Sydney Metro West announced

Sydney / New South Wales Transport Discussion
tonyp
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by tonyp »

Well, as can be seen from my figures above, the West Metro could have several stops and it would still be faster than current semi-express services on the parallel rail line. I'm not sure that you can get much faster maximum speeds than about 100 km/h out of Sydney Trains services on the west line until at least west of Westmead, or definitely Blacktown. The only basis on which they can slightly out-perform the metro is if they don't stop, like that example of the Intercity with only one stop. I think though that they should be allowing express maximum speeds up to 130 west of westmead and, on the Campbelltown line, west of Narwee.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by grog »

neilrex wrote:well I think the west metro should have more stops, so people can actually get on it and use it. No point building a "metro" if the stops are so far apart that people cannot get to them. And that applies to people coming into the area, as well as the people who live there, going out. You need to think more about networks which can realistically serve as people's primary means of getting around, rather than the current leading paradigm which is basically that trains serve people's work trips to the CBD and they are assumed to use cars for every other aspect of their lives.
If exclude the 2 big gaps, the stop spacing is about 2km, which seems right. There are good reasons for the 2 gaps besides speed. The gap between The Bays to Five dock is served by light rail which will be integrated with Sydney Metro West at The Bays (according to future transport), and the gap between Olympic Park and Rydalmere is mostly Silverwater, which is identified in the GPOP strategy as remaining industrial to support urban services and employment, including advanced manufacturing. There is a general move away from converting industrial to residential across the whole city.
neilrex wrote:The express service should be on the existing rail line. It has 4 and 6 tracks, which the metro never will. It can have segregation of stopping and express services, which the metro never will. It carries people directly from the outer suburbs, which the metro never will. If you want a 20 minute express journey there should be more effort made to improve performance of the existing railway, it is not rocket science.
It is always easier starting with a blank sheet of paper. Speeding up the existing alignment by 5-6 minutes would not be a cheap undertaking, and wouldn't improve capacity.
neilrex wrote:I am not convinced that trains can go as fast underground as they do on the surface. You run into issues with managing the airflow. The fastest Chinese metro lines are above ground. So are the fastest lines in Perth and Melbourne. So are the fastest metro lines in Japan.
There is no issue with a properly designed fast underground railway. As an example, the Heathrow Express operates at 100mph (160km/h) - so Sydney Metro West operating at 130km/h should be no issue at all. HSR also operates in tunnels in many locations.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by andy_centralcoast »

tonyp wrote:Well, as can be seen from my figures above, the West Metro could have several stops and it would still be faster than current semi-express services on the parallel rail line. I'm not sure that you can get much faster maximum speeds than about 100 km/h out of Sydney Trains services on the west line until at least west of Westmead, or definitely Blacktown. The only basis on which they can slightly out-perform the metro is if they don't stop, like that example of the Intercity with only one stop. I think though that they should be allowing express maximum speeds up to 130 west of westmead and, on the Campbelltown line, west of Narwee.
The B sets were tested at speeds up to 143 km/h between Blacktown and St Marys, and between East Hills and Glenfield.
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boronia
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by boronia »

grog wrote: There is no issue with a properly designed fast underground railway. As an example, the Heathrow Express operates at 100mph (160km/h) - so Sydney Metro West operating at 130km/h should be no issue at all. HSR also operates in tunnels in many locations.
The Shinkansen bullet trains in Japan have a lot of full track speed tunnelling which doesnt impede their running. But they are optimally aerodynamic to overcome airflow issues. The earlier sets had problems when two trains passed, but I think this has been overcome now with the "platypus" fronts.

