Hutt Park Railway Station, Gracefield
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Hutt Park
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| New Zealand Government Railways Department suburban rail | |
Hutt Park railway station, looking south. The platform now borders private land and the Hutt Valley Golf Course on the mothballed section of the Gracefield Branch line past the Hutt Workshops.
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| Coordinates | 41°14′1.77″S 174°54′39.68″E / 41.2338250°S 174.9110222°E |
| Owned by | Railways Department |
| Line(s) | Gracefield Branch |
| Platforms | Single side |
| Tracks | Branch line (1) |
| Construction | |
| Parking | No |
| History | |
| Opened | 1927-09-17 1960-02-27 |
| Closed | 1949-02-05 1965-05-11 |
| Rebuilt | Jan-Feb 1960 |
| Electrified | 1960-02-27 |
| Traffic | |
| Passengers (1960) | 4263 |
| Passengers (1960-1961) | 3107  27.11% |
| Passengers (1961-1962) | 1714 44.83% |
| Passengers (1962-1963) | 1649 3.79% |
| Passengers (1963-1964) | 1233 25.22% |
| Passengers (1964-1965) | 1022 17.11% |
Hutt Park railway station was on the Gracefield Branch line in the Wellington region of New Zealand’s North Island, a terminus for passenger trains from Wellington. The station was behind the Hutt Park Raceway and opposite the Hutt Workshops.
Services consisted exclusively of trains for patrons of race meetings of the Wellington Trotting Club at the Hutt Park Racecourse. Picnic trains were run occasionally to Woburn station for excursionists whose ultimate destination was the Hutt Park, who were conveyed by bus or walked to the park.
There were two distinct eras of operation for the Hutt Park railway station. The first covered steam-hauled race trains until 1949, the second electric multiple units from 1960 to 1965.
The site of the station was first used for race trains in 1927. The Wellington Trotting Club, which was holding four race meetings per year at the racecourse, had become concerned by reports that patrons had found it difficult to access the venue and sought to take advantage of the new Hutt Industrial Line (Gracefield Branch) that had been constructed to serve the new Hutt Workshops and ran behind the raceway. Since the cessation of race trains along the Hutt Park Railway line many years earlier, racecourse patrons had been making their way to the venue by direct bus or by train to Petone Station then bus.
On 12 April 1927 the Club wrote to the Railways Department requesting that race trains be provided. They estimated that two trains per race meeting would be required from Lambton Station in Wellington to the back of the Hutt Park Racecourse via Whites Line Station (Woburn Station), starting with the first meeting of the 1927-1928 season which they expected would be held in early October.
The Department considered the matter and responded on 27 August 1927 that it would be willing to operate the services. The line by this time had been laid as far as the Waiwetu Stream with ballasting expected to be completed prior to the first race meeting, and it was decided that the race trains would not interfere with other operations on the branch given the limited number of such services required. Though the department offered to clear the ground at the proposed stopping point, it was made clear to the Club that the department would not be responsible for the installation of any additional services that may be required at the site should it prove to be inadequate. In particular, there were at the time no sidings at the site, limiting train operations and frequency, and neither was the department prepared to construct a platform for passengers.
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Wikipedia