2018 draft timetable changes obtained by ABC

[simonl]

The point being that not all of the people who would be changing at Central, would be headed for platform 16.

I thought a lot of people changed at Redfern because the walk was shorter from platform 1 to platform 3 or 5.

Also to avoid the sluggish run from Redfern #1 to central 4-15

[grog]

Well we'll see how acceptable people find it.

Those who will complain loudest will be those west of St Marys and those at stations between Parramatta and the CBD that will lose fast service (such as Burwood) - just like passengers from Rockdale, Kogarah, Berala and Regents Park before them.

[neilrex]

I don't know what you were looking at, but the stations west of St Mary's appear to be getting the same fast service they get in the morning now.

The St Mary's trains will service Rooty Hill and Doonside and the St Marys and Richmond trains will service Toongabbie and Pendle Hills and Wentworthville. That is the same as what happens now.

[grog]

The stations west of St Marys as in Emu Plains, Penrith, Kingswood, Werrington - who are all serviced by Sydney Terminal services (looking at the PM peak since only the down timetable seems to be included for the Western Line)

[neilrex]

Fairly dodgy news story at ABC http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/w ... ut/8442164

claiming that western suburbs trains will be cut in favour of "the north shore", which apparently means Eastwood and Rhodes.

Why do you say 'dodgy' ?

Well they make a lot of strange claims.

They claim there is 11 trains from Penrith in the 7-8 AM hour, and there is actually 10.

They seem to be confused about where the North Shore is, and the difference between the North Shore Line and the Northern Line.

They have published this partly unreadable document with the supposed timetable proposals, and somehow left out the pages which would contain the timetable for the T1 western line towards the CBD entirely.

They say that services from Penrith, Werrington and Kingwood might be cut, which is probably actually true, although that is unspecific about whether it referring to capacity or frequency. Additional services from St Marys and elimination of some intermediate stops for the Penrith services would negate the capacity issue, although not the frequency issue. Werrington and Kingswood would go from 6 services an hour to 4, which is hardly a disaster, and better than many suburbs much closer in, and with more units, get.

The total number of trains from Blacktown towards the CBD will be increased, not cut, as they imply. What is cut is trains from "west towards north", which means that some trains will terminate at Central instead of North Sydney or Hornsby. This will certainly cause some congestion and annoyance for some passengers, but it doesn't mean more overcrowding on trains from the western suburbs to the CBD. There will be more trains from the western suburbs towards the CBD, not fewer.

They claim that Penrith currently has 11 high speed trains towards central between 7 AM and 8 AM. There are 10, not 11, in the current timetable.

The ABC also claim that Penrith will lose 4 of those 11 trains in the 2018 plan. So, seven then ? The 2018 plan is apparently the plan applicable to the Macquarie Park line closure - although it is difficult to see how any changes for that closure won't effectively be permanent afterwards, at least as far as T1 is concerned, until the Bankstown line is also closed, and who knows when that will be. Yet, none of the versions of the plan show as few as 7 peak hour trains from Penrith. They all seem to show at least 8.

So that is in actuality a reduction from 10 to 8. Not from 11 to 7. Looks a bit dodgy to me.

"From 2018 on, Penrith's peak-hour travellers may lose direct access to Town Hall, Wynyard and the North Shore, with train services instead terminating at Central.
Passengers would need to change trains to continue into the city and north, something that could increase journey times and station congestion."

Possibly true for Penrith, not necessarily for other stations on that line.

The comments about the northern line seem to be misleading. They are talking about 5 limited stops trains on the lower northern line "departing from Epping". It appears that those will be the services from Hornsby via Thornleigh, and the trains departing from Epping will be the all-stops-to-Strathfield ones.

The basis of their claims that trains from Liverpool will take 10 minutes more, are not obvious to me, although I haven't looked at it so closely. Does anyone know where this claim comes from ? It's hard to see how any of the routes from Liverpool could take ten minutes more than they already do.

