Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Merc1107 »

tonyp wrote:There's a hell of a long way between doors on the trams. I haven't been on IWLR in the big crowds that are common as I understand, but the lack of doors must make these CAFs as dysfunctional as a Sydney bus. Truly dumb decision to delete doors.

I was riding uncrowded Saturday afternoon services but it was still popular. Dwells were in the range of 5 to 15 seconds and recharge time was as expected in the range 40 to 55 seconds, so the recharges added about two to 2.5 minutes to each journey over and above the passenger exchange time. Really dumb technology.

Traffic light priority is excellent. The trams are slow but not a great issue on this service. You wouldn't want to be rushing for a train, between this slowness and the recharges, you'd have apoplexy - but let's face it, no worse than our buses are run.
I won't for a moment suggest the line shouldn't have been built, or be ripped up, but what you report here makes me wonder - would buses 'run properly' (i.e. low-floor, all-door boarding, good priority measures) perform better than the technology currently used on the Newcastle light rail?

Presumably the dwells for recharging leave a lot of people wondering why on earth nobody is boarding or alighting, and yet they're still waiting around... If this sort of delay caused you to just miss a train you'd likely be infuriated with what seems like pointless waiting about. Perhaps in time newer technology will alleviate this problem.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Swift »

Simple solution. Do away with this under developed technology and back to proven standard catenary. Let the makers use a testing ground to get it right instead of guinea pigging the public.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

tonyp wrote:
There's a hell of a long way between doors on the trams. I haven't been on IWLR in the big crowds that are common as I understand, but the lack of doors must make these CAFs as dysfunctional as a Sydney bus. Truly dumb decision to delete doors.
I’d love to know why the NSW Coalition Government has such a huge thing for the CAF Urbos tram? Inner West Light Rail, Newcastle Light Rail, and now the Parramatta Light Rail too. I don’t like the (lack of) seats, the front/end car is very awkward and tight to move through, the windows no one can see out of (thanks adwrap), only one door per car (funnily the now defunct CAF II had two doors per car) and less important, an almost non-existent engine sound. Just what is so great about this tram again?

In contrast I recently got back from Melbourne, and wow can I say, the Bombardier E Class (arguably Victoria’s counterpart of CAF Urbos) is truely a tram I could feel proud of over the long term, ticks so many boxes, including being locally built.

I’m actually glad Sydney’s Light Rail will have Citadises, finally something new and different
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by moa999 »

As described above, plenty of ways to specify the Urbos 3 platform.

Lots of other cities have more doors.

Google "CAF Urbos 3" and press Images.
Lots of better looking front designs as well.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by tonyp »

Yes the doors thing is down to TfNSW. Like buses, trams have design options that the client can choose from. TfNSW deleted doors from the standard spec for the tram. Ironically, the Newcastle tram is designed as a standee tram for carrying big crowds of people. Like TfNSW's buses and trains (metro excepted), people will clump around the few doors available because they're worried about not being able to get off when their stop comes. Thus the vehicle won't fully fill. TfNSW doesn't have much of a clue about the science of public transport.

Replacing the Newcastle line with articulated buses - one tram has the capacity of two articulated buses. Buses will never be able to provide the capacity for future growth that trams can, plus they cost more to run.

The power supply - it doesn't need a more modern solution, it needs to go back to the previous proven and cost-effective solution. The only viable, cost-effective alternative at present is in-motion charging.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Swift »

Or steam.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by boronia »

Perhaps the lack of doors was a deliberate decision in this case? With the long dwell for recharging, they want the boarding times to be as long as possible, to reduce the WTF gap?
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by tonyp »

I have posted some photos of my trip on the Sydney NSW photo section of the forum.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by mandonov »

Newcastle's trams were procured from IWLR options with a slight change in spec for the capacitors, surfboard, and luggage racks which are fairly modular additions. A change to the door spec would have delayed things. Also note that Canberra has the exact same door placement (as do a few other cities like Budapest), so I'd say this door arrangement is a standard option that well-informed agencies would alter or avoid.

A popular option you see from other cities that use Urbos 3's is the bogie-less module having two doors and one seating area compared to our one door and two seating areas. This is exactly what the Citadis in Sydney have and is why they have double the doors than the Urbos in an equivalent length.
See Birmingham, UK (https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/sin ... -tram.html); and Zaragoza, Spain (https://www.theurbanist.org/2018/04/22/ ... os-3-tram/) as examples of Urbos 3's in this config.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by moa999 »

Like most forms of transport it's a trade-off between usability and seating capacity.

To add doors you are generally deleting seats (eg. Buses or the Triple door RER-A trains vs Sydney double deck trains)

On lines where the greatest load/unload requirement is at the termini (Central on the IWLR and Newcastle Intg, it is more acceptable.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by mandonov »

It's not acceptable at all for high turnover routes like IWLR, and is especially poor when you need to disgorge then board a full tram of 250 people and expect to turnaround quickly.

The Urbos 3 in our configuration has one double door per 11 metres which is about half the amount of doors a standard Sydney bus has.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by tonyp »

A desirable door to length ratio for any type of vehicle in high intensity, high turnover work is one double leaf door per 5 metres. Because trams by their very nature are invariably up to their necks in such work, this is the door ratio they should have and this standard is what you see on the Sydney Citadis. I suspect that some people in TfNSW still carry on with the old Sydney thinking of maximising seating, because many if not most PT journeys over the years were single-seat journeys way out into the suburbs in slow trains and buses.

TfNSW would know that this is changing and they are of course involved in implementing this very change. However, the people involved in procuring vehicles (left hand vs right hand?) don't seem to have caught up with this change and are churning up the same type of relatively door-less (or at least under-specified for the job) vehicles that they have been for years. Particularly obvious with buses; double deck trains there's not much choice because of the gondola; and trams they just thought along the same lines nearly a decade ago.

