New Country Trains

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1whoknows
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by 1whoknows »

I've travelled a lot by train in Europe over the last 10 years and reversible seats are no longer a thing in any of the modern stock. As usual Sydney is still living in the previous century. I mean you haven't even got rid of guards on suburban trains yet.
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Linto63
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Linto63 »

As long as there are mobility impaired passengers there will be guards. Guards in Melbourne were eliminated by the Kennet government which was in the process of slashing 50,000 public sector jobs, so getting rid of a couple of hundred guards wouldn't have created many more waves than had already been created. V/Line continues to have guards on all its trains, including those making below one hour journeys.

Getting back on topic, appears there is a stoush between TfNSW and CAF over the design of the new trains.

Another multibillion-dollar NSW train project at risk of delays, cost overruns, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 July 2022
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boronia
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by boronia »

Glen wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:30 pm
boronia wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:25 pm
Overseas trains manage to get reversible seats with tray tables, power and USB outlets. No rocket scientists at CAF?
In what countries?

I thought a lot of UK / European trains had fixed seating.

Not saying I agree with it if applied in NSW, just curious.
Common in Asian trains at least. Never had to sit backwards in long distance trains in Japan, and similar can be seen in videos from other areas.

Graphics of the new CAF trains show seats mounted on central pedestals, making them easy to turn to face direction of travel. [How do the XPT seats reverse?]
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Linto63
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Linto63 »

boronia wrote: How do the XPT seats reverse?
There is a foot peddle near the base of the seat on the isle side that unlocks allowing the seat to rotate 180 degrees.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Special_K »

With the new Regional Train Fleet maintenence facility being built in Dubbo,there would be scope to operate and second daily Central West Express with a Dubbo AM departure and afternoon return from Sydney to facilitate fleet movements. Will the new fleet have sleeping cars?
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Transtopic »

Special_K wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 5:19 pm With the new Regional Train Fleet maintenence facility being built in Dubbo,there would be scope to operate and second daily Central West Express with a Dubbo AM departure and afternoon return from Sydney to facilitate fleet movements. Will the new fleet have sleeping cars?
I suspect that there could be the possibility of a second Dubbo service as the trains could be stabled overnight at the new maintenance facility for an early morning departure or swap with a set coming out of maintenance . AFAIK, there are no sleeping cars proposed for the new fleet.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Special_K »

Thanks Transtopic, it would also make sense for a twice daily service to Brisbane with a Grafton trip to balance out the North Coast runs. The existing Brisbane XPT arrives in the wee small hours as the dual guage track is for one track only in the last section so the XPT has to run "wrong-line" to leave Roma Street. The current departure gets the Sydney train well out of the way before the morning peak period. It would be hoped that the Cross-Rail project would have the sense to fit dual gauge on the remaining track.

Evenly spaced Brisbane departures of say, 0730 and 1930 would certainly boost the patronage potential on this route!
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by lunchbox »

^^^^^^^^^^^^it might boost CAPACITY, but I'd suggest any increase in patronage would be those on freebies or near-freebies - not an attractive proposition to government accountants.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Transtopic »

lunchbox wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 3:27 pm ^^^^^^^^^^^^it might boost CAPACITY, but I'd suggest any increase in patronage would be those on freebies or near-freebies - not an attractive proposition to government accountants.
It's about providing a service and not necessarily making a profit or minimising costs. Must the profit motive be the only criteria for providing a public service where there is the demand for it? If that was the case, we wouldn't have any public transport.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by boronia »

Some services could be seen as a form of pork-barrelling.
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boronia
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by boronia »

Transtopic wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:00 pm
Special_K wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 5:19 pm With the new Regional Train Fleet maintenence facility being built in Dubbo,there would be scope to operate and second daily Central West Express with a Dubbo AM departure and afternoon return from Sydney to facilitate fleet movements. Will the new fleet have sleeping cars?
I suspect that there could be the possibility of a second Dubbo service as the trains could be stabled overnight at the new maintenance facility for an early morning departure or swap with a set coming out of maintenance . AFAIK, there are no sleeping cars proposed for the new fleet.
Some of the trains that will need to go to Dubbo would be the "New Endeavour" intercity versions.

