Inner West Light Rail observations

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boronia
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/news-a ... light-rail

Trackwork improvements for Inner West Light Rail
Published 5 Oct 2022

Trackwork on the Inner West Light Rail line is scheduled to occur over two consecutive weekends during October as part of our works to make the entire Inner West Light Rail alignment fully interoperable.

Customers are asked to plan ahead on 15-16 and 22-23 October, as buses will replace L1 Dulwich Hill Line light rail services between Lilyfield and Dulwich Hill. Services between Lilyfield and Central Grand Concourse will not be affected.

Transport for NSW Acting Chief Operations Officer Mark Hutchings said the partial shutdown of the network will allow important upgrade works ahead of the return of repaired CAF Urbos 3 vehicles to this part of the line.

“Track modifications previously installed to enable the Citadis (L2/L3) light rail vehicles to operate on the L1 line will undergo further adjustments to enable the Urbos vehicles to operate along the entire alignment,” Mr Hutchings said.

“Once the trackwork is finished, the Inner West Light Rail will be fully interoperable, meaning both Urbos and Citadis vehicles will be able to run along the entire alignment at the same time.

“This will help to future-proof our services and is a positive step forward for customers,” Mr Hutchings said.

Since 1 August, repaired Urbos light rail vehicles have been operating between Central Grand Concourse and Lilyfield from Monday to Friday during peak travel times on the L1.

Transport for NSW continues to work closely with its contractor ALTRAC, operator Transdev, and the manufacturer CAF, which is responsible for the repairs of the Urbos 3 light rail vehicles.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by jpp42 »

No doubt their idea of trackwork is just to install further "temporary" speed restrictions. 10km/hr along the whole line should solve any safety issues, right?
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Recorded elsewhere yesterday that one of the Citadis trams operating an L1 service "grounded" while negotiating the curve from the ramp into Hay St.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

What exactly do you mean by “grounded”? Derailed in some way?
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Linto63 »

Bottomed out due to component failure, i.e. one end made contact with the road beneath it.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by tonyp »

We dont know that there's a component failure yet but, yes, materials and components are under much stress on a system like Sydney's because fixed bogie trams are the wrong type for it. It was only a matter of time before an Alstom failed as well.

What worries me is that these two manufacturers are going to convince a naive and ignorant TfNSW that the Central Station loop is "unsuitable for modern trams" and push for relocating the terminus down to Pitt St. That's been a trend with these cheap modern fixed bogie trams that the city is changed to fit the tram, rather than the tram being chosen to fit the city.

This comes from price being the principle factor in procurements and also the consortium system where you don't get to choose the tram that comes with the winning tender.
Last edited by tonyp on Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Have to wonder if the Hay St curve, or elsewhere, is starting to affect the Citadis as well?

Moving the terminus to Pitt St would require an even tighter turn to/from Hay St? Perhaps they will have to consider running the L1 services to Circular Quay?
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: We dont know that there's a component failure
The bottom of the tram came in contact with the road so either it was lowered by a failure on the tram or the road rose to come into contact.
boronia wrote: Moving the terminus to Pitt St would require an even tighter turn to/from Hay St? Perhaps they will have to consider running the L1 services to Circular Quay?
No chance of L1 services going to Circular Quay as the CAFs would not be able to use the wireless section beyond Town Hall. If it were to be curtailed, would be at the Capitol Square stop.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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I was thinking about while services are run by the Citadis cars.

I don't know how the CAFs are configured, but the Citadis have only one horizontal pivot joint in the five segments. I've never watched them operating here, but it is feasible that the end of a longer section at the rear would have enough leverage to get very close to the ground at the point of gradient change.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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As has been said many times, whenever somebody runs the L1 to Circular Quay idea up the flagpole, it would cause more problems than it would solve. It was always intended that the two lines would operate independently, and other than a bit of blue sky thinking by some, that plan hasn't changed.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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I'm not particularly concerned over what happens, but 12 months ago they told us it was not possible for a Citadis to get to Dulwich Hill. But they made it happen.
There are no physical barriers getting one from DH to CQ, and I'm sure they could solve any operational issues if they really wanted/needed to.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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boronia wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:05 pm I'm not particularly concerned over what happens, but 12 months ago they told us it was not possible for a Citadis to get to Dulwich Hill. But they made it happen.
There are no physical barriers getting one from DH to CQ, and I'm sure they could solve any operational issues if they really wanted/needed to.
Some people in Sydney don't have a defeatist mindset.
If there's a will I guarantee the NSW government will absolutely find a way.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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I think seeing L1 go to Circular Quay is in practice a great idea. Unfortunately, you have to ponder - isn’t the mixed running of singles and doubles (sets) going to cause inefficiencies on services towards circular quay? Is there even room for L1 services to go to CQ during peak hour seeing as the George St corridor is already very busy with L2 and L3 services
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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The IWLR was originally proposed to go on to CQ via Pitt and/or Castlereagh, but that was resisted by the Labor government during the 2000s. Now, CSELR has pretty much taken over that role.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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boronia wrote: There are no physical barriers getting one from DH to CQ, and I'm sure they could solve any operational issues if they really wanted/needed to.
Anything is possible, but there is really no need.
Jurassic_Joke wrote: ...isn’t the mixed running of singles and doubles (sets) going to cause inefficiencies on services towards circular quay?
In a word, yes.
tonyp wrote: The IWLR was originally proposed to go on to CQ via Pitt and/or Castlereagh, but that was resisted by the Labor government during the 2000s.
Perhaps the Labor government was more realistic as to what a pain in the neck it was going to be to build, and said not for us.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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boronia wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 4:36 pm I don't know how the CAFs are configured, but the Citadis have only one horizontal pivot joint in the five segments. I've never watched them operating here, but it is feasible that the end of a longer section at the rear would have enough leverage to get very close to the ground at the point of gradient change.
The CAF cars are similar to the Alstom ones where they can bend and twist. For both types, it's the play in the suspension that keeps them on track through that infamous Hay St curve.

