NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

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andy_centralcoast
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by andy_centralcoast »

Some stations don't yet have "Newcastle Interchange" in the DVA, so the audio just plays: "The train on platform 3 goes to. First stop" at the start, and at the end we get: "Broadmeadow, Hamilton, and"
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Stonesourscotty »

T20 has been heavily graffitied and T93 has been heavily etched
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

In addition to today’s track work, about every second/other remaining service on T1 North Shore has been “cancelled for today.” No explanation (or even apology), nothing. I don’t even know why they bother. Should’ve just replaced the entire T1 with buses if that’s more reliable.

At Gordon now and as a result of a cancelled train, having to wait 30 minutes for the next one + replacement buses funnelling everyone into the station it’s staring to look hazardous as Town Hall during peak. And similarly, coming up to Gordon, whoopsy do, that ones cancelled as well! :lol:
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Aurora »

Jurassic_Joke wrote:In addition to today’s track work, about every second/other remaining service on T1 North Shore has been “cancelled for today.” No explanation (or even apology), nothing. I don’t even know why they bother. Should’ve just replaced the entire T1 with buses if that’s more reliable.

At Gordon now and as a result of a cancelled train, having to wait 30 minutes for the next one + replacement buses funnelling everyone into the station it’s staring to look hazardous as Town Hall during peak. And similarly, coming up to Gordon, whoopsy do, that ones cancelled as well! :lol:
Some cancellations between Nth Sydney to Gordon to Nth Sydney due to a person on the track near Blacktown causing major delays.
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rogf24
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by rogf24 »

An American working in Sydney "reviews" one of Sydney's rail replacement buses. Just something that's interesting.

On the Replacement Bus (or Hot, Jerky, and Crowded).
https://transportist.org/2017/10/28/on- ... d-crowded/
tonyp
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by tonyp »

rogf24 wrote:An American working in Sydney "reviews" one of Sydney's rail replacement buses. Just something that's interesting.

On the Replacement Bus (or Hot, Jerky, and Crowded).
https://transportist.org/2017/10/28/on- ... d-crowded/
Were they State Transit or private buses?

I noticed when in Prague that substitution bus services had a lane separated by cones (and sometimes supervised by police) through areas of heavy traffic. Of course the political culture in Sydney would not allow any slight inconvenience to private motorists.

TripAdvisor has a lot of revews of public transport in cities around the world. Sydney buses in general don't get very flattering reviews!
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote:I noticed when in Prague that substitution bus services had a lane separated by cones (and sometimes supervised by police) through areas of heavy traffic. Of course the political culture in Sydney would not allow any slight inconvenience to private motorists.!
Not to mention the chaos such a move would create. So when the north shore line is closed for maintenance, 1 of the 2 Pacific Highway lanes should be declared a bus lane? Dream on.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by 745-Castle Hill »

tonyp wrote:
rogf24 wrote:An American working in Sydney "reviews" one of Sydney's rail replacement buses. Just something that's interesting.

On the Replacement Bus (or Hot, Jerky, and Crowded).
https://transportist.org/2017/10/28/on- ... d-crowded/
Were they State Transit or private buses?

I noticed when in Prague that substitution bus services had a lane separated by cones (and sometimes supervised by police) through areas of heavy traffic. Of course the political culture in Sydney would not allow any slight inconvenience to private motorists.

TripAdvisor has a lot of revews of public transport in cities around the world. Sydney buses in general don't get very flattering reviews!
Privates operate the T1 Northern Line tail replacement contract. Most likely Transdev. Possibly Hillsbus or Punchbowl or a combination. Political culture has nothing to do with making a lane bus only for trackwork, what a stupid comment. It’s Sydney’s roads themselves which cannot accomodate for closing an entire lane. Maybe we should have some sort of tram line on these roads for such a replacement? Or do whatever the hell Perth does!
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by tonyp »

Linto63 wrote:Not to mention the chaos such a move would create. So when the north shore line is closed for maintenance, 1 of the 2 Pacific Highway lanes should be declared a bus lane? Dream on.
745-Castle Hill wrote:Political culture has nothing to do with making a lane bus only for trackwork, what a stupid comment. It’s Sydney’s roads themselves which cannot accomodate for closing an entire lane. Maybe we should have some sort of tram line on these roads for such a replacement? Or do whatever the hell Perth does!
You think they don't have the same volumes of traffic or road widths in Europe? It's the different political culture that prioritises public transport rather than apologetically subordinating it to fit in around car traffic. You're both just swallowing the assumption that you can't constrain car traffic in any way, as if all those car drivers have no alternative. That's selling-out on the case for public transport.