I feel that Alstom in particular, but possibly other parties too, prevailed upon TfNSW regarding the door provision in the CSELR trams and the Sydney metro trains. The CAFs are most likely just caught up in an unwillingness to make changes in extensions of the original contract and Canberra has simply been "me too" without any hard thinking (what would you expect of an agency that buys single-door buses and artics with mostly high floors?!).

The Budapest trams have pretty constant turnover all along their route and there aren't any hugely concentrated passenger exchanges at single points like we get in Sydney, as I understand. The sheer volumes of people at points like Central and stops through Darling Harbour/Pyrmont demand a full complement of doors. The other thing about the Newcastle trams is that a seats vs doors argument doesn't really hold up, because the trams are clearly designed as standee vehicles and are relatively seat-poor.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Fleet Lists »

Fleet Lists wrote:There seems to be some confusion about this stop as Transport Info shows it as being in use on routes 24 and 47 until 18/2 the date the Light Rail starts. https://transportnsw.info/stop?q=10101165#/ which also covers stop 229336
As far as rail replacement is concerned we will just have to wait and see what happens.
This week for rail replacement stop 230253 at King St near National Park St is shown in timetables. https://transportnsw.info/routes/detail ... /1hu/011HU
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Scott4570 »

Thursday, March 14, a notice was displayed at Newcastle Interchange, stating that the Light Rail service would be suspended after 11pm on that date, due to the delivery of a Tram Car.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by tonyp »

From SCF (and with thanks to mandonov too):

Figures have been released that show that there were 120,000 trips on the Newcastle line in March, that's an average of about 4,000 a day. TfNSW projected 2,500 trips a day. In March the entire Newcastle bus network carried about 450,000. So the tram saw more than a quarter of the number of trips in the same month as on the entire Newcastle bus network.
Last edited by tonyp on Sun Apr 21, 2019 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Swift »

You're comparing two different types of figures Tony!
Amount of people compared to trips.
But we all knew this would be more popular than the cool group in high school! Just by how much. Naysayers just make themselves look dumber each time.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by tonyp »

Swift wrote:You're comparing two different types of figures Tony!
Amount of people compared to trips.
But we all knew this would be more popular than the cool group in high school! Just by how much. Naysayers just make themselves look dumber each time.
Sorry editing glitch - fixed.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by neilrex »

Queens Wharf to Cardiff station:

By (old) train, 28 minutes ( including walking )

By tram and train, 62 minutes. MORE THAN DOUBLE. No wonder so many people still drink and drive.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by neilrex »

I also got around to looking up the transport planner for tram and train to Maitland on a Sunday evening.

The transport planner claims it is a 2-minute walk from the tram-stop to the Maitland train departure. The Maitland train
is scheduled to depart 2 minutes after the schedule tram arrival time. Seamless ! That is better than the obligatory 29 minutes waiting
on the tram platform for the CCN line train . But not much better ! You better run, knock old ladies out of the way, forget about having a slash, hope the tram is on time to the minute, and hope that the last traffic light before the tram stop is green ! Sounds like another recipe for grief and aggravation.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

This bus zone near the Nobby's Beach roundabout/Fort Drive has been around for ages. Wouldn't it be logical if it was made a passenger bus stop for Keolis Downer's route 21, especially since a lot of people go to Nobbys Beach?

All the council would need to do, is add a bus stop sign at a safe spot on the other side.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by Swift »

neilrex wrote:

is scheduled to depart 2 minutes after the schedule tram arrival time. Seamless ! That is better than the obligatory 29 minutes waiting
on the tram platform for the CCN line train . But not much better ! You better run, knock old ladies out of the way, forget about having a slash, hope the tram is on time to the minute, and hope that the last traffic light before the tram stop is green ! Sounds like another recipe for grief and aggravation.
At least the 29 minutes will allow you to avoid stress and sit on the loo and read a paper and relax. :lol:
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by BroadGauge »

neilrex wrote:The transport planner claims it is a 2-minute walk from the tram-stop to the Maitland train departure. The Maitland train
is scheduled to depart 2 minutes after the schedule tram arrival time. Seamless ! That is better than the obligatory 29 minutes waiting
on the tram platform for the CCN line train . But not much better ! You better run, knock old ladies out of the way, forget about having a slash, hope the tram is on time to the minute, and hope that the last traffic light before the tram stop is green ! Sounds like another recipe for grief and aggravation.
It's not as if those connections are poor to make up for perfect connections in the other direction, which are in the range of about 15-20 minutes of waiting for the tram :twisted:
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

Got off a Hunter train today that was parked in front of a H-Set Train at the Interchange so that added on a little extra walking time, as soon as I made it to the rear of the Light-rail car it closed its doors. I probably would've made it on if the Opal reader wasn't another two cars down and the train didn't park where it parked. Either it leaving as soon as a train pulling in is poor or the location of the Opal pole at the Interchange is poor. It was going to be a 7 minutes for the next one but I had plenty of time to spare and didn't feel like sitting and waiting so just walked down to Honeysuckle and had 2 minutes to spare from there.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by neilrex »

Merc1107 wrote:Presumably the dwells for recharging leave a lot of people wondering why on earth nobody is boarding or alighting, and yet they're still waiting around... If this sort of delay caused you to just miss a train you'd likely be infuriated with what seems like pointless waiting about. Perhaps in time newer technology will alleviate this problem.
Never mind the electrical system, it is the timetable, by intentional design, which will cause you to just miss the train.
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Re: Newcastle light rail, renewal & integrated transport

Post by boronia »

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