There are at least 2 locations between Eddy Ave and the Quay where the lifeguards on Citadis make contact with the road. (Near Chinatown and next to the crossover at the Quay). Civil and the vehicle builders didn't talk on the CELSR project too.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Jurassic_Joke wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 9:27 pm I think seeing L1 go to Circular Quay is in practice a great idea. Unfortunately, you have to ponder - isn’t the mixed running of singles and doubles (sets) going to cause inefficiencies on services towards circular quay? Is there even room for L1 services to go to CQ during peak hour seeing as the George St corridor is already very busy with L2 and L3 services
Still well in front of the former traffic sewer with far too many bus services in the mix. Make the cross city traffic wait a few seconds more. It can't be the Manhattan project to make happen. I think there's a fair catchment of people from the IWLR who'd appreciate direct no change services to the city's north.
There may be some who'd like a cross L2/L23 -L1 service at selected times of the day as well.

Sydney needs to focus more on how we can, not why we cannot.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Swift wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 2:39 am
Sydney needs to focus more on how we can, not why we cannot.
Need to break from transport planning that's about moving vehicles to moving people. Every place the CESLR crosses a road the project has had to fight and fight hard to get any sort of priority for the trams at the intersection. And this isn't a new thing. Bus priority projects have run foul of the same thinking to the point that equipment was installed to detect approaching buses and alter light phasing but it was never turned on due to objections of the 'traffic planners' 'more study required'. The idea was successfully buried and we continue to 'optimize' traffic lights only for vehicle flow, not people flow.

One of the reasons the CSELR is running 60m long coupled sets was the constraints put on all the crossings. These planners would have a fit at the idea of injecting another set of trams crossing all those roads. If we could twist transport from vehicle flow to people flow we might get somewhere.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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More specifically single occupant vehicle flow to flow of infinitely more people.
Sydney touts these great pipe dreams and plans while holding onto old worn outdated practises like a religion.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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L1 Dulwich Hill Line light services increase

https://transportnsw.info/alerts/details#/ems-9731
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Noticed the tracks chewed up to the road again at that 90 degree turn onto Hay Street, probably even worse than last time.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Randomness wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 6:10 pm Noticed the tracks chewed up to the road again at that 90 degree turn onto Hay Street, probably even worse than last time.
It'll keep happening because they're the wrong trams for the line. The curve is 5 metres horizontal radius below their minimum design standard. The vertical radius at that point probably doesn't help either. Somebody in Transport made a huge bungle a few years back, but getting them to admit that is another matter. All they had to do was talk to Melbourne. Anyway, just means going around the curve at a crawl, plus higher ongoing maintenance on tracks and trams. When the trams come up for renewal, hopefully they will buy proper trams with swivelling bogies. The benefits of that will flow all over the network too - lower maintenance, higher speeds, quicker journey times. What worries me is that they'll do something stupid like close off this highly efficient and high capacity loop terminus just to cater to the shortcomings of these trams.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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The curves' already been TSR'd to 5kmh with no effect, surely they won't halve it again to 2.5, then 1.25 :lol:.
I just find it an issue that rather than maintaining that section properly, TSRs are just put on as a bandaid. With how big the missing section is (i'd say about 1.5m), it would've been an issue for a while.
Perfectly agreed on the need for replacements and a capacity and door count upgrade while at it - even on weekends trams are packed. With this TfNSW however, it'll happen when pigs fly.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Randomness wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 8:10 pm The curves' already been TSR'd to 5kmh with no effect, surely they won't halve it again to 2.5, then 1.25 :lol:.
I just find it an issue that rather than maintaining that section properly, TSRs are just put on as a bandaid. With how big the missing section is (i'd say about 1.5m), it would've been an issue for a while.
Perfectly agreed on the need for replacements and a capacity and door count upgrade while at it - even on weekends trams are packed. With this TfNSW however, it'll happen when pigs fly.
Perhaps they could crane the trams around that curve. The allowed speed for these trams around that curve won't ever rise above 5 km/h. That's pretty standard around the world for fixed bogie trams. The Czech technical standard speed for a tram with swivelling bogies to traverse a 20 metre horizontal curve is 14.4 km/h, but operators can use a higher speed at their discretion. Having the bogie following the curve, rather than fighting against it, makes a huge difference.

The capacity upgrade would come from providing more tracks (or a loop) at Dulwich Hill. I'm sort of wondering whether the next batch of CAFs to arrive will demonstrate a lesson learnt and have six doors, or will they be the same as existing?
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Despite the new timetable coming into effect yesterday, transport.info is still displaying the February version.

Toady the 15:57 (from TripView) service from Central departed on time, with the PID showing is was due in 6 minutes.

Seems Transdev is still not capable of getting meaningful information to passengers.
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