{"id":224502,"date":"2026-01-09T05:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224502\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T05:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:36:10","slug":"train-tracks-and-lines-ripped-up-at-now-closed-melling-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224502\/","title":{"rendered":"Train tracks and lines ripped up at now-closed Melling Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a little more than two weeks after the 6.37pm service departed Melling Station on Christmas Eve, tracks and overhead cables between Melling and Western Hutt train stations have been removed.<\/p>\n

By Justin Wong of Local Democracy Reporting<\/p>\n

Following that departure, the station was then closed for a projected three years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The closure is part of the $1.5 billion Te Wai Takamori o Te Awa Kairangi RiverLink project, led by the Government, local councils and mana whenua. It will shift the station 300m south in Lower Hutt to make way for a new State Highway 2 interchange.<\/p>\n

A KiwiRail spokesperson confirmed that the department had finished pulling up the tracks and taking down the overhead lines between the stations and handed the work site over to the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), which would be responsible for relocating the Melling station building.<\/p>\n

In the interim, trains would continue running on the Melling Line, terminating at Western Hutt station. Melling Station won\u2019t reopen until about late 2028, after the building was moved and a new footbridge connecting it with the city centre was complete.<\/p>\n

RiverLink\u2019s other objectives include strengthening the city\u2019s flood defences and reorientating the city centre closer to Te Awa Kairangi Hutt River by building new stopbanks and widening and deepening the river.<\/p>\n

The Hutt City Council had warned of major disruptions to the city centre\u2019s arterial routes during construction which started late last year.<\/p>\n

\"Melling<\/p>\n

Melling Line trains from Wellington now terminates at Western Hutt. (Source: Robert Kitchin \/ The Post) <\/p>\n

The Greater Wellington Regional Council has already announced public transport alternatives for the roughly 370 weekday Melling passengers, saying the “short\u2011term disruption” will ultimately help revitalise the city.<\/p>\n

Bus routes 145 and 149 that run to western hill suburbs have been rerouted to stop at Waterloo Station and Hutt Valley Line rush-hour trains will have extra capacity. Waterloo and Petone stations will have extra bike racks and there will be more temporary park and ride spaces available at Petone.<\/p>\n

Regional council chairperson Daran Ponter had hoped to demolish the asbestos-ridden Melling station building, which had not been used for years, and build a replacement at the new location. Those plans couldn\u2019t go ahead because of its heritage listing.<\/p>\n

“Melling Station has served the Hutt Valley community for decades and, while we farewell its current location, we look forward to a future where the station is part of a modern, resilient transport network,” he said on Christmas Eve, before boarding the last train back to Wellington.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a little more than two weeks after the 6.37pm service departed Melling Station on Christmas Eve, tracks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39,112,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-224502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories","14":"tag-transport","15":"tag-wellington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}