Gisborne Airport is a undersized
regional airport that is situated on the western outskirts of Gisborne, the
East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The unique thing about this airport
is one of the very few airports in the world that has a railway line
intersecting the runway. The beautiful Gisborne airport covers a land of 160
hectares has three grass runways and one main runway that are intersected by
the Palmerston North - Gisborne Railway Line. The airport has a single terminal
with two tarmac gates.
The Tasmania’s North Western
Coast, Wynyard Airport also had a railway crossing on the runway but moribund
rail traffic forced the closure of rail traffic in early 2005, and thus the
Wynyard airport rail crossing is no more operational. At Gisborne Airport on
the other hand, the rail route functions actively and so does the airport
everyday between 6:30 in the morning and 8:30 at night. After that, the runway
is sealed off till morning.
One of the more appealing aspects
of the Napier-Gisborne railway line is when the line passes directly on top of
the Gisborne Airport runway; trains have to stop and look for clearance from
the air traffic control tower to cross the runway and continue down the line. The
railway tracks splits the runway approximately in the middle and very often
trains or aircraft are stopped until one of them moves on.
Indeed it is a very challenging job
for the airport authorities to manage landing at the intersecting runway along
the operational rail route which has scheduled departures and arrivals itself. The
Gisborne airport is a main link to enter the little region of Gisborne and
hosts more than 60 domestic flights, and over 150,0000 passengers fly through
this airport each year.
