CBD & South East Light Rail

[Passenger 57]

Blame the government for not specifying APS for the entire route and sue them for the cost of the upgrade.

[moa999]

Add another few billion P57.
Something must have been seriously wrong with the wiring for that to happen.

[Passenger 57]

We've all been under a lot of tension lately.

[tonyp]

Add another few billion P57.
Something must have been seriously wrong with the wiring for that to happen.

I believe it's a fairly common occurrence in Melbourne, but you don't expect it on a system so new.

We've all been under a lot of tension lately.

Perhaps more a case of slacking off here

[tonyp]

From the Southern Courier 10.11.2020, RTBU has some interesting technological insights that none of us has heard of before. We're lucky that there's such a body of knowledge there to keep us up to date with latest developments.

"NewsLocal understands the pantograph or current collector for the Light Rail carriage dislodged from the roof of the car, shattering the front window.
A NSW Rail, Tram and Bus Union division secretary David Babineau said the incident raised “serious questions about the safety and integrity of the CBD and South East light rail system”.
“The wheels, or in this case what looks to be an engine part, are falling off the light rail system only a few short years after it opened,” he told NewsLocal. “How did the NSW Government spend more than $3 billion on a new light rail system only to have an incident like this happen?
“After enduring five years of disruptive construction, the public was promised a world-class light rail service, that’s a complete joke.”
Mr Babineau said he feared “there’ll be engine parts strewn across Parramatta Rd” under a plan for four new trams on the Inner West Line, announced last week. "

[boronia]

H\e probably couldn't spell "pantograph" so he selected something simpler

[Linto63]

It's always fairly lazy journalism to seek the opinion of an opposition transport minister or trade union rep, given that they will just spout their anti-government spiel, even if of little or no relevance.

[boronia]

I am intrigued as to how a panto in the middle of the tram can make its way to the windscreen, past all the assorted blobs of machinery on the roof.

[Linto63]

Possibly the windscreen of the second set if it came off the leading set.

[boronia]

The pan would be in the same position on the leading set; same obstacle course to contend with.

I've seen photos of "backflips" in Melbourne. Usually the pan stays in place but gets horribly screwed up.

[Swift]

Maybe we need Cummins ISL powered trams with Voith gearboxes like the diesel DMUs.

[Qantas94Heavy]

It seems the front doors of the CBD light rail are in use again:

[boronia]

The front row seats have "Do not sit here" signs on them, and there is barrier tape from the leading door edges around the centre stanchion.

[tonyp]

An interesting SMH photo from 1958 when George St was converted and the conga-line problem started. The eastern suburbs trams were still running at that stage.

1958 conversion.jpg (35.88 KiB) Viewed 1625 times

The four tramcars in the photo had the capacity of seven of those eight buses but occupied the road space at stops of about six of them, had six crew between them (as coupled sets) compared to 11 to 14 on the buses (depending whether the single deckers were driver-only which most weren't at that stage). At this stage the trams were still making a profit, but footpath ticket sellers and even tram conductors were issued with bus tickets, even though most sales were for tram trips, in order to boost the revenue picture for the buses and diminish it for the trams. The DGT made sure it had a financial case for the buses come hell or high water. The one-man buses were also so slow to load compared to the trams that outward runs were split between Pitt and Castlereagh to stop buses backing up towards the Quay.

If the buses were electric, the picture would be the same, but they would be cheaper to run, almost on a par with the trams. If the buses had plenty of doors and loaded and unloaded through all of them, it would be less likely that these sort of conga lines would be seen (that was my observation in Europe anyway). However, overall the capacity of the tram system was much higher, so we're able to have less of them to do the same or a greater task than a conga line of buses.

On the flip side, the Sydney tram system in 1958 typically averaged about 19 km/h, similar to most Central European systems today. The new CSELR operates at an average speed of about 13 km/h and this disrupts the equation profoundly.

[boronia]

The front row seats have "Do not sit here" signs on them, and there is barrier tape from the leading door edges around the centre stanchion.

The inner cab ends are not restricted, so it is possible to look in at the drivers' consoles.