"He suggested the motivation behind Penrith's modelled loss of services could be to help the Northern Line cope with additional demand, created by re-routed trains."" There are fewer trains to actual Penrith, but more on the Western line when the additional St Mary's trains are added in. It is more self-evident when considering outbound services, but terminating some of the outbound trains short and reversing them, makes more sense than sending trains which are only 15% full all of the way to the end of the line, particularly when the end of the line is not some huge metropolis constituting most of the demand for the line. I re-iterate, the proposals actually have more capacity than currently exists running on the western line, everywhere except for the 3 stations at the end of the line.

Let's not forget that there are a substantial number of users travelling within the western suburbs, and many of them have to change. More predictable stopping patterns and intervals between services should be an objective, compared to the confusing and random timetable that currently exists.

""On some lines there are actually proposals for fewer peak hour services from Penrith to St Marys, Epping to the CBD, from Berowra to Hornsby, and from Hornsby to Lindfield," he said." Some of this is true, although I suspect some of it isn't. There is nothing wrong with having fewer trains where there are fewer people. It would be ridiculous, for example, to have every north shore line train extend to Berowra. It's not as if they have a bad service, in peak hour there are 2 suburban trains and at least 3 interurban trains servicing Berowra, that is more than place with lots of units like Roseville and Pymble get currently, and they are also fast, limited-stop services, unlike what Roseville or Pymble get.

The plan for the Northern line seems to involve all of the stations getting 5 trains an hour, and Epping, Eastwood, West Ryde and Rhodes getting 10 suburban line trains an hour. For 99% of the passengers on both parts of the Northern line, that looks like a 25% improvement on what they getting now. I think Denistone loses one peak hour train. Big deal ! Five trains an hour is still more than adequate, almost turn up and go.

And since when is West Ryde "the North Shore"?

There may, or may not, be a reduction in actual trains running on the line between Hornsby and Lindfield, but the actual change in service level and capacity to the stations along that section depend very much on how the current un-popular skipping pattern is modified. Cutting the number of trains from 14 to 12 between Hornsby and Lindfield may be a reduction in trains, but if it means that 6 trains an hour stop at Pymble instead of 4, that is actually a service improvement.

It would be good if the re-introduction of starting AM peak trains at Lindfield would mean that passengers from Mt Colah or Turramurra could speed up their trip by skipping Artarmon or Wollstonecraft, as they used to in the good old days, but that probably won't happen.

So overall, a lot of that article on the abc website looks dodgy to me.

[neilrex]

quote from ABC "From 2018 on, Penrith's peak-hour travellers may lose direct access to Town Hall, Wynyard and the North Shore, with train services instead terminating at Central.
Passengers would need to change trains to continue into the city and north, something that could increase journey times and station congestion."
""

'When I have been at Penrith, I haven't noticed a great lack of enthusiasm among the people there for catching the mountains trains, when they can get on them. Having to change at Central currently, does not seem to deter them.

[grog]

The basis of their claims that trains from Liverpool will take 10 minutes more, are not obvious to me, although I haven't looked at it so closely. Does anyone know where this claim comes from ? It's hard to see how any of the routes from Liverpool could take ten minutes more than they already do.

This is true to an extent. Currently there are 12 trains in the peak from Liverpool to CBD. 4tph limited stops via Bankstown (58 minutes to Central), 4tph all stations to Strathfield, Ashfield, Redfern, City (54 minutes to Central) and 4tph limited stops via Granville (49-50 minutes).

In the 2018 draft timetable this becomes 10tph total. 6tph via Granville (58-60 minutes), 2tph most stops via Bankstown (58 minutes) and 2tph express via Bankstown (48 minutes).

[Linto63]

I thought a lot of people changed at Redfern because the walk was shorter from platform 1 to platform 3 or 5.

