CBD & South East Light Rail

[boronia]

Just out of curiosity, I tried
https://transportnsw.info/documents/tim ... 200402.pdf

Eureka!

Not showing up in Trip Planner yet, or other apps

[tonyp]

Currently inbound X buses have one or two pick up stops in Kensington. They wouldn't be able to do this from the tram lines.

In many systems they simply stop at the tram platform, but I recall the proposal here was that they leave the tramway, pull over to a kerbside stop, then re-enter the tramway. Another TfNSW masterstroke.

[boronia]

The two bus stops involved, at Ascot St and Carlton St, have centre island platforms, but the only provision for buses to safely leave the tracks after Kingsford is on approach to Allison Rd where there is a dedicated bus lane exit.

I wouldn't be surprised if these two stops were eliminated when the new services start.

[Fleet Lists]

It is official https://transportnsw.info/sydney-cbd-so ... light-rail#/

[Fleet Lists]

Trip finder seems OK but Anytrip has not caught up yet.

[tonyp]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/ ... s/12117148

Contrary to what the Minister says, the line isn't essential to get people to work during this crisis because the buses are still running along the route. The bus takes between 25 and 30 minutes from Kingsford to CQ. The trams on the old system took about 26-29 minutes with many more stops. Why would you want to spend an extra 20+ minutes travelling time a day? What a farce of an operation.

Hardly necessary to mention social distancing on this service. The Randwick line has been socially distanced since the beginning as everybody is still catching the bus.

[Aurora]

Hardly necessary to mention social distancing on this service. The Randwick line has been socially distanced since the beginning as everybody is still catching the bus.

Give it a few months, the buses will be changed.

[Swift]

Hardly necessary to mention social distancing on this service. The Randwick line has been socially distanced since the beginning as everybody is still catching the bus.

Give it a few months, the buses will be changed.

The people have spoken yet there are deluded people who don't live in the corridor who insist the service is near outstanding.

[J_Busworth]

I detoured my necessary trip into the city today via the new tram line. End to end travel time in both directions was smack on 42 minutes. Not another soul in sight there or back, although there were an excessive number of Transdev employees out on the platforms.

No traffic light priority anywhere along ANZAC parade. In fact, when the straight ahead traffic lights go green on ANZAC parade, the tram light stays red for the length of a pedestrian crossing green cycle with the white arrow appearing when the red man flashes, finally getting going once the pedestrian light is red (thats the timing, happens regardless of pedestrians or not). Obviously something wrong with the light cycles there.

[moa999]

Admin - This post was totally irrelevant to this thread and already covered in http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewt ... d#p1060523 and https://transportnsw.info/news/2020/aut ... ter-sydney

[boronia]

Very few people are using the buses now, let alone the trams. I've had a few off peak rides in the last couple of weeks (for essential shopping) and lucky to find half a dozen people on board, services which are usually well patronised.

[J_Busworth]

I’ve just witnessed the pure stupidity of the line in all its glory! I desperately hope this is the one and only time this happens.

Three trams arrive at the Robertson Road Junction pretty much at the same time. Inbound L3, Outbound L3 and Inbound L2. Each tram must wait for an individual white T. Quite obviously you can’t have two tram go through the same intersection at the same time, as the L3 outbound didn’t get to go until a whole ANZAC Parade cycled. The L2 tram, in a halfhearted effort at headway management, has to wait 5 minutes before getting a white T. All the while, 14 buses bank up on the shared running section.

This is very clearly a serious failure in operations. Why did three trams including two inbound trams all arrive at the intersection at the same time? Why can’t the two L3 trams go trough at the same time? Why does the L3 get priority over the L2, when the L3 tram isn’t in anyone’s way, but the L2 tram blocks the shared running section? I would have imagined that there would have been proper timetabling for a new line so that this doesn’t occur, those timetables were achievable given the next to zero patronage, and that at the very least, the shared running section where the tram is blocking buses would get priority (or at least have been designed so that buses don’t get blocked in).

Its so frustrating seeing something that could and should work so well, demonstrate sheer incompetence of design and operation.

[tonyp]

There's a video on Youtube showing exactly the same thing (at the end) so your experience is not unique:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QA4ISC ... e=youtu.be

The design itself is inherently functional, it's the combined competencies of the crowd of cooks in the kitchen that is the problem.

[boronia]

You can "timetable" for events to occur/not occur, but there is no guarantee that the trams will run exactly to those timetables. In fact it is quite obvious here that they are not capable of running to any timetable, services are so random.

[Linto63]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QA4ISC ... e=youtu.be.

Obviously filmed by a moron who doesn't think essential travel rules apply.

[J_Busworth]

What happens in the video is exactly what happened! Why doesn't that surprise me?

Hopefully if its a common problem that means that they will soon have fixed it!

[lunchbox]

Time to revert to the old Cricket Ground / Randwick Racecourse days with a few flagmen and coppers!

[tonyp]

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/gener ... TMhrH_JoA8

The comments on the university's social media are not quite so flattering, revolving mostly around journey time.

[Swift]

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/gener ... TMhrH_JoA8

The comments on the university's social media are not quite so flattering, revolving mostly around journey time.

At least they won't be hogging bus services now.

[lunchbox]

Those folk who think our new light rail cost too much may have their spirits lifted by this electric tramway, with its simplified, lower-cost, means of lowering pantographs and providing ground-level power supply. (766248)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aH-PH37KIg

[boronia]

Even better was that n/g mining railway where the driver at in a skip and used a broom handle with a nail at the top to get power from a rather erratic low slung OHW.

[boxythingy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QA4ISC ... e=youtu.be.

Obviously filmed by a moron who doesn't think essential travel rules apply.

Based on the videos publically available sorted by uploaded date, this is the only video showing it in operation.

Not longer mentioned in the video description were words suggesting that the vlogger just so happened to be at Kingsford running errands.

Here's hoping it will rack up enough views to generate enough money to pay a potential fine that some police may be keen in issuing to test out the new orders. After all this kind of filming can be considered non-essential employment

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/gener ... TMhrH_JoA8

The comments on the university's social media are not quite so flattering, revolving mostly around journey time.

At least they won't be hogging bus services now.

Little did people know that a late running M50/895 that didn't seem like it would be arriving and when it did, ran from upper campus/lower campus to Central at snail pace stuck in heavy traffic was much worse than the Light Rail service... although I am somewhat pessimistic as to if and when LR in Sydney will reach Whoosh speeds as they do in the Melbourne CBD.

[Fleet Lists]

Please back to subject from here.
Some posts have been moved to another thread.

[boronia]

Found another of the "stupid" features of L3 today.

Trams arriving at the Juniors stop become NIS for the short trip up to the shunting neck, and then back to the platform. They wait in the platform showing NIS, and don't change to L3 CQ until after they leave. I watched a couple of pax waiting on the platform today who let a tram depart, thinking they couldn't catch it. The next tram did the same, but there was a Transdev info guy there who told the pax they could board.

[In Transit]

Thats the kind of lack of attention to detail that you might expect from a new system that was being rushed into service a year early and without any time for testing... oh wait....