\u201cOur ambassador staff have been supporting customers at Karanga-a-Hape and Maungawhau stations throughout the day to transfer from the East-West to the South-City or Onehunga-West lines,\u201d van der Putten said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese transfers will become second nature to Aucklanders in the weeks to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 100 customer service staff and ambassadors were at stations helping with travel and transfer information, and more than 100 security staff were also present, she said.<\/p>\n
AT said the opening day on September 13 was the busiest Sunday on the rail network on record.<\/p>\n
Passengers wait outside Te Waihorotiu Station on the City Rail Link after a fire delayed trains in Auckland on September 13, 2026. Photo \/ Corey Fleming<\/p>\n
On Beresford Square outside the new Karanga-a-Hape Station, some had coffee at the nearest cafe, others stopped to join a waiata group singing Purea Nei and celebrating Te wiki o Te Reo M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n
Bo Meng from nearby bakery PieFee said they didn\u2019t open on Sundays, but opened yesterday to coincide with the CRL opening. <\/p>\n
He said Monday was also busier than usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen heaps of people walking around, and new faces, so yea pretty good,\u201d said Meng.<\/p>\n
His colleague added that they\u2019re considering opening on future Sundays as they expect to get more customers coming through.<\/p>\n
Charlotte Ryan, from the Karangahape Road Business Association, said she had seen lots of new faces over the past few days, particularly on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I expected lots of our friends or lots of the K\u2019rd community to come out, and they were, but it was actually majority people that I don\u2019t think have been here in 10 or 15 years or even longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were commenting where they thought old buildings were, it was really really interesting to see that people had returned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Passengers wait in line to be among the first to travel on the City Rail Link from \u014ct\u0101huhu in Auckland on September 13, 2026. Photo \/ Corey Fleming<\/p>\n
Ryan said she was optimistic about the future, but added that some businesses were still waiting to see how many customers they would get before making staffing decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you bring on those extra staff, how quickly are people going to start using this as a thoroughfare, you know it\u2019s like a social experiment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Karanga-a-Hape Station is an interchange station, with a bus connection to Westgate and a transit point for people hopping from the West-East line to the South City line.<\/p>\n
Ryan said she expected people might be open to having a wander around Karangahape Road, or getting a drink between transits.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the mid-city Te Waihorotiu station was touted to become New Zealand\u2019s busiest train station, but Shobhana Ranchhodji from Roma Blooms \u2013 metres from the Victoria St West entrance \u2013 said she had barely noticed any change in foot traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing\u2019s changed, no more people than what it was last Monday … I say give us a month, it is what it is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Commuters cut down on travel times, concerns over app for some<\/p>\n
Key features of the new network include the Eastern and Western lines merging, as well as faster trains.<\/p>\n
On the 5.27am East-West train from Swanson, Craig said he\u2019s glad he no longer needs to wait for five-10 minutes at the Newmarket Station as he did in the past.<\/p>\n
He estimates he can save 15-20 minutes on his journey into town.<\/p>\n
Johnny Waititi used to train to Britomart from \u014ct\u0101huhu, then bus to Symonds Street to the kura where he works as deputy principal.<\/p>\n
He said he was now able to take the train directly to Karanga-a-Hape station, then walk to work \u2013 saving about 20 minutes per trip.<\/p>\n
Waititi said overall, it was a good experience this morning, but the service he\u2019d planned to take was cancelled \u2013 although he was able to quickly find out through the Auckland Transport app.<\/p>\n
Waititi said he was worried for older people who don\u2019t have the app and won\u2019t be able to get timely updates on cancellations.<\/p>\n
Auckland Transport told Morning Report a train fault caused a few cancellations.<\/p>\n
Another worker travelling on the East-West line, trying to get to Auckland City Hospital, was disappointed her train got cancelled and she had to bus to Grafton.<\/p>\n
A family living on Vincent Street in the CBD, whose two children go to school in New Lynn, are delighted to be saving time on their daily school runs.<\/p>\n
Train enthusiasts at Te Waihorotiu Station on the City Rail Link in Auckland on September 13, 2026. Photo \/ Corey Fleming<\/p>\n
The family doesn\u2019t own a car, and mum of two Arrenda Maryzona used to spend four hours on the bus each day, with each return trip to the school taking two hours.<\/p>\n
Now, she said it\u2019s just a three-minute walk to Karanga-a-Hape station, and she\u2019s saving about 15 minutes on each trip \u2013 adding up to an hour saved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOur ambassador staff have been supporting customers at Karanga-a-Hape and Maungawhau stations throughout the day to transfer from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8990,3952,2199,1888,58,14224,3369,130,111,43,139,69,90,29459,207,45,248481,11685,162682],"class_list":["post-600119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-8990","tag-aucklands","tag-city","tag-first","tag-link","tag-lucy","tag-matthew","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-passengers","tag-rail","tag-rnz","tag-theunissen","tag-train","tag-weekday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600119","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=600119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}