Probably was a bit short sited not to replace the bridge at the southern end of Redfern when it became life expired in the late 80s with the number of people now accessing the Australian Technology Park and interchanging.

[neilrex]

The Cumberland line looks pretty grim. Only 2 trains an hour into Parramatta, and no service from Campbelltown, so you change at Glenfield maybe waiting 28 for another train. No wonder cars are so popular.

[Newcastle Flyer]

1 Would ABC know that the times in brackets are passing times?
2 More than some of the Down services are missing.

[Frosty]

Well people from Liverpool could alternatively travel to Glenfield and catch a Airport Line express service via Wolli Creek or Sydenham. I would be reluctant to interchange at Redfern due to the fact the stairs are only at the north end inconvenient for anyone in the rear or middle of the train or people needing to exit at like Town Hall who use the southern exits.

They could always get some North Shore trains to skip Waverton and Wollstonecraft like on the T4 Line many trains skip Sydenham and Tempe they simply timetable them to take the same time.

Sydney Trains and TfNSW should look at maybe trying to get 22tph out of Bondi Jn terminus maybe if they install high capacity signalling between Wolli and BJ its possible.

Looking at they are extending the Homebush starters I read somewhere on SMH that these trains are pretty full already could be concerning for inner city stations like Stanmore and Newtown people might not be able to board to due trains being so full from down the line. But at least these areas are currently pretty well served by STA bus services to the City. Noticed also on the T2 could like East Hills and Panania might lose 2 trains that run via the Airport in the morning.

For the T2 Airport Line currently there is a really huge restriction that some Campbelltown/Macarthur trains stop at Riverwood and Padstow but this problematic as it stuck between a stopping all stations. Ideally it would be best if the local tracks were used for only all stops trains but Riverwood and Padstow would loose the fast services to the City. I was thinking it could possible to only have 2 stopping patterns on the Airport Line instead of 4 currently. Abolition via Sydenham and Riverwood and Padstow loose fast trains.

[Transtopic]

I haven't got the time or patience to analyse the supposed draft timetable in detail, but with the caveat that this is unlikely to be the final version, am I correct in noting that Newcastle/Central Coast Intercity services will no longer stop at Eastwood, only at Epping between Hornsby and Strathfield? There's currently 10tph from Eastwood in the morning peak; 4 all-stations from Epping to the North Shore via Strathfield, 2 semi-express from Epping and 4 Intercity to Sydney Terminal. Perhaps the intent is that the proposed 10tph from Eastwood, with 5 all-stations and 5 semi-express services all through the CBD to the North Shore, will compensate for the loss of the Intercity services. One of the negative impacts of this, is that there will no longer be a direct interchange with the Route 515 STA bus service to the CBD via the Victoria Rd corridor, which isn't available from Epping. There's also interchange connections with bus services to Parramatta and Auburn. This could all change if the light rail route from Macquarie Park to Parramatta via Eastwood is adopted, which is still a possibility. After all, it was Parramatta Council's preferred route in its original feasibility study. But that's another story.

With regard to neilrex's comment about commuters at Penrith not lacking enthusiasm to get on board Blue Mountains Intercity trains to Sydney Terminal, the same could be said for commuters at Epping and Eastwood catching Newcastle/Central Coast Intercity services. Although I'm now retired, on the occasions that I travel into the CBD, I prefer to catch the faster Intercity service, although I still may need to change at Central to continue into the northern CBD. In fact, going back to the era of the U-boats, it was always a popular service from Eastwood in my younger days.

[Newcastle Flyer]

This is IF THIS draft timetable is to be used

am I correct in noting that Newcastle/Central Coast Intercity services will no longer stop at Eastwood, only at Epping between Hornsby and Strathfield?

From what I see, unfortunately not. I did a PDF, & it seems the trains that do miss Eastwood now ARE going to stop at Eastwood . That's how I read it, but I'll double check that.

But this draft is three years old, & seems to have some issues with it.