Although the displays are mainly digital and not switched on, there is an analog speedo permanently visible.Most street running is at at around 40-45, but they do manage to achieve a heady 60 for a second or two in the Lang Rd - kenso Junction section.

[Linto63]

The DGT made sure it had a financial case for the buses come hell or high water...

You obviously have a bee in your bonnet about the DfT getting rid of the trams, we get it, but do we need to go over it for the 4,000th time? What's done is done, get over it.

[Passenger 57]

The one-man buses were also so slow to load compared to the trams that outward runs were split between Pitt and Castlereagh to stop buses backing up towards the Quay.

To be fair, a corridor tram is also slower to load than a toast rack and those were definitely on the way out.

One-man operation under the Caldwell plan had it ever come to pass may have also slowed down loading.

[boronia]

The one-man buses were also so slow to load compared to the trams that outward runs were split between Pitt and Castlereagh to stop buses backing up towards the Quay.

What??? Pitt and Castlereagh Sts were one way streets in opposite directions. Outward services could not be split to operate in both.

[tonyp]

What??? Pitt and Castlereagh Sts were one way streets in opposite directions. Outward services could not be split to operate in both.

Sorry, Pitt and George.

[boronia]

What??? Pitt and Castlereagh Sts were one way streets in opposite directions. Outward services could not be split to operate in both.

Sorry, Pitt and George.

Well, the replacement bus services operated in the same streets as the respective trams. The green line tram services were split from George St around 1901.

The creation of the Pitt St Mall in the mid 1980s saw inbound Green line buses returned to George St

[tonyp]

To be fair, a corridor team is also slower to load than a toast rack and those were definitely on the way out.

One-man operation under the Caldwell plan had it ever come to pass may have also slowed down loading.

There certainly needed to be a revenue management system immediately available to replace conductors that still enabled all-door boarding and this is what happened in Europe and with Melbourne trams, but in Sydney there was about a 30 year gap between one fare system and the other, so I guess trams would have kept conductors as evidenced by the Sydney Light Rail employing them until the government takeover. Rob had some very good ideas and some not so good! OMO of his PCCs would not have been good at the time.

There was little problem with speed of passenger exchange in the R/R1s due to having the doors positioned front, centre and rear with no internal caves or passenger movement clashes and their passenger exchange was much quicker than any bus. There was a time initially when some of the replacement buses worked reasonably well. This was the Leyland and AEC underfloors with the doors positioned front and rear and all-door loading with conductors on board (the big privates like Hunters Hill Bus Co also worked this way till they went one-man and even then they still used the back door to unload). The way it worked was that the bus loaded from each end till the passengers met in the middle of the bus and it backfilled up and vice versa with the opposite directional flow to unload. No internal passenger movement clash. When they later moved the back door down to the centre in new bus designs and created a cave at the back, it all went pear-shaped and that's the mess it's in today (except in Europe where they kept the back door as well as the centre door). Double deckers don't rate a mention. They were terrible on passenger exchange then and still terrible today. Artics work extremely well if enough doors, all-door loading and no stepped doorways, but there's still a cave at the back in Australian versions.

We have good tram designs now if the agency specifies it right, like the Sydney Citadis and the Gold Coast Flexity with doors from end to end and plenty of them reasonably evenly-spaced in between. The Melbourne E and the various CAFs in NSW and ACT are a step down the scale with less doors and odd arrangements, but still better than any local bus. It's one thing they got right with CSELR and that's down to Alstom choosing the tram design, not TfNSW.

[Passenger 57]

Thanks for the thorough response, Tony.

[Swift]

It would be really great if they would reintroduce stickers instructing passengers to use the centre doors to alight and stop acting like toddler aged attention seekers using the front door to exit and disrupting people boarding.

[tonyp]

It would be really great if they would reintroduce stickers instructing passengers to use the centre doors to alight and stop acting like toddler aged attention seekers using the front door to exit and disrupting people boarding.

I assume you're talking about buses. The thing is that the front door is the accessible entry and exit door, so it's always going to be an exit too.

[Swift]

Only for those that require it. The rest need a stern talking to for being selfish thoughtless oafs!