Sydney Metro - Tallawong to Bankstown

[Transtopic]

Sydney Metro has 4 weekend closures in March, 2 in April and 2 in May. This is just awful.

Sydney Metro's parent company MTR opened various extensions in its home country Hong Kong (East Rail Line, Kwun Tong Line, Island Line) and all of them opened without disrupting the existing service to this extent. Indeed, I don't think any other metro extension in the world had this level of service disruption.

Perhaps it was because they weren't converting an existing legacy surface line in Hong Kong which still had to operate until its complete closure for final conversion.

[stupid_girl]

Sydney Metro has 4 weekend closures in March, 2 in April and 2 in May. This is just awful.

Sydney Metro's parent company MTR opened various extensions in its home country Hong Kong (East Rail Line, Kwun Tong Line, Island Line) and all of them opened without disrupting the existing service to this extent. Indeed, I don't think any other metro extension in the world had this level of service disruption.

Perhaps it was because they weren't converting an existing legacy surface line in Hong Kong which still had to operate until its complete closure for final conversion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Rail_line
East Rail Line was an existing legacy surface line until the new underground extension opened.

[Bus 400]

Perhaps it was because they weren't converting an existing legacy surface line in Hong Kong which still had to operate until its complete closure for final conversion.

Chatswood to Sydenham is an entirely new line.

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[Swift]

It's going to be phenomenal when it opens and the professional complainers will completely forget the pain when the Sydneyham to Bankstown section opens to traffic.

[swtt]

Sydney Metro has 4 weekend closures in March, 2 in April and 2 in May. This is just awful.

Sydney Metro's parent company MTR opened various extensions in its home country Hong Kong (East Rail Line, Kwun Tong Line, Island Line) and all of them opened without disrupting the existing service to this extent. Indeed, I don't think any other metro extension in the world had this level of service disruption.

The East Rail Line extension to Admiralty probably took the top spot for the number of disruptions.

But it was a relatively short extension, and it's not a fully automated line.

[stupid_girl]

Sydney Metro has 4 weekend closures in March, 2 in April and 2 in May. This is just awful.

Sydney Metro's parent company MTR opened various extensions in its home country Hong Kong (East Rail Line, Kwun Tong Line, Island Line) and all of them opened without disrupting the existing service to this extent. Indeed, I don't think any other metro extension in the world had this level of service disruption.

The East Rail Line extension to Admiralty probably took the top spot for the number of disruptions.

But it was a relatively short extension, and it's not a fully automated line.

Yes, but still to a much less extent. There were 1-station closures on 7 Sundays for connection with the new underground tracks.

The disruption is nothing comparable to Sydney metro's 8 weekend full line closures in these 3 months.

[Transtopic]

Perhaps it was because they weren't converting an existing legacy surface line in Hong Kong which still had to operate until its complete closure for final conversion.

Chatswood to Sydenham is an entirely new line.

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But the point is that the conversion of the existing Bankstown Line to driverless metro isn't a new line. That's the difference.

While it's completely feasible to convert legacy rail lines to GoA2, with a driver still onboard, it's breaking new ground to convert existing surface lines to GoA4 driverless operation, when operating in a different environment to a segregated underground line like the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link.

The experience of the Bankstown Line metro conversion will give us some insight into whether it is worth continuing with further legacy rail line conversions, compared with building new completely segregated metro lines, which I suggest should be the focus.

.

[stupid_girl]

Chatswood to Sydenham is an entirely new line.

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But the point is that the conversion of the existing Bankstown Line to driverless metro isn't a new line. That's the difference.

While it's completely feasible to convert legacy rail lines to GoA2, with a driver still onboard, it's breaking new ground to convert existing surface lines to GoA4 driverless operation, when operating in a different environment to a segregated underground line like the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link.

The experience of the Bankstown Line metro conversion will give us some insight into whether it is worth continuing with further legacy rail line conversions, compared with building new completely segregated metro lines, which I suggest should be the focus.

.

Metro testing will not go as far as Bankstown Line during these 8 weekend closures so I think this point is irrelevant.

[Transtopic]

But the point is that the conversion of the existing Bankstown Line to driverless metro isn't a new line. That's the difference.

While it's completely feasible to convert legacy rail lines to GoA2, with a driver still onboard, it's breaking new ground to convert existing surface lines to GoA4 driverless operation, when operating in a different environment to a segregated underground line like the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link.

The experience of the Bankstown Line metro conversion will give us some insight into whether it is worth continuing with further legacy rail line conversions, compared with building new completely segregated metro lines, which I suggest should be the focus.

.

Metro testing will not go as far as Bankstown Line during these 8 weekend closures so I think this point is irrelevant.

Sorry, I got things mixed up. I thought you were referring to the Bankstown Line shutdown.

[iamthouth]

Trackwork calendar now shows Metro bus replacement for: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system ... ork%20.pdf
Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 May
Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 May
then
Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 June
Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 June

So perhaps opening either at the 5 year anniversary 26th May, or maybe more likely 6-7 July?

[Linto63]

Or when it is ready, doubt there is a definitive date in place yet.

[Bovways]

Or when it is ready, doubt there is a definitive date in place yet.

By this stage there is a date that they are working toward all going well.
iamthouth has done an excellent job sleuthing.

[Engineering]

They have stated that 8700 out of 11000 hours of required testing is done, with the next stage being trial running.