If you're seriously interested in public transport you need to have the intestinal fortitude for it, support it and not apologise for it.
tonyp
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by tonyp »

Here's a major rail substitution in Prague with a mixture of normal running where uncongested, sharing of tram lanes where advantageous (this is legal for public buses under the Australian Road Rules too) and specially-created bus lanes where congested (after 5:30 minutes). The surrounding traffic is often at a standstill but so what? If you don't like it catch public transport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayTnDssuHMw
Linto63
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Linto63 »

Not a case of 'selling out', the reality is that the multi-tasking things many people doing on a Saturday morning, kids to sport, shopping etc make using public transport in most cases just not practical.
andy_centralcoast
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by andy_centralcoast »

Aurora wrote:
Jurassic_Joke wrote:In addition to today’s track work, about every second/other remaining service on T1 North Shore has been “cancelled for today.” No explanation (or even apology), nothing. I don’t even know why they bother. Should’ve just replaced the entire T1 with buses if that’s more reliable.

At Gordon now and as a result of a cancelled train, having to wait 30 minutes for the next one + replacement buses funnelling everyone into the station it’s staring to look hazardous as Town Hall during peak. And similarly, coming up to Gordon, whoopsy do, that ones cancelled as well! :lol:
Some cancellations between Nth Sydney to Gordon to Nth Sydney due to a person on the track near Blacktown causing major delays.
terminating short of destination seems to be the preferred approach recently when services are delayed. It used to be skipping stops.

It usually affects people at the outer edges of the network, where there's already less frequent service (and less customers), but this weekend with trackwork making Gordon the end of the line they terminated late trains at north Sydney and chatswood. Didn't see Lindfield used but possibly there too.

If it's just one train late then I agree terminating early is probably most effective, but when you've got 3 or 4 in a row all bunched up, maybe alternating skipped stops or having the first train skip most stops and use the following as a sweeper?
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Aurora »

andy_centralcoast wrote:terminating short of destination seems to be the preferred approach recently when services are delayed. It used to be skipping stops.

It usually affects people at the outer edges of the network, where there's already less frequent service (and less customers), but this weekend with trackwork making Gordon the end of the line they terminated late trains at north Sydney and chatswood. Didn't see Lindfield used but possibly there too.

If it's just one train late then I agree terminating early is probably most effective, but when you've got 3 or 4 in a row all bunched up, maybe alternating skipped stops or having the first train skip most stops and use the following as a sweeper?
It needs to be considered along with delays for following services not being dragged by late running which leads to crewing issues and further delays if trains aren't brought back on time in a timely manner.

It can be a balancing act.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

rogf24 wrote:An American working in Sydney "reviews" one of Sydney's rail replacement buses. Just something that's interesting.

On the Replacement Bus (or Hot, Jerky, and Crowded).
https://transportist.org/2017/10/28/on- ... d-crowded/
What an oddly specific thing to review. As for the actual review, I was trying so hard not to cringe reading it. But I bet if he had a positive review he wouldnt have bothered writing anything. I actually like our replacement bus services. What if they didn't bother with anything. I like how in some cases they're more frequent than the trains they replace and in a rare case, they can even be faster than the train itself (e.g. the Central to Chatswood express bus). And its free too provided you just flash your Opal Card.

I love how he didn't bothering mentioning he could've had the bus portion of the route free of charge. And point number 6. We made the error of sitting backwards. That's your fault - not the companies!
I don’t have any brilliant suggestions for what to do when the tracks are closed for works. Ideally that could be minimized, conducted automatically at night by robots, or some such.
Stopped reading at that point thats enough internet for me today!
tonyp
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by tonyp »

The one valid point he made was the need for a bus lane at points of congestion. I have to say after reflection that I was astonished at the negative feedback on this board to such a suggestion. I guess the European attitude is that it's an essential service that you prioritise, like if the gas or electricity goes down. Here I get the drift that PT is not considered an essential service to the extent that even people involved with the PT industry think cars should have priority. That's a pretty successful brainwashing by the proponents of Cartopia.

So it's bad enough pushing rocks uphill to convince car users of the benefits of public transport, it looks like we have to convince some of the public transport sector as well.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Tonymercury »

Never mind Tony, you'll be overjoyed to know that the new timetable shows 8Hs on the Newcastle trains at weekends.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

Tonymercury wrote:Never mind Tony, you'll be overjoyed to know that the new timetable shows 8Hs on the Newcastle trains at weekends.
Would you mind sharing a link? Or how to see that in an app? I’d love to see what’s confirmed for running eg T5 to Richmond and whether or not the rumours about T1 going 100% Waratah were true
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Linto63 »

Jurassic_Joke wrote:[I like how in some cases they're more frequent than the trains they replace and in a rare case, they can even be faster than the train itself (e.g. the Central to Chatswood express bus).
Certainly there has been a tightening up of resources in recent years. Going back 10 years or so there was a more steady stream of buses, and they were declared full when all the seats were occupied, now they often leave full and standing resulting in passengers being left behind along the route.
tonyp wrote:The one valid point he made was the need for a bus lane at points of congestion. I have to say after reflection that I was astonished at the negative feedback on this board to such a suggestion. I guess the European attitude is that it's an essential service that you prioritise, like if the gas or electricity goes down. Here I get the drift that PT is not considered an essential service to the extent that even people involved with the PT industry think cars should have priority. That's a pretty successful brainwashing by the proponents of Cartopia.
Don't think it is negative feedback, just taking a more realistic view. Think we all agree it would be great if more PT infrastructure could be built, and PT be more successful in luring people out of their cars. But in reality there are constraints, both financial and physical.