Will these new trains continue with the 3+2 seating layout? I suspect there may not be enough seat pitch to enable rotation of a 3 seat bank? Will they end up with fixed rear facing seats in half the carriage?

If so, would they be acceptable for a Sydney to Dubbo service? The passenger loading on an early AM ex Dubbo (perhaps working through to Sydney as the 2nd division Bathurst Bullet) would probably fit into the forward-facing half of the carriages, but there wouldn't be any on board refreshment services or first class seating. For the Sydney to Dubbo return working, would there be provision for reserved seating for the "regional" passengers beyond Bathurst?
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Transtopic
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Transtopic »

boronia wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 1:06 pm Some of the trains that will need to go to Dubbo would be the "New Endeavour" intercity versions.

Will these new trains continue with the 3+2 seating layout? I suspect there may not be enough seat pitch to enable rotation of a 3 seat bank? Will they end up with fixed rear facing seats in half the carriage?

If so, would they be acceptable for a Sydney to Dubbo service? The passenger loading on an early AM ex Dubbo (perhaps working through to Sydney as the 2nd division Bathurst Bullet) would probably fit into the forward-facing half of the carriages, but there wouldn't be any on board refreshment services or first class seating. For the Sydney to Dubbo return working, would there be provision for reserved seating for the "regional" passengers beyond Bathurst?
Although I'm not sure, I think that the CAF Endeavour replacements (3 car trains) will be 2+2 economy seating which will be reversible, like the rest of the fleet.

My take on the Bathurst Bullet service is that the existing early morning service will continue to start from Bathurst, after stabling overnight in Lithgow as it currently does, and the 2nd division service will start from Orange to arrive at Bathurst at the time it now starts. In the reverse direction from Central, the early morning Bullet from Bathurst will provide an afternoon return service to Orange, which will proceed empty to Dubbo to either stable overnight or go in for maintenance, swapping with a set coming out of maintenance, which will run empty to Orange to start the 2nd division service next day. Bathurst is roughly halfway between Sydney and Dubbo (200km v 400km), so I think it would be a bit of an overreach to run a Bathurst terminating service empty to Dubbo, whereas Orange is closer, but still a fair distance away. The 2nd division Bullet would provide an evening return service to Bathurst, which would stable overnight in Lithgow, returning to Bathurst for the early morning start.

I've always thought that it was a stupid decision to base the maintenance centre in Dubbo on an extremity of the Regional network with a limited service, no doubt with lobbying from the Socialist Nationals. It should have been in Sydney where all Regional lines converge and avoid a lot of wasteful empty running in the process.

It's still to be confirmed whether the existing Dubbo XPT will be replaced with the CAF Xplorer consist or the long distance XPT replacement. Personally, I'd prefer the Xplorer replacement, but that would still require the XPT variant to work its way to Dubbo. It's a dog's breakfast.

If a morning service from Dubbo is introduced, which is by no means certain, it would provide a late morning service from Orange and midday service from Bathurst, with commensurate return services from Central in the afternoon and evening.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Linto63 »

Transtopic wrote: I've always thought that it was a stupid decision to base the maintenance centre in Dubbo on an extremity of the Regional network with a limited service, no doubt with lobbying from the Socialist Nationals. It should have been in Sydney where all Regional lines converge and avoid a lot of wasteful empty running in the process.
Was a political decision to try and prop up the Nationals' leader in Dubbo after they lost a by-election in Orange to the Shooters & Fishers. Having a primary maintenance centre anywhere but at the hub of the network makes no sense.
Transtopic wrote: It's still to be confirmed whether the existing Dubbo XPT will be replaced with the CAF Xplorer consist or the long distance XPT replacement.
The Dubbo XPT replacement will most probably be diagrammed as a 3-car set, given that the current 4-car XPT is rarely near capacity. It will operate as a 3, 6, 9 or 12 car train to ferry stock to and from the maintenance centre as required, with the extras locked off. It will most likely operate as a combined service with the Outback Xplorer on the days the latter runs, splitting at Orange.
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jpp42
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by jpp42 »

