NSW Railway Observations 2019

[Linto63]

The temporary platform 12 at Central has been completed. Appears about 1/3 of the previous width of the platform has been retained with a metallic wall and overhang structure erected.

[andy_centralcoast]

Things are not going well for the first day of 2019.

Major delays from the points failure at Central yesterday afternoon have not been recovered overnight and crew relief problems are making delays worse again today.

Parts of the network have been shutdown and replaced by bus. Sydney Trains is also relying on NSW TrainLink services to make extra stops in lieu of their cancelled services.

[rogf24]

I used to think 24-hour trains on the weekend was needed, with this mess, I think a higher level of separation of lines is needed before that happens so the system has a better chance of recovering from delays.

[boronia]

The temporary platform 12 at Central has been completed. Appears about 1/3 of the previous width of the platform has been retained with a metallic wall and overhang structure erected.

Here's a view of the other side on Sunday

DSC02999sm.JPG (57.83 KiB) Viewed 22082 times

[BroadGauge]

The following lines are currently suspended with replacement buses operating, due to the flow-on effects of last night's delays, which likely includes staffing problems:

Blacktown to Richmond
Glenfield to Leppington
Clyde to Carlingford
Lidcombe to Olympic Park

[rogf24]

Berowra to Hornsby? Or is that being done by Central Coast trains?

[moa999]

Vid from STV of Platform 12 (and only that.. no shots from the other side of the wall)
Looks like it will be rather well lit

https://youtu.be/M4LFKnFnBfE

[andy_centralcoast]

Berowra to Hornsby? Or is that being done by Central Coast trains?

Central Coast trains are stopping all stations between Berowra and Epping. Some also added a stop at Eastwood!

Buses also doing Sutherland to Cronulla. South Coast trains making additional stops between Sutherland and Waterfall.

[Frosty]

Saw some buses on the North Shore supplementing trains. STA buses from Mona Vale & Brookvale depots.

T8 line trains still somewhat running to normalish frequencies surprised that Revesby all stops trains alongside MacArthur limited stops services are still operating. Would have expected all stops on Macarthur trains with Revesby stoppers cancelled and bus replacement between Macathur & Campbelltown.

[boronia]

ALERT there is another storm coming, there goes the "catch-up" for tonight?

[tonyp]

ALERT there is another storm coming, there goes the "catch-up" for tonight?

Should just ask me, the fronts come through here first! It's been and it wasn't all that significant. I can't speak for anything that comes from further inland.

I can also advise on RAN helicopters flying to Sydney for ceremonies

[boronia]

3cm hail in Bowral and BMT, nothing in Sydney yet

[Engineering]

Twitter feed to t1sydneytrains and trainsinfo suggest that bus capacity replacing north shore lines today is woefully inadequate. Wonder if they use historic opal data from this time last year to estimate demand, or there are just no spare busses and drivers at this time of year.

[ScaniaGrenda]

There's been a Fatality at Cockle Creek station this morning so CCN Train services between Newcastle Interchange and Fassifern are being replaced by buses.

https://transportnsw.info/alerts/details#/6028825

Newcastle Herald Article but not much information is publicly available on what kind of fatality it is yet

https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5834 ... k/?cs=7573

Edit: Now it's been updated to say services are resuming while limited rail replacement buses may still be running.

[Stonesourscotty]

T6547 in Waratah A47 has had 3 of its seats moquette ripped off the seats

[neilrex]

Complaints from all over the place about chaos at Turramurra and Gordon today.

[andy_centralcoast]

SMH is reporting queues of up to 90 minutes at some North Shore stations to get on a bus this morning. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ver ... 50pcj.html

Was this bad planning with simply not enough buses, or wrong routes / stopping patterns chosen? Or did something go very wrong from the plan?

And once they knew it was failing so bad, were there no standby buses, or buses that they could re-route to some of these stations with large queues?

Also disappointing that there was no travel alert issued to warn of significant delays to get a bus at these stations.

[boronia]

Twitter feed to t1sydneytrains and trainsinfo suggest that bus capacity replacing north shore lines today is woefully inadequate. Wonder if they use historic opal data from this time last year to estimate demand, or there are just no spare busses and drivers at this time of year.

I doubt there would be a shortage of buses or drivers at this time of year.

[boronia]

'Very poorly planned': Trackwork on North Shore line creates another day of train chaos

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ver ... 50pcj.html

Presumably tickets to the cricket include travel, I wonder if this was added to the "Opal data"?

[Engineering]

@t1sydneytrains Twitter has said .....

We are sorry if you were caught out this morning.

We have secured extra buses with 200 running this afternoon.

There will be additional buses running tomorrow and over the weekend.

We are doing the essential work to allow for the introduction of the metro later this year.

They also noted there were 160 this morning

On a typical weekday peak 8 AM there are 16 trains going up and 16 trains going down between Hornsby and Central

[Fleet Lists]

'Very poorly planned': Trackwork on North Shore line creates another day of train chaos

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ver ... 50pcj.html

Presumably tickets to the cricket include travel, I wonder if this was added to the "Opal data"?

According to the Cricket bus timetable, fares are charged at Opal rates - ie not included in tickets.

[andy_centralcoast]

Twitter feed to t1sydneytrains and trainsinfo suggest that bus capacity replacing north shore lines today is woefully inadequate. Wonder if they use historic opal data from this time last year to estimate demand, or there are just no spare busses and drivers at this time of year.

I doubt there would be a shortage of buses or drivers at this time of year.

Howard Collins on twitter has said that TransDev did not deliver the contracted number of buses this morning.
https://twitter.com/HowieCollins/status ... 8872679426

[ed24]

'Very poorly planned': Trackwork on North Shore line creates another day of train chaos

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ver ... 50pcj.html

Presumably tickets to the cricket include travel, I wonder if this was added to the "Opal data"?

Clearly plenty of trackwork around Chatswood is going to be required over the next few years - however, in some instances could they run trains from Hornsby to Gordon and then start all buses from the Gordon Bus Interchange?

[boronia]

So you think only Sydney Trains has problems:

Year-end train services were greatly disrupted in Tokyo and its vicinity Sunday due mainly to a fault detected on a shinkansen bullet train car at Tokyo Station, affecting nearly 228,700 passengers, the operator said.
A total of 376 bullet trains were suspended or delayed for up to one hour on the Tohoku, Joetsu, Hokuriku and other shinkansen lines, according to East Japan Railway Co.
JR East said it detected a malfunction in the emergency braking system of a bullet train on the Tohoku-Yamagata shinkansen line at 9:50 a.m. Sunday.
The fault forced the train to stay on Track 23 of the station for more than 90 minutes, affecting other shinkansen services and leading the already crowded platforms and concourses of the hub station to be packed with frustrated passengers.
"I had expected some congestion because it's the year-end but did not expect this at all," said Nao Nakajima, a 20-year-old student heading to Yurihonjo, her hometown in Akita Prefecture. "I wish I could go home soon and relax."
https://japantoday.com/category/nationa ... passengers

[rogf24]

That's just the bullet train, I bet all their other regular lines from Tokyo Metro, Toei Metro, JR East and a host of other private lines were ok.