KEY POINTS:
Newmarket's historic railway station building is likely to be put into storage next month, amid uncertainty over the locality of a new Parnell train stop.
Rail officials say there will be no room for the 99-year-old building in Newmarket after major earthworks that begin at the end of
January for a remodelled station and railway junction expected to cost $70 million.
They favour eventually moving the building to Parnell, close to a proposed new railway station which the Auckland Regional Transport Authority says has the potential to become the fourth busiest on its network after opening in 2009.
But the authority has yet to decide in conjunction with Government rail agency Ontrack where to build the new station, so expects the old building will have to be put into storage before bulldozers move into Newmarket after Auckland Anniversary Weekend in late January.
The Parnell Mainstreet group of more than 400 businesses believes the transport authority favours a site above the old Carlaw Park rugby league ground, now being redeveloped as a retirement village and retail centre, primarily for the convenience of university students.
But group manager Debbie Harkness says that site below Heather St is too confined for the heritage station building to be given any prominence, and fears it will become a "white elephant" with little attraction to anybody except taggers.
She told Auckland City's transport committee that a site owned by Ontrack further up the Waipapa Valley would provide better access both to the Parnell shops and the Auckland Domain, with little inconvenience to students, while giving the heritage building the prominence it deserved.
Ms Harkness said Ontrack opposed developing that site, which is now used by artists and workshop volunteers of the Mainline Steam Trust, because the gradient of the railway line there was allegedly too great.
But she said she had been told it was no steeper than that of the recently redeveloped Kingsland Station, and it would be relatively easy for high-acceleration electric trains to negotiate.
She hoped Ontrack did not have any ulterior motive for the site, below Cheshire St, given the behaviour of its parent Railways Corporation in the 1980s in selling a piece of Domain land to developers.
She believed a railway station there would provide a perfect opportunity to enhance the back entrance to the Domain and to make it a key stop for a wide range of passengers from commuters working in Parnell to Auckland City Hospital staff and visitors and Domain event crowds.
An Ontrack spokeswoman said the agency had no plans to sell the site and it was up to the transport authority to decide where to locate new stations.
Transport authority spokeswoman Sharon Hunter said her board had yet to make any decision about Parnell.