Sydney Metro - Tallawong to Bankstown

[Aurora]

Build it and they will come?

Literally. Took a metro service from Epping to Chatswood yesterday afternoon at around 3 pm. Very well patronised even at 10 min intervals.

The ECRL wouldn't have gone near that sort of patronage.

Bus is no replacement for rail (ECRL did not run to Castle/Rouse Hill).

[boronia]

Literally. Took a metro service from Epping to Chatswood yesterday afternoon at around 3 pm. Very well patronised even at 10 min intervals.

The ECRL wouldn't have gone near that sort of patronage.

Sent from my Huawei P30 Pro using Tapatalk

I was around Chatswood at lunch time yesterday, and there seemed to be a continuous flow of people coming out the gates (eben with no T1/T9 services). Chatswood businesses must be loving it.

[Swift]

6:25am is ridiculous. That means about 6:45am is the first service from Epping. It used to be earlier with Sydney Trains.

Re-read the conversation. They're talking about when peak frequency of a train every 4 minutes begins, not when actual services start.

I'm relieved to be wrong!!
The popularity of this system shows any future naysayers what the people crave like a burger. Good swift reliable public transit availability. Some people will cling to their private cars like limpets but a great bulk of people actually hate driving to work and many who don't mind hate the traffic and would still choose a train that works and oh how ths bad boy metro works! I bet the NW loves it, accessibility challenges notwithstanding.

[Engineering]

Only noticed today, but it may have occurred earlier, 4 min frequency service peak now appears to be starting 30 min earlier from Tallawong from just before 6.00 am, rather than just before 6.30 am.

What I didn’t really notice, is that it jumps back to 10 min frequency quite early at 8.30 Tallawong.

Funnily, there happened to be a tweet about someone at Epping complaining about this rather long gap at about 8.50.

This does seem a bit too early to drop from 15 tph to 6 tph - that is off peak is 40% of peak service. Current T1/T9 drops by 50 % from 20 tph to 10 tph.

Even if the patronage drops after 8.30, the whole concept of metro is (almost) no wait, and 10 mins at 9 am on a weekday not aligned with that philosophy.

IMHO off peak day time frequency for this type of service ought to stay at 6 min (10 tph) or at worst 7.5 min (8 tph).

There is still very healthy patronage from Chatswood and Mac Centre up to 10 pm due to high retail, dining, social, employment activity, and it would be good for higher than 6 tph until past 10 pm.

[tonyp]

Perhaps the entire am peak has shifted half an hour forward in the desperate rush for parking?

[Swift]

Are they still stubbornly persisting with a two minute wait at Epping, despite there being less transferring there than expected? Why not just let each train pick you and drop off passengers that are there at any given time??

[BroadGauge]

Probably the desperate rush for parking spots is bringing everything forward. So the parking stations, instead of being full by 0700, they'll be full by 0630. There must be a lot of flexitime in the workplace nowadays.

It must be all the public servants. Not much of those kind of luxuries in the private sector!

[tonyp]

Unhappy customers emerging on Hills metro users Facebook page since that change - trains now jam packed between 0830 and 0900, too soon to drop down to 10 min, complain to TfNSW. I have a feeling it will revert soon.

[Merc1107]

Undoubtedly the metro has maintenance costs based on distance travelled, but wouldn't that be comparatively small compared to a driver's wages? Without a driver in the equation, why not run a more frequent service on the fringes of the peak?

[mandonov]

IIRC the frequency of service is currently locked into the contract with MTR and would require a variation. I suspect changes will be made during negotiations for the C&SW operations contract.

[boronia]

Surely the contract would be based on a $/km operated basis, with provision to increase/decrease services as required.

I saw McAndyFace on TV a couple of weeks back stating that he was very disappointed with Metro's performance, and would look at the possibility of getting another operator for the next section.

[swtt]

I saw McAndyFace on TV a couple of weeks back stating that he was very disappointed with Metro's performance, and would look at the possibility of getting another operator for the next section.

Still early days to be overly disappointed. With such a massive piece of infrastructure, everyone needs to know it's not just one little bus route: when the M41 was first introduced in Dec 2010 it was carrying fresh air from Hurstville all the way to Macquarie Park. It's taken even 5 years to iron out the kinks with a little bus route.

Let alone this gigantic piece of a railway!

[Linto63]

Undoubtedly the metro has maintenance costs based on distance travelled, but wouldn't that be comparatively small compared to a driver's wages? Without a driver in the equation, why not run a more frequent service on the fringes of the peak?

In Sydney Trains' 2017/18 annual report, employee costs accounted for $1.37 billion (37% of total costs), maintenance is $1.05 billion. So while employee costs are significant, they are not as bigger part of the cost base as sometimes it is made out that they are.

I saw McAndyFace on TV a couple of weeks back stating that he was very disappointed with Metro's performance, and would look at the possibility of getting another operator for the next section.

The benefits of outsourcing, devolves ministerial accountability.

[Swift]

What on hell wears out with electric traction? Don't they use brushless motors these days, so about the only thing I can imagine is the wheel bearings and brakes.

[swtt]

What on hell wears out with electric traction? Don't they use brushless motors these days, so about the only thing I can imagine is the wheel bearings and brakes.

Plenty of things wear out.

• The carbon strip on a pantograph
• Wheels
• Rails
• Door motors
• Brakes
• Points (where the train changes tracks)

[boronia]

Not to mention all the electronics which mightn't "wear out" but have a bad habit of misbehaving themslves without warning - the slightest glitch can bring the whole train, or even the network, to a standstill until they find someone who knows which button to press, or PCB to replace.