Of course we should always look over the fence to see if there are better ways. But what works in other places won't necessarily work here or is realistically not going to happen. While statistics tell only part of the story, in 2014 Australia had 720 cars per 1,000 people, the Czech Republic 485. http://www.nationmaster.com/country-inf ... 000-people Sydney has a population density of 400 people per square km, http://www.population.net.au/sydney-population/ Prague 2,500. http://www.czechinvest.org/data/files/p ... 114-en.pdf Although I would suggest Sydney does have a higher percentage of undeveloped land and certainly the density is much higher in the inner suburbs. And bit hard to be absolutely certain of the validity, given that both came from different sources and may have been calculated differently.

It would be nice to have a bus lane on Concord Rd. But imagine that on a Saturday morning much like many other Sydney roads, it is already bumper to bumper. So chopping the number of car lanes from two to one would just exasperate the problem. Far more people in Sydney drive than catch PT, particularly on weekends, so the amount of complaining would increase if drivers saw themselves being further disadvantaged. And rightly or wrongly, the squeaky wheel will always get the oil.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by BroadGauge »

Linto63 wrote:Sydney has a population density of 400 people per square km, http://www.population.net.au/sydney-population/ Prague 2,500. http://www.czechinvest.org/data/files/p ... 114-en.pdf Although I would suggest Sydney does have a higher percentage of undeveloped land and certainly the density is much higher in the inner suburbs. And bit hard to be absolutely certain of the validity, given that both came from different sources and may have been calculated differently.
I would somewhat doubt that source for Sydney, which claims that Melbourne and Adelaide (!!??) are both more densely populated than Sydney.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by boronia »

BroadGauge wrote:
Linto63 wrote:Sydney has a population density of 400 people per square km, http://www.population.net.au/sydney-population/ Prague 2,500. http://www.czechinvest.org/data/files/p ... 114-en.pdf Although I would suggest Sydney does have a higher percentage of undeveloped land and certainly the density is much higher in the inner suburbs. And bit hard to be absolutely certain of the validity, given that both came from different sources and may have been calculated differently.
I would somewhat doubt that source for Sydney, which claims that Melbourne and Adelaide (!!??) are both more densely populated than Sydney.
How is "Sydney" measured/defined? Sydney still has a lot of undeveloped areas within its boundaries, between major suburban development areas. Is "Melbourne" more compacted, to give a greater density from less actual people?
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by rogf24 »

boronia wrote:
BroadGauge wrote:I would somewhat doubt that source for Sydney, which claims that Melbourne and Adelaide (!!??) are both more densely populated than Sydney.
How is "Sydney" measured/defined? Sydney still has a lot of undeveloped areas within its boundaries, between major suburban development areas. Is "Melbourne" more compacted, to give a greater density from less actual people?
This, which is why you should use population-weighted density when comparing how dense a city is for most cases instead of simple density.

https://chartingtransport.com/2015/11/2 ... an-cities/
https://chartingtransport.com/2015/12/0 ... -and-area/
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Aurora »

Jurassic_Joke wrote:I’d love to see what’s confirmed for running eg T5 to Richmond and whether or not the rumours about T1 going 100% Waratah were true
That is not quite happening, but all silver sets from T1 moving across to T2/3/8. Only A, T and H in sector 3 (Carlingford/Cumberland/Olympic Park excluded).

T5 will be 4M with some Waratahs interspersed in off peak.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by TheOpalUser »

Jurassic_Joke wrote:
Tonymercury wrote:Never mind Tony, you'll be overjoyed to know that the new timetable shows 8Hs on the Newcastle trains at weekends.
Would you mind sharing a link? Or how to see that in an app? I’d love to see what’s confirmed for running eg T5 to Richmond and whether or not the rumours about T1 going 100% Waratah were true
The data is here I believe https://opendata.transport.nsw.gov.au/d ... ata-bundle
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Frosty »

Expect K set galore on T2/T3/T8 lines plus more S sets. Wouldn’t be a good look to the vistors at Sydney Airport seeing an old silver train show up. Some downsides of silver sets on the T8 don’t have the best vestibule design to deal with the numbers of luggage. Spotted S122 lead on Saturday an Airport Line City Circle service.

Earlier on the mention skipping stops vs terminating short. I’ve seen on the T2 Airport line trains from MacArthur/Campbelltown if they are delayed around 5 mins I’ve seen them skip Riverwood & Padstow to make up time then proceed via Wolli Creek. Though if it’s a longer delay more likely express from Glenfield then onto Central via Sydenham.
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Re: NSW Railway Observations - October 2017

Post by Stonesourscotty »

Trains off between Richmond and.... Musgrave is It?? Somewhere beginning with an M anyway... Also good to see a k set on lates on the western better than the usual waratahs nonsense.
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