Inner West Light Rail observations

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Merc1107
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Merc1107 »

Just another knee-jerk comment made in the hopes the masses are stupid enough to think Australia could compete with well-established manufacturers overseas.

Of course we've just had Custom-Denning put forth something pretty decent in the bus field lately (it's unlilely to be assembled from 100% Australian components, though), but until trams become less of a niche solution down here... What hope would there be for a proper domestic product?
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by moa999 »

Linto63 wrote:Appears that we have yet another lame duck opposition transport spokeswoman who can only parrot the wouldn't be a problem if they build here line rather than offer a constructive solution. Where did your party order the Waratah trains from?
Looking just as bad as the last one.
Shows absolutely zero understanding of the transport supply chain.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by boronia »

Merc1107 wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:58 am Just another knee-jerk comment made in the hopes the masses are stupid enough to think Australia could compete with well-established manufacturers overseas.

Of course we've just had Custom-Denning put forth something pretty decent in the bus field lately (it's unlilely to be assembled from 100% Australian components, though), but until trams become less of a niche solution down here... What hope would there be for a proper domestic product?
Buses are an on going product, and the development costs can be amortised over a long period.

Manufacturers are unlikely to want to set up a production line for just 12 trams, with no firm prospects for the future?
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by jpp42 »

Doesn't Bombardier build trams in Dandenong, Melbourne? Are these produced at a premium price because the Victorian government demands they be built onshore? Surely that facility could be adapted to produce trams suitable for use in Sydney, if desired? (However, I suspect that as far as TfNSW is concerned, sending money to Victorian industry is just as good as overseas, unfortunately.)

I don't think the shadow transport minister is saying they can be built at the same price as overseas, she would acknowledge if pressed that it would cost more, but Labor would argue that the increased cost of locally built trams would be worth it for the social values.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by BanksfielderIdiot823 »

jpp42 wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 12:24 pm Doesn't Bombardier build trams in Dandenong, Melbourne? Are these produced at a premium price because the Victorian government demands they be built onshore? Surely that facility could be adapted to produce trams suitable for use in Sydney, if desired? (However, I suspect that as far as TfNSW is concerned, sending money to Victorian industry is just as good as overseas, unfortunately.)
They certainly have built for Sydney before (albeit under their preceeding company AdTranz) and can do it again, should TfNSW grow a rare spine of common sense. All of the 7 Variotrams were made in Dandy.

EDIT: Yes, I already know about Alstom acquiring Bombardier, I had to type down the above message in a hurry. Alstom also has their own Victorian plant in Ballarat. But regardless, in a bordering off-topic matter, just because a company goes down, it doesn’t mean all of the team that was working there goes down and out along with it.
Last edited by BanksfielderIdiot823 on Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by moa999 »

Yes, but even those are more 'bodied' in Australia, same as most buses.

And if there was a similar issues with the frame or bogies for example they'd likely be reaching out to the overseas experts.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by tonyp »

Bombardier doesn't exist any longer. That Dandenong factory is now owned by Alstom. The E class order is finished. As boronia wrote, tram production has an issue of economically sustainable ongoing production volume. There's a high price premium to be paid to encourage an overseas manufacturer to do CKD local assembly and the Victorian government was prepared to do that for the wider economic benefits - which is valid, if you accept that the size of the order is going to be reduced to keep it within the budget. Then of course how do you have open tendering if there's only one local manufacturer?
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

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Timetables are now available for routes 498 and 499 date 22nd to 26th November with region 9 prefix 31
https://transportnsw.info/documents/tim ... 211128.pdf
https://transportnsw.info/documents/tim ... 211128.pdf
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by tonyp »

New bus routes from 29 November and new ferry F10 to Oxley St wharf (non-Opal):

https://transportnsw.info/news/2021/l1- ... 0#homepage
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Fleet Lists »

Timetables are now also available for replacement routes 2L1, 3L1 and 4L1 which replace routes 498 and 499 from 29 November. They show as being operated by State Transit but have prefix 36 which is used for non standard timetables. So does not indicate which STA region.
No timetable for ferry replacement F10 which unlike the bus routes, does not except Opal.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by boxythingy »

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-transport-staff-to-travel-to-uk-to-inspect-cracked-tram-fleet-20211124-p59bu9.html wrote:“It is my expectation that the repairs will be effected in Australia by Australians and I can confirm that the particular sites that we are looking at are Lilyfield and Pyrmont,” he said.
Why these stops in particular?
boronia wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 1:56 pm This is (I think) the only in-street stop on the HK light rail. Photo from 1997, so I don't know if the ramp meets current DDA standards here.