Newcastle, Civic & Wickham? (See page 28): Hamilton/Wickham to Central. Of note is that it seems as a few UP Hamilton/Wickham to Central trains in the morning peak hour will be cut, or be a shortened trip. EG: The 06:07am Hamilton to Gosford, that continues to Penrith via the North Shore, according to that timetable, will start from Gosford instead of Hamilton.

And some other similar trains in the morning peak hour on the same line may be cut.

Also note that the maps & the times show Leppington --> City Circle via Bankstown.

PS: Since when do timetables have seconds included? Usually station stops, unless advertised are 15 - 20 seconds, while it's only 10 seconds, a lot of stop times have been increased to 30 seconds. May only be 10 sec each stop, but does add up.

[boronia]

With regard to neilrex's comment about commuters at Penrith not lacking enthusiasm to get on board Blue Mountains Intercity trains to Sydney Terminal, the same could be said for commuters at Epping and Eastwood catching Newcastle/Central Coast Intercity services. Although I'm now retired, on the occasions that I travel into the CBD, I prefer to catch the faster Intercity service, although I still may need to change at Central to continue into the northern CBD. In fact, going back to the era of the U-boats, it was always a popular service from Eastwood in my younger days.

There is nothing wrong with this. If there are vacant seats at Penrith, why shouldn't local commuters be allowed to use them. If they need to stand, that is their problem. Different scenario to down services where long distance travellers may lose seats to the suburban passengers for that part of the journey.

[Frosty]

Well on the outbound on the SCO Line during off-peak periods particularly on weekends many SCO trains are pick up only between Redfern and Helensburgh. This probably work pretty well but only because the T4 Line runs 6tph between the City and Sutherland. I'm pretty sure there is not set down only conditions coming into the City.

[boronia]

But smart travelers know where these "first stop Helensburgh" trains stop to pick up, and still get off there. I doubt the restrictions are policed much.

But my previous comments apply to these UP services. SCO passengers have their seats by the time trains get to Waterfall, so there is no loss of amenity if extra passengers get on.

[Aurora]

PS: Since when do timetables have seconds included? Usually station stops, unless advertised are 15 - 20 seconds, while it's only 10 seconds, a lot of stop times have been increased to 30 seconds. May only be 10 sec each stop, but does add up.

Timetables are built to seconds. They are rounded for public consumption.

[Newcastle Flyer]

Timetables are built to seconds. They are rounded for public consumption.

That means that the WTT's must also be rounded to the nearest minute (Yes, we know, they use to half minutes in timetables)

But would you call it a draft timetable for next year? (EG: Bankstown, Newcastle to Wickham, etc)

[Linto63]

But smart travelers know where these "first stop Helensburgh" trains stop to pick up, and still get off there. I doubt the restrictions are policed much.

But my previous comments apply to these UP services. SCO passengers have their seats by the time trains get to Waterfall, so there is no loss of amenity if extra passengers get on.

Not really an issue on inbound services, if trains are standing room only from Waterfall passengers do have the option of catching the all shacks. More of an issue on outbound services with SCO passengers having to stand until services empty out at Sutherland and Waterfall.

Services are (or at least were) marked in timetables as set down and pick up only in timetables, but in reality it isn't policed and even with the increased level of ticket checks, all the Opal readers are looking for is that a card has been tapped on.

[neilrex]

Looking at they are extending the Homebush starters I read somewhere on SMH that these trains are pretty full already could be concerning for inner city stations like Stanmore and Newtown people might not be able to board to due trains being so full from down the line. But at least these areas are currently pretty well served by STA bus services to the City. .

The "inner west line" used to only have 2 trains an hour in peak hour. The diagram for 2019 shows 14 trains inbound from Ashfield, 6 from Parramatta, 2 from Leppington, 4 from Liverpool and 2 from Ashfield. I don't know what sort of skipping pattern they can use to speed things up along there. But it doesn't really sound like people won't be able to get onto trains at Stanmore.

