Platform blues

Auckland's heritage is under fresh assault from transport officials planning to demolish
historic rail station canopies, reports Edward Rooney. 
Like a slow train climbing a steep hill, the demise of the crumbling Auckland Railway Station canopies has been a long and obvious time coming.
So much so, The Aucklander's editor wrote their obituary and we commissioned a photographer to shoot an essay of the site last year lest it be gone before we got the chance to document it. Still, some nearby residents and heritage admirers further afield are stunned by news the structures are to be ripped out.
The Historic Places Trust lists the platforms and T-shaped overhead shelters as "notable features" in Category 1 registration of Auckland Railway Station - built between 1928 and 1930. Created by renowed architects Gummer and Ford, they were specifically identified:
"Registration," says the trust website, "covers the building, its fixtures and recent modifications. It also includes its conjoining underpass, platforms, platform shelters and other structures."
That citation doesn't appear to faze Auckland Transport.
Last week, an unsigned letter from the council-controlled organisation was delivered to residents around Parnell, the nearest housing suburb, to inform the neighbourhood of works planned later this month in the Quay Park area at the decommissioned station.
"Works will include removal of the old station canopies/shelters and platform resurfacing works from station platforms 1 and 2," the note says, ambiguously.
The Aucklander sought clarification about exactly how many platforms are being removed. Communications manager Sharon Hunter says Auckland Transport will keep just two representative sections of the canopy on one of the five existing platforms.
"These two sections will be cleaned up and reviewed over the next few years and will be visually monitored over time," she says. "We will be establishing a heritage corner under the canopies with some signage panels and heritage visuals therein.
"We will also be looking to install hexagonal stones in new platform depicting previous location of canopy stanchions with some text in each stone to mark the historical nature if this area."
In an earlier note the same day, Ms Hunter said the CCO was developing a temporary station as a contingency during the Rugby World Cup in case services into Britomart Station or elsewhere are disrupted.
The former regional transport authority and now Auckland Transport had engaged with the Historic Places Trust since August 2010, although "there are no approvals required from the [trust] to modify the platforms and canopies", she said.
Portions of the canopy were unsafe because pieces of concrete had fallen off and the structures continued to degrade. It had funds to stabilise and restore a portion of the canopy in consultation with the trust. Work was scheduled to begin next month.
Parnell historian Rendell McIntosh says the removal of the platforms is one large step towards wiping out any heritage remaining in the railyards. "It's just like the facades that are left of old buildings while all the rest is stripped away. In terms of transport links, what will the old railway building have left to show what it was once for? It is a part of Auckland's heritage and Parnell Heritage would be very strongly opposed to them being demolished, if anyone asked us."
The railyard has been ignored for decades and requests for maintenance have fallen on deaf ears, he says.
Waitemata ward councillor and Auckland Transport board member Mike Lee says any loss of the platforms will be a source of shame to all officials who have been entrusted with Auckland's heritage.
"I think we're all to blame for not keeping an eye on that," he says. "We've been guilty of watching Britomart, with an eye to the new and to the future."
He believes the platforms are worth restoring and keeping, as back-up rail infrastructure. "There's a question of style as well," he says. "They go with the old buildings of the area."
Mr Lee has asked Auckland Transport's chief operating officer, Fergus Gammie, for answers on what intentions the organisation has for the old rail precinct.
The Mainline Steam Trust, based nearby in Cheshire St, runs occasional chartered rail services from the old platforms. Operations manager Michael Tolich says the trust has asked for the platforms to be done up and he is pleased to hear some work will be done.
Mr Tolich says he understands the heritage listings cover only some of the rail platforms and shelters.
"They are only required to keep a certain number of them," he says. "Some of them are beyond it really. There's bits of concrete dropping of them and they are a hazard.
"All I can say is, we're pleased they are taking an interest at last."
The ghosts of Auckland past
That is what our editor wrote last year after walking the crumbling, decaying ruins of yet another piece of Auckland's heritage:
"Underneath these arches, hundreds of young men. Hundreds of young women in drab coats and hats and shoes. Older women, mothers, arms outstretched. Young New Zealanders are going to war. Their women are kissing them goodbye. The men in khaki, reporting to Papakura for training or leaving Papakura for the troop ships: these concrete canopies would be one of their last memories of home. Did they remember them in the sands of Egypt, the mountains of Italy and France, the camps of Germany and Poland?"