Parramatta light rail

[Swift]

Hopefully when this shortfall to Carlingford Court becomes glaringly obvious upon it's opening, there will be enough dissatisfaction to give the impetus to fix it.
But you watch. Epping residents will DEMAND RUDELY for the light rail to reach them as they see their transport hub is so near yet so far from a light rail service to an up and coming Parramatta.
Why do those slums in Carlo get access to a seven billion dollar LR to Parra while we chosen toffs in Epping miss out? You watch.

[Stu]

CARLINGFORD....
There's a low-cost compromise - Extend the Parramatta Light Rail northward from Carlingford Station terminus to a new terminus under the Carlingford Court Shopping Centre car-park - just 800 metres. Quite apart from the shopping convenience for those from the south, we'd have interchange with present and future bus services.
Local "influencers" and politicians please take note.
264029

Some locals are under the 'influence'.

[gascoyne]

lunchbox said:

Extend the Parramatta Light Rail northward from Carlingford Station terminus to a new terminus under the Carlingford Court Shopping Centre car-park - just 800 metres.

From there, only 3000 metres more and it could be at Epping, connecting with frequent rail in four directions. Filling service gaps should be a priority.

[tonyp]

EXTENSION TO CARLINGFORD COURT.....
I defer to tonyp's (generally) superior knowledge, (above), but I am confident a Planning Instrument could be invoked for a light rail corridor through vacant land south of Shirley St., there entering a tunnel portal, then swinging north under Pennant Hills Road, then right, to terminate under Carlingford Court's car park. (264182)

That's a very costly solution that would definitely have to be subject to a cost-benefit analysis. Given that the light rail line is a fixed infrastructure and bus routes can be adjusted, it would be far easier to run the relevant bus routes past Carlingford station, provision for which appears to have been made in the streets either side of the station. I don't think TfNSW has yet announced any bus route changes after the line opens, but this may very well be what they have in mind.

[lunchbox]

^^^^^^^^^^"Touche, Tony.

[boronia]

When the PER was in the first design stage, it was proposed to lower the line from Rydalmere into Carlingford so that it had an underground station. I don't think the station was to be under the Court, but veered off to the east somehow.

[Swift]

Carlingford Court could try and move near the LR stop.
Probably no land though.

[tonyp]

When the PER was in the first design stage, it was proposed to lower the line from Rydalmere into Carlingford so that it had an underground station. I don't think the station was to be under the Court, but veered off to the east somehow.

They had to lower the line to get it under the development. Carlingford station would have become an open cut station. The line would have been too deep to serve Carlingford Court.

Carlingford Court could try and move near the LR stop.
Probably no land though.

This is what goes through my mind. Carlingford Court was built in 1965 at the height of the auto age when that area was all farmland and subdivisions just starting to appear. Built it anew as an airspace development over and around Carlingford station. The corner of Carlingford Rd and PH Rd is now too much of a traffic sewer to make it an amenable location for a shopping centre and bus interchange.

[Randomness]

I was looking at sixmaps satellite imagery, and it appeared that the approach 300m from Carlingford under Pennant Hills Rd was left as single track with no future proofing for double track. OpenStreetMap (the Wikipedia of maps, but very reliable) shows the predicted approach also being single track. There is also no indication of crossovers or work for them until near the depot, so less flexibility for shutdowns in an area. Though Carlingford is a 2 track terminus, I thought we would’ve learnt our lesson about reducing capacity like this from Dulwich Hill?

[tonyp]

I was looking at sixmaps satellite imagery, and it appeared that the approach 300m from Carlingford under Pennant Hills Rd was left as single track with no future proofing for double track. OpenStreetMap (the Wikipedia of maps, but very reliable) shows the predicted approach also being single track. There is also no indication of crossovers or work for them until near the depot, so less flexibility for shutdowns in an area. Though Carlingford is a 2 track terminus, I thought we would’ve learnt our lesson about reducing capacity like this from Dulwich Hill?

It's one track under the bridge to fit in a bicycle path that was apparently considered more important.

[Glen]

It's a difficult and expensive bridge to widen the track underneath and results in a short section of single track immediately before the terminus.

It's the same track layout as how one of Melbourne's busiest routes 96 terminates at East Brunswick, but for a different reason, and actually with more platform capacity.

I'm sure it will work fine.

[Swift]

What happens when you follow a single track goods line corridor. Thankfully it's at a terminus where it shouldn't interrupt flow much.

[Glen]

What is this corridor to which you refer?

[Swift]

The Carlingford line.

[tonyp]

It's a difficult and expensive bridge to widen the track underneath and results in a short section of single track immediately before the terminus.

It's the same track layout as how one of Melbourne's busiest routes 96 terminates at East Brunswick, but for a different reason, and actually with more platform capacity.

I'm sure it will work fine.

Yes, this layout does work in principle, as the northern terminus of 96 proves - but we are talking about a competent operator down there.

[Glen]

The Carlingford line.