9107-032 (Small).jpg
Not sure if this is Tai Tong Rd Stop or Hong Lok Rd Stop in Yuen Long, but the gradient is just as steep nowadays and not a COVID-19 safe design because many people bunch up at the base of the ramp where thin median strip is for crossing the road and getting away from the stops.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Glen »

boxythingy wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:42 pm
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-transport-staff-to-travel-to-uk-to-inspect-cracked-tram-fleet-20211124-p59bu9.html wrote:“It is my expectation that the repairs will be effected in Australia by Australians and I can confirm that the particular sites that we are looking at are Lilyfield and Pyrmont,” he said.
Why these stops in particular?
They are the depots.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by boronia »

boxythingy wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:42 pm
Not sure if this is Tai Tong Rd Stop or Hong Lok Rd Stop in Yuen Long, but the gradient is just as steep nowadays and not a COVID-19 safe design because many people bunch up at the base of the ramp where thin median strip is for crossing the road and getting away from the stops.
I don't think much infrastructure anywhere has been designed to be Covid safe. People will bunch up anywhere there are barriers to free movement. It is dependent on people following guidelines for social distancing.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

tonyp wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 1:32 pm Bombardier doesn't exist any longer. That Dandenong factory is now owned by Alstom. The E class order is finished. As boronia wrote, tram production has an issue of economically sustainable ongoing production volume. There's a high price premium to be paid to encourage an overseas manufacturer to do CKD local assembly and the Victorian government was prepared to do that for the wider economic benefits - which is valid, if you accept that the size of the order is going to be reduced to keep it within the budget. Then of course how do you have open tendering if there's only one local manufacturer?
Yup, E Class order is complete and the VIC Gov ruled out ordering any more, instead opting to move to the Next Generation Tram. What will be very interesting to watch moving forward is how the current IWLR debacle will affect Melbourne’s next generation tram order if VIC Gov are noticing what happened here. The supplier is supposed to be selected soon as far as I remember, and I also vaguely remember that CAF and Alstom were the shortlisted suppliers. The current Bumblebee Citadis trams are restricted to route 96 specifically because it features only four 90 degree turns in its route to handle these fixed bogie trams. I remember someone posted an article with Alstom supplying a version of the Citadis X05 with pivoting bogies (which would be far more important for a complex network like Melbourne) , CAF hasn’t yet produced an Urbos with pivoting bogies as far as I know so I would predict it’s their tender to lose.

About the new IWLR replacement bus routes announced, keen to see how these go, but it’s also in my view an admission that the current replacement service just wasn’t working, so let’s hope these are better
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by tonyp »

Jurassic_Joke wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:48 pm
Yup, E Class order is complete and the VIC Gov ruled out ordering any more, instead opting to move to the Next Generation Tram. What will be very interesting to watch moving forward is how the current IWLR debacle will affect Melbourne’s next generation tram order if VIC Gov are noticing what happened here. The supplier is supposed to be selected soon as far as I remember, and I also vaguely remember that CAF and Alstom were the shortlisted suppliers. The current Bumblebee Citadis trams are restricted to route 96 specifically because it features only four 90 degree turns in its route to handle these fixed bogie trams. I remember someone posted an article with Alstom supplying a version of the Citadis X05 with pivoting bogies (which would be far more important for a complex network like Melbourne) , CAF hasn’t yet produced an Urbos with pivoting bogies as far as I know so I would predict it’s their tender to lose.

About the new IWLR replacement bus routes announced, keen to see how these go, but it’s also in my view an admission that the current replacement service just wasn’t working, so let’s hope these are better
Alstom and CAF have a model each with swivelling bogies on the same design platform as the Melbourne E class. Alstom's is called the Citadis Spirit and its only customer city so far is Ottawa where it has been having terrible reliability problems (including cracked wheels!). CAF's model is called the AXL and it runs in two cities in Sweden and Estonia, but it's only 70% low floor and 100% low floor is a pretty universal expectation nowadays.