A typical weekday schedule is about 170 (one way) trips, and with the journey from Tallawong to Sydenham being about an hour, a complete day simulation would therefor represent about 340 hours of testing (does not include stabling times), so 7 full days of trial running would basically complete those 11000 hours.

Of course, I am sure the trial running would be more than just Tallawong to Sydenham runs, and they might need/want to simulate partial closedowns, emergencies etc etc, that would alter those calculations.

[boronia]

Or when it is ready, doubt there is a definitive date in place yet.

The stations might be ready, but will the building structures above them be finished? Seems like still a lot of work to be done at ground level and above at the CBD stations.

[Linto63]

Crows Nest appears complete, but there is still building go on around it. The northern entrance to Victoria Cross appears ready to go with signs and barriers in place. But at the southern end, concrete pours were still occurring a few weeks ago. The target date was quoted by the transport minister as middle of the year as recently as last week, so this could still be 4 to 5 months away.

[moa999]

From the open day, appeared the southern entrance needed a bridge/roof constructed to Miller St over the Denison St level below.

[swtt]

Amid all of the discussions about metro extension to Bankstown, what seems to be far less discussed are the bus changes associated with metro extending into the City.

One of such that comes to mind: will routes like 288 be curtailed and more local route options provided to connect to former ECRL stations?

[iamthouth]

Also keen to find this out. Is this government controversial or courageous? Or keeping the status quo?

[Aurora]

There should be some room for rationalisation which would help provide an albeit small reduction in driver requirements in the area.

[pgt]

Amid all of the discussions about metro extension to Bankstown, what seems to be far less discussed are the bus changes associated with metro extending into the City.

One of such that comes to mind: will routes like 288 be curtailed and more local route options provided to connect to former ECRL stations?

As somebody who uses bus routes that more or less runs parallel to part of the new metro route, I'm curious as well (Pacific Highway routes).

They already cut back a number of the routes entering the city when the light rail went in, initially for space reasons (since they wanted to minimise the number of buses entering the city), but they never reinstated them afterwards.
The 252 [outside of AM/PM peak], 320 , 115, 261 [plus 290 as an early morning/late night service] are the ones that pass (near) Crows Nest and Victoria Cross stations and enter the city [well at least cross the harbour]. Services down Miller St like the 207 would fall into any similar review as well as they did last time.

I suspect route 320 would be the one that sees a change (even a split) given the route it takes does indeed run almost parallel to the new metro line between Crows Nest and Central and at a stretch, may be considered "near" the Waterloo metro site as well (knowing how some transport planners think).

Another area of possible change is in the Hills district... seem to recall that any change to M2 bus routes would only happen after the north-west metro reached the city, which would be with this stage opening.
My guess is a somewhat larger reorganisation of bus routes across multiple areas would happen after the metro opening.

[moa999]

261 is an interesting one given it currently goes River - Shirley - Pac Hwy.
Particularly city bound it's nearest stop is a few blocks away from the new station.

Not sure if many options for rerouting either given the terrain.

[boronia]

Aren't some of the Hills district express services to the City likely to be cut back? Weren't some only kept running after the first stage opened due to the longer travel times involved with changing at Chatswood?

[pgt]

261 is an interesting one given it currently goes River - Shirley - Pac Hwy.
Particularly city bound it's nearest stop is a few blocks away from the new station.

Not sure if many options for rerouting either given the terrain.

At most, they do something like what happened with the 254 and 290 [which turned into the 291 during the day] and send it somewhere else other than the city - in the case of those routes, to McMahon's Point (in the somewhat misguided belief that people would use the ferry, which costs more... it's useful in a way, but far slower than the direct bus, especially if you miss the ferry connection).

Unless there's some underlying political issue, since it was an ex-North & Western route, which some of those managed to stay on for ages without many changes.

Aren't some of the Hills district express services to the City likely to be cut back? Weren't some only kept running after the first stage opened due to the longer travel times involved with changing at Chatswood?

I'd guess services like the 610X and 607X might get cut back in due course, and possibly some of the other M2 services rerouted/shuffled around.
A few of them did indeed get cut or rerouted from memory back when it opened - mostly the ones that didn't use the Lane Cove Tunnel (only the 622 survived and routes via Lane Cove/Epping Road still) and/or went to Chatswood (627/628).

[Stu]

There is a proposal for the current route 320 to be modified into a rapid route and operate between Mascot and North Sydney.

TfNSW.
Have Your Say on the On-street Transit Bus and Light Rail Network.

https://hdp-au-prod-app-nsw-haveyoursa ... _DIGI2.pdf

[tonyp]

There is a proposal for the current route 320 to be modified into a rapid route and operate between Mascot and North Sydney.

TfNSW.
Have Your Say on the On-street Transit Bus and Light Rail Network.

https://hdp-au-prod-app-nsw-haveyoursa ... _DIGI2.pdf

It's difficult to imagine a route being "rapid" without a dedicated bus lane, if not ROW.

Omissions that really stand out on that map are the lack of connections between Parramatta and WSI/Bradfield and between NW Metro and WS Metro at St Marys. Yet there are generous connections between SW Sydney and WSI/Bradfield. It's like there are no direct public transport connections to at least half the airporr's market, at least until the metro network is filled out. Parramatta in particular is the airport's major city and would be a major source of business traffic.

Obviously they expect Parramatta to train to St Marys, then train to WSI and the NW to sit out a slow, meandering bus via Penrith. Pretty poor.