Oh sorry you threw me when you said goods line. For most of its length there was easy room for duplication.

[Swift]

The Carlingford line.

Oh sorry you threw me when you said goods line. For most of its length there was easy room for duplication.

Seems absurd that's one little spot it "can't be done".
NSW can move mountains to get what it wants other times.

[Glen]

I think it would be just a case of cost vs benefit.

It's a busy road to disrupt as well.

[Transtopic]

When the PER was in the first design stage, it was proposed to lower the line from Rydalmere into Carlingford so that it had an underground station. I don't think the station was to be under the Court, but veered off to the east somehow.

This was the original alignment for the Parramatta to Chatswood Rail Link, shown in red, and the black line is the more direct route via Eastwood which was the second option, but ignored because they obviously wanted to use most of the existing Carlingford Line to save on costs.

They've made the same mistake with the light rail route, which is never likely to reach even Epping. Had the then Labor government adopted the Eastwood alignment, then it may well have been built, because it would have attracted greater patronage to Macquarie Park and the North Shore than the circuitous and slow Carlingford/Epping route.

[Swift]

It's not just more direct and shorter, Eastwood is far more suited as a commercial hub than Epping. Why the obsession with Epping being the growth centre?

[Transtopic]

It's not just more direct and shorter, Eastwood is far more suited as a commercial hub than Epping. Why the obsession with Epping being the growth centre?

Probably because they were determined to use most of the Carlingford Line to allegedly save costs and promote development in Carlingford, but I'd question whether in fact that would have been any cheaper, when a substantial amount of tunnelling would still have been required on the longer route via Epping as well as duplicating the Carlingford Line between Dundas and Carlingford. The more direct and faster Eastwood route would have been all in tunnel from Dundas on the Carlingford Line, not to mention the fact that Eastwood is the largest retail/commercial centre on the Northern Line between Rhodes and Hornsby, previously between Burwood and Hornsby before Rhodes developed. It is the equivalent of Chatswood in relative terms on the North Shore Line.

As I have said previously, the former government made the same mistake with the light rail route, supposedly to Macquarie Park, when it was never viable. The consultants engaged by Parramatta Council for the light rail feasibility study dismissed the option of a route via Carlingford and Epping early in their investigations for justifiable reasons, which TfNSW subsequently ignored.

It's farcical that Epping is currently designated as a strategic centre when it doesn't come anywhere near meeting the criteria previously stipulated. It doesn't even have a shopping centre complex, but is all strip shopping along the traffic sewer on one side of Beecroft Rd and to a lesser extent along Rawson St. It seems that the only criteria that was considered is that it is on the metro line, which is the focus for more residential development to feed into it. That's not good enough.

Although I'm getting a bit off track here, it should be a lesson for future rail planners, when a potential metro line from Parramatta to Macquarie Park is being investigated. As things stand, the plan is for the reincarnation of the PERL, but on a different alignment from Parramatta via Pennant Hills Rd to Carlingford and them presumably following the original alignment to Epping, as I depicted earlier, and that's assuming that a suitable site could be found within the Epping Town Centre for a terminating station. It is still too circuitous compared with the more direct route via Eastwood.

[Aurora]

I think any diversion to Eastwood would have likely seen Telopea and Carlingford stops removed which would mean those areas would have had to rely solely on buses.

In the above map, that loop from Dundas to Epping then back to Dundas looks a little ridiculous without any justifiable context.

[Transtopic]

I think any diversion to Eastwood would have likely seen Telopea and Carlingford stops removed which would mean those areas would have had to rely solely on buses.

In the above map, that loop from Dundas to Epping then back to Dundas looks a little ridiculous without any justifiable context.

If you're referring to the map I previously posted, then you have misinterpreted it. The black route depicted for the Eastwood alignment is my amendment to the preferred Option ! alignment shown in red. Option 2 was the alignment via Eastwood, which included a Y link from Epping to Eastwood to allow for direct services from Hornsby to Parramatta. There was no intention to directly connect the route via Carlingford with the Y link back to Dundas and Parramatta. The Y link could have been dispensed with to save costs, instead relying on interchange at Eastwood to reach Parramatta, which would have been faster than interchanging to a longer route from Epping via Carlingford.

If a future Parramatta to Macquarie Park metro is adopted via the more direct Eastwood alignment, then an underground station could be included at Telopea on the Kissing Point Rd alignment, which would be close to the light rail station.

Unfortunately, Carlingford isn't on the right axis for either a light rail or metro link from Parramatta to Macquarie Park. It should be aligned with a possible future metro line to the North West, which I have previously suggested could potentially be an extension of a Victoria Rd metro line from Top Ryde to Eastwood, Carlingford, North Rocks and Baulkham Hills.

[Swift]

Regards solving the missing service gap to Carlingford Court, what about an underground or subsurface bus only lane under both intersections (like the Edgecliff tunnel) leading to the shopping mall as well as a through road past the LR terminus for seamless flow of bus services past there?

[flitter]

Feels like this could do with its own thread