Why can't the existing XPT service centre be used for the new trains (with appropriate upgrades, of course)? It is simply due to the political requirement to move it to Dubbo, or is there a technical reason why they were searching for a new site at all? Do they want to turn the Meeks Rd. site into apartment towers?
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by hornetfig »

I can think of a laundry list
* The site can't be refit while XPTs still run
* The existing site is very size constrained
* The new fleet is larger and the site is inadequate
* Rail access to Meeks Rd is ... not great
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by tonyp »

Transtopic wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:00 pm It's about providing a service and not necessarily making a profit or minimising costs. Must the profit motive be the only criteria for providing a public service where there is the demand for it? If that was the case, we wouldn't have any public transport.
It's not a profit motive, it's prudent fiscal management. Most public transport systems around the world do give a high priority to minimising operating costs and the public subsidy. Some do achieve quite substantial cost recovery. Yes, it is important because there are numerous competing priorities for government spending, so each sector needs to be as productive as possible and not a major drain on the budget. Unfortunately country train services here present a difficult case for cost reduction, unlike urban services where enormous savings can be made from automation, as well as small savings from operational contracting. For the country services, one can only hope that the CAF trains have lower operating costs than the XPTs and Explorers.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: Most public transport systems around the world do give a high priority to minimising operating costs and the public subsidy.
Not in the context of this thread, having the maintenance centre 450 kilometres from the hub isn't a cost driven decision.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Glen »

boronia wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:10 pm Some services could be seen as a form of pork-barrelling.
Hmmmm..... they may be worried by the current Inquiry.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Aurora »

Depending how far you go, almost everything could be construed as pork-barrelling unless you sit and do nothing.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by Glen »

I imagine an Inquiry into the siting of the maintenance centre at the end of one line operated by the trains may subpoena the business case justifying it.

If it's logical then so be it.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by boronia »

Aurora wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:49 pm Depending how far you go, almost everything could be construed as pork-barrelling unless you sit and do nothing.
The "level" of pork barrelling could be construed as being inversely proportional to the level of logic in a decision.

Putting the NIF base at Kangy Angy probably had some political motivation, but at least it had some logic from an operational viewpoint. Same cannot be said for Dubbo, no matter what spin they put on it.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by tonyp »

The reasons given for the Dubbo location were to provide regional employment (200 jobs), develop regional training opportunities and to stimulate the regional economy. In that case, it was going to be somewhere along the north, northwest, west or southern lines and not in Sydney. I guess the operational logic is that when a train is due for maintenance they run it out there as the regular service and roster a train that's come out of there for the return. I'm sure there are a dozen reasons why something different may happen at any given time, but that's the base theory.
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by jpp42 »

tonyp wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 6:14 pm I guess the operational logic is that when a train is due for maintenance they run it out there as the regular service and roster a train that's come out of there for the return. I'm sure there are a dozen reasons why something different may happen at any given time, but that's the base theory.
Wouldn't this still require a storage yard near Central, given the timetable has fairly large gaps (currently used for daytime servicing)? Is there any provision for this or will the timetablers just have to deal with the available tracks at Central itself?
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by lunchbox »

REVERSIBLE SEATING
Transport for NSW has advised TransitAdvocates on 15.8.22 as follows -
"The new Regional Rail fleet will have directional seating so that most passengers can face the direction of travel. Directional seating will be rotated by staff to face the direction of travel."
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boronia
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Re: New Country Trains

Post by boronia »

jpp42 wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:13 pm
tonyp wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 6:14 pm I guess the operational logic is that when a train is due for maintenance they run it out there as the regular service and roster a train that's come out of there for the return. I'm sure there are a dozen reasons why something different may happen at any given time, but that's the base theory.
Wouldn't this still require a storage yard near Central, given the timetable has fairly large gaps (currently used for daytime servicing)? Is there any provision for this or will the timetablers just have to deal with the available tracks at Central itself?
At a minimum, there would be the need to decant the toilets regularly. I don't think this can be done at Central, so presumably they could run down to Eveleigh and use the facilities there?
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