If I lived at Auburn, I would not be too happy about that scheme.

Actually, I do know what sort of skipping pattern. You'd need to have something along the lines of having all trains stopping at every alternate station. There would be no point in skipping more than one station at a time, because the train would very soon come up against red signals caused by the train in front of them. That sort of scheme speeds up all trains somewhat, rather than trying to have separate "all stops" and "limited stops" trains. It does make local trips of 1 or 3 or 5 stops problematical, though.

[Linto63]

Currently the Leppington service calling at Ashfield departs Redfern 12 minutes after the all stops and is scheduled to arrive at Strathfield 3 minutes behind it. Presumably this is why the all stops now terminates at Homebush rather than continuing to Flemington and Lidcombe and then onto Bankstown as it used to. Although I am guessing it was decided to have T2 services terminate at Homebush and T3 at Lidcombe to build in some recovery time to improve timetable robustness, otherwise the Leppingtons could be slowed by adding a stop at Burwood.

[neilrex]

Well that is quite so. The scheme of operating all stops trains to Homebush, and trains to Liverpool ( or wherever ), which are limited stops to Strathfield, only works if you are only running 8 trains an hour. If you are running 8 trains an hour, then the limited-stops service can leave Central 3 minutes before the all-stops service, and go faster, and arrive at Strathfield only a few minutes behind the preceding all-stops service.

But that only works with 8 trains an hour. Any more than 8, and it doesn't work any more. According to the diagrams at the end of the document which the ABC published yesterday, they are planning to have 14 trains an hour on that line during the morning peak.

There are alternative things which you could do. If one of the aims is a quicker route to Liverpool, then an obvious possibility is using the shorter route from Cabramatta to Lidcombe. The low number of trains between Cabramatta and Sefton would make it possible to alternate all-stops and non-stop trains on that line. For example, you could 3 trains an hour Liverpool to Parramatta, 3 trains an hour Liverpool to city via Granville, 3 trains an hour Liverpool to City via Regents Park, and 6 trains an hour Parramatta to city stopping at most stops. That would be 12 trains an hour between Strathfield and the city plus 2 more from Ashfield if there was a useful need for that.

The proposal seems to have 35 train an hour towards the city on the two fast ( or faster ) lines from Strathfield.
That is 5 from the mountains, 5 from Penrith, 5 from St Marys, 5 from Richmond, 5 from Epping, 5 from Hornsby and 5 from Gosford/Newcastle. 35.

Of which the mountains, Penrith and Gosford trains ( that's 15 trains ) go to Central 1-15 and the other 20 go to platform 16.

I wonder how the inhabitants of Liverpool would like to have three fast trains in peak hour, running to Sydney terminal stopping only at Warwick Farm, Cabramatta, Sefton ( so people can change from all-stops train preceding ), Lidcombe, Strathfield and Central.

You have the advantage, with that sort of idea, that there are two platforms 1 and 2 at Strathfield both feeding into the same line to Sydney terminal. That helps with the timing. Also, it doesn't really matter if two trains run out of order from there.

[Aurora]

But would you call it a draft timetable for next year? (EG: Bankstown, Newcastle to Wickham, etc)

It is outdated. There are certain things which will happen and others that won't. For example, Homebush starters extending to Parramatta yes, T5 Cumberland Line terminating at Parramatta no.

[grog]

What makes you think that Cumberland line trains won't terminate at Parramatta? The Parramatta Turnback project allows both platform 3 and 4 to be used to turnback trains, as well as allowing both of the tracks to the west of the station to be used as turnback tracks. Running through services would complicate that, as well as breaking what looks to finally be full segregation between T1 and T2.

My money is on Cumberland line running Leppington to Parramatta.

[simonl]

Pretty sure that is already possible, terminating at Parramatta and turning back towards Harris Park. What are they changing?