The issue in Victoria is that the government is pretty determined to have local assembly and the only two manufacturers who have apparently expressed a willingness to do that are Alstom and CAF. So PTV would probably be having kittens about this at the moment given the quality issues with both those manufacturers.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by moa999 »

Alstom also now has some form of swiveling bogies on the X05 series (same as Sydney L2/L3 and 100% low floor)
https://www.alstom.com/press-releases-n ... nce-region
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by tonyp »

moa999 wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 11:04 pm Alstom also now has some form of swiveling bogies on the X05 series (same as Sydney L2/L3 and 100% low floor)
https://www.alstom.com/press-releases-n ... nce-region
No. I think something has been lost in the translation from French to English here. They mean something else, not sure what.

An interesting summary of the issues with Alstom's swivelling bogie tram, the Citadis Spirit/Dualis:

https://manifestomultilinko2.wordpress. ... ryofissues

Neither Alstom nor CAF have a legacy of expertise with this conventional type of tram. The current major manufacturers who do are Skoda and Stadler. Neither have shown any interest in Australian assembly of trams. I think Victoria is between a rock and a hard place. NSW, which is more open to import, did have a choice and made the wrong choice.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Stu »

The F10 ferry timetable is now available as a PDF.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by jpp42 »

Would be nice if the F10 would stop at Pyrmont (Pirrama Rd/Elizabeth Macarthur Wharf) which was used during the previous on-demand trial, and is directly along the route. That location is reasonably close to the John St Square light rail which is used by people working in a few office buildings in that area. In addition it would help northern Pyrmont residents reach the northern city, which is a direct route not available for many years once bus 443 was redirected away from Circular Quay.

Also, the fares are not going to be popular, with only credit/debit cards accepted and no Opal caps, etc. They should install a temporary Opal pole like they did at Cockatoo Island when the wharf was under repair and services used the other side of the island. Given that ferry poles work on 3G/4G anyway and don't require a fixed telecom service, it should be feasible in a relatively short period of time (the wharf area should already have power).
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Swift »

Gotta love private companies and their profit motive. I refuse to.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Merc1107 »

Swift wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:01 am Gotta love private companies and their profit motive. I refuse to.
At least there isn't a "bus war" going on!
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by tonyp »

Merc1107 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:56 am
At least there isn't a "bus war" going on!
There was for many decades, the most aggressive player in bus transit in Sydney for much of the 20th century actually being the government bus operator! The private sector was, and still is, quite collegiate by comparison. First, the government back in the early 1930s cleared away the private operators that were competing with the trams, with the new government bus operator moving into their former territory alongside the trams. Then the government operator worked hard to get rid of the trams and when that was across the line they turned to pinching routes off the privates, which ended up in the Supreme Court who confirmed that the 1930s legislation enabled the government operator to take over whatever it wanted and then, to add insult to injury, tax the aggrieved private operator for "competing" with them. Being taxpayer funded, the government operator could afford to turn profitable routes into unprofitable ones.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

jpp42 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:59 am Would be nice if the F10 would stop at Pyrmont (Pirrama Rd/Elizabeth Macarthur Wharf) which was used during the previous on-demand trial, and is directly along the route. That location is reasonably close to the John St Square light rail which is used by people working in a few office buildings in that area. In addition it would help northern Pyrmont residents reach the northern city, which is a direct route not available for many years once bus 443 was redirected away from Circular Quay.

Also, the fares are not going to be popular, with only credit/debit cards accepted and no Opal caps, etc. They should install a temporary Opal pole like they did at Cockatoo Island when the wharf was under repair and services used the other side of the island. Given that ferry poles work on 3G/4G anyway and don't require a fixed telecom service, it should be feasible in a relatively short period of time (the wharf area should already have power).
Agree it’s a farce that you can’t use Opal / collect Opal Rewards on the F10 (wonder if it’ll change), if that weren’t bad enough, this atrocious weather we’re now predicted to have for the entire summer would be enough to put me off the ferry as well. Bus 431 is in walking distance of the F10 and would be a similarly good alternative to get to the city
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Fleet Lists »

Stu wrote: Sat Nov 20, 2021 2:21 am
Qantas94Heavy wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:34 am Is that a permanent arrangement from now on, or just for this weekend?
5 x weekends in a row from now.
That would now be 2 weekends only for routes 498 and 499 and then probably the next three weekends for the new routes.

Anytrip confirms that for this weekend but unlike last weekend I did not have to sign on separately for the weekend routes.
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Re: Inner West Light Rail observations

Post by Fleet Lists »

Stu wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:22 am The F10 ferry timetable is now available as a PDF.
The link page to the timetable confirms that Opal can not be used but the timetable itself contains the normal Opal information which would make users think that Opal can be used
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