Mt Eden Road Bridge the area was widened to enable the eastern train connections to CRL through Maungawhau Station. On Ruru Street we dug underground to build a massive trench that is now home to the CRL platforms and track.
Over by Normanby Road a temporary services bridge was put in place while a bridge over the rail line was created, and a new roundabout. When the work was done the temporary bridge found a new home and people could use the permanent bridge now in place. Another over rail bridge replacement making Normanby Road safer for cars and pedestrians.
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The temporary services bridge being set into place at Normanby Road and Enfield Street, in the middle of the night when trains were not running, for safety.
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It took those and many more behemoth feats of engineering to get to where we are today as as shown in our latest drone footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK6n0jdE5j0
An effort that we saw rewarded last year at the Engineering NZ Awards where we won the prestigious Arthur Mead (large projects) Award, for North Auckland Line CRL works.
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Little, but Big, achievements.
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These are some of the essential 'little' things that complete the station. Much of the mahi at the station is focused on delivering the little things, and the finishing touches. Like spring flowers, the site has blossomed with colourful features to help future users to safely navigate through Maungawhau Station. Here is a sample of a bouquet of colour created with these new features.
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Readers will recognise most of these symbols and signs but maybe not all of them. In particular, the pink picture at the top is a peek inside our very bright ventilation building. The yellow up-side-up triangle is interesting.
When illuminated, the yellow light in that triangle authorises the train to proceed at "low speed" - not exceeding 25kph. It tells the driver that the route has been correctly set, but also that the section may be occupied, for example, there may be another train in the section ahead.
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Auckland Council and Auckland Transport are working together to maximise opportunities for the development site that has been enabled by the City Rail Link project.
Permanent development is likely to be several years away, so in the interim we are working with the community to develop a plan for some transitional activation of the site to be ready for the opening of Maungawhau Station and the City Rail Link.
Please sign-up here to receive periodic updates and invitations to community drop-ins.
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Jargon Buster: MR3000C vibration/motion measurement system unit
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Each month we look at technical terms from construction and ‘translate’ them into easy-to-understand language. This month we will look at: MR3000C vibration/motion measurement system unit
These red boxes will be familiar to many neighbours reading this newsletter… but to others they will probably be a complete mystery!
They are MR3000C vibration/motion measurement system units - about the size of a tub of ice cream, and almost as interesting. These units are just one of the many various high-tech devices that have been deployed across hundreds of Uptown locations to measure noise or ground vibration over the course of the CRL project.
Each unit is calibrated to send ground vibration readings and text alerts directly to our site crew, project engineers, environmental impact team and our construction partners.
Construction activity is rarely unobtrusive, but thanks to these MR3000C vibration/motion measurement systems, both our crews and our neighbours can enjoy some peace of mind knowing that specialist expertise is carefully monitoring impacts like vibration, looking out for us all and the safety of our buildings, and helping us get the job done as swiftly as possible too.
We have recently deployed a couple more of these red boxes into buildings located around our current demolition site – behind Shaddock and Mt Eden Roads – and these devices are helping us ensure that the messy work of concrete breaking is carried out in a way that is safe and with as little disruption as possible.
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While we can’t ride the CRL yet, we would love you to join us for a guided perimeter tour around the streets outside of our construction site. It’s a chance to get some insights into the exceptional workmanship behind these new landmark stations and hear about the future benefits this station will bring to the Uptown area in the years to come. u
The next perimeter tour details are as follows:
Date: Tuesday 14 October 2025
Time: 4:30pm (approx. 1-1.5 hours)
Venue: CRL Visitor Centre at Te Manawa, 1 New North Road, Eden Terrace.
Please note that this is a tour around the perimeter of site and not into the Maungawhau Station which is still a working construction site. A moderate level of fitness is required as there are hills along the way, so please bring your walking shoes and wet weather gear, just in case.
Secure your spot on the tour by emailing the team at mteden@linkalliance.co.nz .
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