[jpp42]

Capacitors are an electronic component that wears out, and failed capacitors are a common reason for electronics failures of all types. All critical electronic equipment should have a finite lifespan that it is understood and planned for, based on capacitor lifetime.

[mandonov]

https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw-govt-agre ... --spt.html

The NSW government has put the finishing touches on an agreement to buy 23 new metro trains for the expansion of the Sydney network from Chatswood to Bankstown in the city's southwest via the CBD.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance on Friday said the government had approved a previously-negotiated contract extension for the operation of an expanded Sydney Metro network from 2024.

Under the contract extension, the Northwest Rapid Transit public-private partnership will operate and maintain 31 metro stations between Bankstown and northwest Sydney's Rouse Hill until at least 2034.

NRT will order 23 metro trains for the new line's expansion from Chatswood to Bankstown. The entire Sydney Metro by that time will span 66km.

The new trains would cost $1.7 billion, Mr Constance said. An additional $2 billion would go towards operations and maintenance of the network.

The NRT partnership won the contract to run the northwest metro line between Rouse Hill and Chatswood in 2014, with the line opening in May 2019.

[moa999]

Wonder if the trains will be identical, or have subtle or obvious v2 features.

[tonyp]

Wonder if the trains will be identical, or have subtle or obvious v2 features.

Initially I was thinking they could have a higher maximum speed, but reviewing the performance and the general station spacings (now and future), it's obvious that they are capable of very high average speeds even with a 100 km/h maximum. The journey times are very impressive and on a par with the Perth system. It's average speed that counts in the end. A higher maximum speed is only useful with longer station spacings (e.g. Perth's Mandurah line) and Sydney doesn't have long station spacings generally on either system. I can't think of anything else I'd improve on the trains.

[Transtopic]

Wonder if the trains will be identical, or have subtle or obvious v2 features.

It's average speed that counts in the end. A higher maximum speed is only useful with longer station spacings (e.g. Perth's Mandurah line) and Sydney doesn't have long station spacings generally on either system.

I agree with you on your first point, but then there's the 6km distance between Cherrybrook and Epping on Metro Northwest and the huge gap between Central and Waterloo and Waterloo and Sydenham, where higher maximum speeds could be put to good use. Then you have the considerable distances between stopping stations on the existing network for express and semi-express services, where journey times could be improved significantly if more realistic speed limits were introduced allowing the Waratahs for example to utilise their maximum specified speed of 130km/h. If there was never any long term intention to allow the new suburban trains such as the Waratahs to operate up to this speed, then why was it specified in the first place?

[tonyp]

I agree with you on your first point, but then there's the 6km distance between Cherrybrook and Epping on Metro Northwest and the huge gap between Central and Waterloo and Waterloo and Sydenham, where higher maximum speeds could be put to good use. Then you have the considerable distances between stopping stations on the existing network for express and semi-express services, where journey times could be improved significantly if more realistic speed limits were introduced allowing the Waratahs for example to utilise their maximum specified speed of 130km/h. If there was never any long term intention to allow the new suburban trains such as the Waratahs to operate up to this speed, then why was it specified in the first place?

My comment relates to stopping services like the Sydney metro. The Sydney suburban system has semi-express services and I agree with you that naturally a higher maximum speed specification for the trains is beneficial in that case. The longest station spacings in the metropolitan area of Sydney are Epping-Cherrybrook (6.2 km) and Heathcote-Waterfall (5.6 km). Central-Waterloo is less than 2 km and Waterloo-Sydenham is about 4 km.

The following tabulation of train performances on approx 6 km stretches on different systems shows that the metro covers Epping-Cherrybrook at the rate of 1.67 km/min at a maximum allowed speed of 100 km/h, while the suburban trains cover Heathcote-Waterfall at 1.12 km/min at a maximum allowed speed of 115 km/h. I agree that the performance of the suburban trains could be better there (obviously artificially constrained), but the figures nevertheless show the significance of average speed. On the other hand, the Perth and Brisbane examples show that their higher maximum speed does help raise the average speed a tiny bit, allowing for the fact that their segments are about 0.5-1 km longer than the Sydney examples. Frankly, there's not much in it. The metro with its lowest maximum speed limit among these examples has no trouble keeping abreast of the examples with the higher speed limits.

6 km non-stop segment between stations:

Perth:
Murdoch-Cockburn Central (6.7 km): 4 mins (100 km/h) (1.67 km/min) (speed limit 130 km/h)

Sydney Metro:
Epping-Cherrybrook (6.2 km): 4 mins (93 km/h) (1.55 km/min) (speed limit 100 km/h)

Sydney Suburban:
Heathcote-Waterfall (5.6 km): 5 mins (67 km/h) (1.12 km/min) (speed limit 115 km/h)

Brisbane Interurban:
Ormeau-Coomera (6.8 km): 4-5 mins (81-102 km/h) (1.36-1.7 km/min) (speed limit 140 km/h)

[boronia]

State Government Fines Operator Of North-West Metro For Failing To Meet Benchmarks
https://10daily.com.au/shows/10-news-fi ... s-20191122

[tonyp]

More trains ordered:

https://www.sydneymetro.info/article/23 ... -southwest

[tonyp]

From Sydney Metro facebook - new railway entrance Chalmers/Devonshire:





https://centralstationmetro.com/wp-cont ... _Rev-E.pdf