Thirty metres under Karangahape Rd, a train pulls in - where it's headed next is the question Auckland timetablers have spent months trying to answer as the City Rail Link (CRL) nears its long-awaited opening.
With the $5.5bn project expected to open between late August and early September, an announcement is understood to be imminent, and the timetable is now all but locked in.
1News went underground last week for the network's final dress rehearsal — 14 trains an hour through the CRL at peak, running three lines that replace the network passengers currently know — East-West (E-W), South-City (S-C) and Onehunga-West (O-W).
Karanga-a-Hape station was humming as if opening day had already arrived.
Trains rolled through every few minutes, crews rehearsed announcements to empty platforms, and new information screens flickered with destinations Aucklanders had never seen on a railway departure board before.
Through the morning rush hour, trains mostly arrived within minutes either side of their timetabled times, live platform announcements were made, and only a few services were cancelled outright.
Transport insiders believe the CRL remains on track to open within eight weeks.
But while officials tout how many trains will run through the tunnel itself, the timetable commuters face at their local station looks quite different.
A close read of Auckland Transport's transitional timetable plans, and a morning watching the rehearsal services beneath the city show a network of winners, a handful of losers, and a six-month holding pattern in between.
Winners: West Aucklanders
For commuters out west, the CRL delivers the biggest single change — no more reversing at Newmarket. Western trains will run straight through the new tunnel as part of the E-W Line, cutting the trip from Henderson to downtown to about 35 minutes.
That compares to 48 minutes today. Meanwhile, a trip from Kingsland, near Eden Park, to Waitematā (Britomart) would take 12 minutes as compared to 21 minutes currently.
"Ten minutes to get from Waitematā up to Maungawhau," said Louise Pengelly, CRL operations director at train operator Auckland One Rail.
The tunnel's two new stations, Te Waihorotiu and Karanga-a-Hape, also drop West Aucklanders in the middle of the city centre rather than at its downtown edge — places that previously meant a walk or a bus transfer from Britomart.
With the E-W line, passengers gain one-seat rides through to Panmure, Sylvia Park and Manukau, making rail useful for cross-suburban trips through the CBD for the first time.
Losers: Also West Aucklanders
But the very thing that speeds up citybound trains from the west — skipping the circuitous Newmarket routing — is also what some commuters will miss most.
For decades, western line trains have swung through Grafton and Newmarket on their way into town, a link to the hospital and one of the city's biggest commercial centres.
Under the new system, that link is gone — western trains dive into the CRL tunnel in Mt Eden instead, and anyone heading to Newmarket will need to switch trains. Those Grafton and Newmarket stops now sit on the S-C line, handing southern line commuters the direct run to the hospital and Newmarket mall that westies lose.
"You will need to change at Karanga-a-Hape," said Pengelly - hopping off one train and catching a southbound service from the other side of the same platform.
"It's quite simple - across the platform."
She's not wrong. 1News did the walk — about 20 seconds, step off one train, cross the platform, and you're standing where the next one pulls in.
But one catch is the sheer length of the platforms.
At 203 metres, Karanga-a-Hape's are built for trains far longer than today's, so commuters who step off at the wrong end could find themselves in for a decent stroll before they even start crossing the platforms. Another is how often the trains were actually running to Newmarket, between every five and 15 minutes at peak.
Winners: The people in these suburbs (at least at first)
The clearest day-one winners sit on the central section of the new E-W line. From opening day, every station between Kingsland and Sylvia Park gets eight trains an hour at rush hour — one as often as every six minutes and every nine minutes at worst.
That includes Kingsland and Maungawhau in the inner west and Ōrākei, Meadowbank, Glen Innes, Panmure and Sylvia Park in the eastern suburbs.
It won't be that good for everyone. "From the west and the south at peak, there will be a similar average 10-minute frequency to now - although wait times will sometimes be shorter or longer," AT's rail services group manager Mark Lambert told 1News.
The key word there is "average".
Under a "temporary transitional" timetable plan, most stations across the Auckland network keep today's six trains an hour rather than the eight tested in January. And instead of a new train consistently every 10 minutes, gaps will stretch to as long as 15.
Stations where lines intersect, such as between Newmarket and Puhinui, will see more trains overall — though not all of them will be headed where commuters want to go.
Losers: Stuck waiting 15 minutes for a train?
Those longer waits aren't an accident. The timetable pattern has room for eight trains an hour across much more of the network, but two of those "slots" will sit deliberately empty on lines while the new system beds in.
Officials overhauled the timetables after network-wide testing in January ran into congestion at rail junctions, forcing them to rip up previous "day one" schedules.
"We'll see how it goes," Pengelly said. "If we see that things are running safely and reliably, then we'll look to increase frequency sooner than that."
That holding pattern for ramping up trains is officially pegged at about six months.
AT has committed to ramping up to the full timetable within half a year of opening — for instance, extending western line peak services to trains every eight minutes — though officials stress the timeframe depends on how reliably the network runs.
But some stations won't see a peak-time frequency increase even after the timetable fully beds in — those west of Henderson to Swanson, south of Puhinui to Pukekohe, and Manukau. They'll keep the same number of citybound trains every hour at peak as they do now, with waits of between five and 15 minutes — making an average of every 10.
Winners: Almost everyone's trip gets faster
Step back from how often the trains come, and CRL promoters will note the bigger picture is that most Aucklanders on a train will simply get where they're going sooner.
The two new underground stations move trains closer to the action.
Soon Te Waihorotiu will drop passengers in midtown, near The Civic and Aotea Square, while Karanga-a-Hape surfaces at the top of the ridge, within walking distance of Upper Queen St and Eden Terrace. For a huge share of city trips, the walk at the far end got shorter - which counts as a time saving even on lines where the train itself is no quicker.
There is one small asterisk to this - southern line passengers heading to Britomart will find their trip about a minute longer, as their trains now call at the new underground stations on the way through. A reasonable trade-off, officials would argue.
Off-peak and weekend travellers arguably do best of all. Across the network, trains will come at least every 15 minutes all day, every day — up from today's 20.
Losers: Parnellites and Onehunga train fans
But spare a thought for Parnell. The station, long criticised for its awkward placement down a steep gully below the shops, is cut from the western line entirely under the new network, left as a stop on the S-C line only.
Passengers there still get trains and still gain access to the new city centre stations, but with fewer routes and fewer direct destinations than today.
Parnell will also open with just four trains an hour at rush hour — about eight fewer than now — expected to rise to six within six months.
Passengers on the single-tracked Onehunga line will also continue to yearn for more.
The rebranded Onehunga-West line still won't take them into the CBD directly - travellers bound for downtown or the new underground stations will need to change trains.
However, the O-W line does link the isthmus branch through to the west, opening up direct trips that previously meant doubling back through the city.
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