Didn’t CAF maintenance do the same to Variobahns on the IWLR? (Overcost/Restrict Variobahn parts to make ordering new Urbos’s more attractive). I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also restricting parts for all Urbos systems to encourage just ordering new trams because it would mean higher margins...

The trains you catch will have more demand and more stops sure, but will also come more often. Hurstville all stops will come more often than every ten minutes when the signalling upgrades are over. So you won't be worse off The ESR can already run trains at sub 2.5-minute intervals, I regularly se...

No, the trains I catch every day (all stations from Hurstville) will have two more stops added and given the density of Esrkinville in particular, once this starts I will be lucky to be able to get onto a train at Redfern in the evenings. I suspect I will have to start walking to Erskinville instead...

With respect to the regional train fleet, what makes you think that the RTBU is leveraging the new Labor government to make changes to the design specification? Perhaps they are legitimate changes proposed by other stakeholders which were ignored by the previous government, but now considered to be...

Anything that affects the profits of the Sydney and Melbourne airport operators and the airlines that fly between them will never get up. Even if it got even a little way you can bet the airlines will be demanding 'compensation' for the loss of the busy east coast routes and ongoing subsidy for the ...

Not really, change of government has meant a change in perspective and stakeholders have made particular requests which have led to the latest changes. Does anyone have a link to the list of changes since the original order? I gather most of the issues are not changes as such (although there are so...

I’ve heard the same in the UK about people not liking the “Civity” fleet or “Mk5” carriages. The CAF-built MK5 'Nova3' has been such a good train, that the operator withdrew and stored them, despite the least having another 6 months. They would rather pay for idle stored carriages than use them in ...

At its zenith of the testing programme, the metro will be running 20 hours a day, seven days a week to replicate normal operations. They will need to run at least 2 days of full ghost service to verify the operations systems do behave as designed. Any issue found that results in a new software vers...

I remember seeing something not long after the 2011 state election about a group of people wanting the whole Epping-Parramatta link idea to include a altered NWRL from Parramatta so the Gillard Epping-Parramatta promise and the NSW governments NWRL would be merged into one single Parramatta hills l...

I wonder if there's bike track rage on the regular? The worst are those shared tracks with foot traffic. Maybe there will be once the route becomes more popular with 'downhill racers'. My trip back to Parramatta was 4 times the speed of the trip up and significantly shorter transit time! Is bustitu...

I rode a bicycle the entire route today. Of note - several locations have standard flood depth makers - they appear to be expecting the track to flood in several places!. Given the demonstrated CAF allergy to flooded tracks, look forward to many service interruptions every time it rains! There has b...

Perhaps testing is finding these issues performing better than anticipated, and thus reducing the need to replace them? There are two lifetimes. One is what the manufacturer says the expected life of the flash chip is and what they will guarantee the life will be. Seems Melbourne went for the 'manu...

Now I even more firmly believe Brisbane has the right idea. Light rail isn't worth the cost now. A huge expense to make a place look like it's progressed. The Gold Coast Light Rail has turned out the best in the country and was a worth while project. It's actually beneficial and well set up. Except...

Even more so as governments generally don’t want to void warranties. The same locks on repairability are happening in every technology sector whether that be John Deere tractors or Apple devices. The problem isn't just extras - it's the entire computer control system. Recently a Polish train manufa...

Or ditch the battery for third rail all the way so they don’t have to be replaced once they reach their service life. :roll: There is no reason the traction batteries shouldn't last as long or longer than any other 'wear part' on the tram (provided the battery management is properly designed and im...

Speaking of testing, given the light rail vehicles (or trams [?]) being used use a battery in the unwired sections, is there a short bit of overhead at the Westmead terminus for recharging or does it have to get back to the wired section in North Parramatta before it can charge? Westmead tram stop ...

I doubt the general public would be much interested in it, so it has little political value. There is nothing physical to see, services will still get delayed for various reasons. It's a potential political downside - they are bound to have integration problems once the new system starts seeing rea...

Have some Region 10 routes been moved? I went overseas for 7 weeks and noticed some of the buses on the 452 seem to be a slightly different colour now. Then looking closer they say Transit Systems, not U-Go on the side. Pretty sure both 452 and 455 (my local routes) were U-Go before we went on Holid...

Sydney's Alstom Citadis were built in Spain too - only the first 2 (or 4?) were built in France - I assume so that production engineering could create a set of build instructions for the Barcelona factory. (They were one of the first Citadis 05 series trams built) I can only assume that boiler-maker...

These are trains, so other than being made by CAF, not sure of much relevance. CAF appears to have QC issues with welding - it doesn't matter whether it is heavy or light rail, they are having high-stress parts break off. However CAF are not the only manufacturer having issues - Hitachi Rail Europe...

WAsn't that old bridge for "railway employees only"? It was used by many Sydney Uni workers and students 'in the know' until it was blocked off as 'unsafe'. Technically it was 'employees only' but since the exits to the street were rarely, if ever closed... One of my colleagues once used ...

boronia wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2023 9:09 am Major upgrade to Sydney station to open three years late, $66m over budget

Walking past there every day - it looks like the new bridge could have been finished months ago, but building a new foyer into the heritage shell at 125 Little Eveleigh Street seems to have dragged on and on.

There is mode on Android phones where low-value transactions do not require unlock - as a result I've pretty well NEVER unlocked my Pixel phone to tap on or off with Opal. (Or London Oyster too!) The Google FAQ does say 'You can only do a limited number of locked transactions before your phone asks ...

Sydney is using 'offline authentication for Opal - I would have thought that would be 'transit mode'. A low-value transition that isn't online verified. My bank stuffed up their Android pay for a while and my phone stopped being accepted for Opal. (The real card still worked). Eventually after some ...

boronia wrote: ↑Thu May 11, 2023 11:28 am There is a near metre high barrier between the cars. Nothing will stop stupidity.

cse98 009 (Small).jpeg

Apparently, the MU connector boxes make convenient step points to get up over the barrier. I suspect nothing short of electrified barbed wire will stop em.