The NW metro carriages do not seem to be very aerodynamic at all. Do they use single or twin tunnels in the u/g sections?
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by grog »

Twin tunnels, so shouldn’t be any issues passing.
tonyp
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by tonyp »

andy_centralcoast wrote: The B sets were tested at speeds up to 143 km/h between Blacktown and St Marys, and between East Hills and Glenfield.
This is good, so there's no reason they can't run them at up to 130 west of Westmead and west of Narwee. From the comparitive figures, it's obvious that the double deckers perform at their best when they don't have to stop. As soon as they start stopping, their performance falls to pieces - the more they stop, the worse it gets. Fundamentally, a public transport system should be stopping at all stops to maximise the amenity for their users. As soon as you start skipping stops, some or many users (depending on the circumstances) are missing out.

So when you get a situation where services in one mode stopping at all stops have a faster journey time than services in another mode skipping stops, yet still having a slower journey time (let alone what happens when that latter service tries to stop at all stops, which is even worse), it's obvious that you're using the wrong mode for the wrong task. Sydney has had plenty of experience of this even prior to the metro vs double deck train issue - when all-stops trams were replaced by optional stopping and semi-express buses without an improvement in journey time but with an increase in inconvenience to users. Same situation.

This has nothing to do with distance either. As comparisons with both metro and Perth rail show, we have those services stopping at all stops over very long distances having faster journey times than Sydney double deckers skipping stops or semi-expressing. The only way the double deckers can compete is if they get their running speed on and don't have to stop. So it stands to reason that their best role is on services to outer suburbs and interurban areas where they basically express across the Sydney basin, or at worst have one or two stops across Sydney in order to scoop up passengers transferring from stopping services and of course to serve this polycentric city's other centres on the way (which is now essential).

The reality is of course that we're likely to be stuck with a double deck system doing work on lines for which it isn't suited for many years ahead, but it would be certainly worth starting a transformation with genuinely fast (not the present pretend-fast) double deck services to the outer areas. The new generation double deck rolling stock provides an opportunity to get that rolling. The present ridiculous situation of trains ambling along straight track, both in Sydney and on interurban lines, has to come to an end.

On the other side of the coin, there's absolutely nothing wrong about extending metro all over the Sydney basin because, like the Perth system, it is a high-performance rapid transit system that is able to achieve faster journey times while simultaneously retaining the user-friendliness of stopping at all stops. That's a really good outcome in transit terms in anybody's language. We really shouldn't have a mentality of skipping stops as a solution to speeding up services - that is a lazy solution. And just to head off the seats argument before it comes up - because metro is able to run at closer headways, the availability of seats-per-hour (the real measure) is not that far off what the double deckers can deliver.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by Transtopic »

tonyp wrote:
andy_centralcoast wrote: The B sets were tested at speeds up to 143 km/h between Blacktown and St Marys, and between East Hills and Glenfield.
This is good, so there's no reason they can't run them at up to 130 west of Westmead and west of Narwee. From the comparitive figures, it's obvious that the double deckers perform at their best when they don't have to stop. As soon as they start stopping, their performance falls to pieces - the more they stop, the worse it gets. Fundamentally, a public transport system should be stopping at all stops to maximise the amenity for their users. As soon as you start skipping stops, some or many users (depending on the circumstances) are missing out.
Mate, in spite of your vast knowledge, you have absolutely no idea. You refuse to acknowledge that there is a difference between servicing long distance outer suburban regions and more densely populated inner urban regions, particularly based on the geographical spread we have in Sydney. Putting aside Intercity, it needs to be a two tier suburban service. Fast semi-express services from the outer regions and more frequent all stops through the inner city. For example, how can you seriously suggest that an all stops service from Penrith or Campbelltown would be acceptable to commuters, even with your mythical faster metro service and with fewer seats to boot?

Your claims that the latest double deckers such as the Waratahs are slugs when they operate on a multiple stopping pattern are unfounded. You may have missed it, but I did provide comparative performance specifications earlier on this thread between the Waratahs and the Alstom Metropolis metro stock which will operate on the Metro Northwest. Apart from the fact that the Waratahs have a maximum speed of 130 km/h compared with the Metropolis variant's speed of 100 km/h, their acceleration/deceleration performance is almost identical. The Waratahs have an acceleration and deceleration rate of 1.0m/S2 compared with the Metropolis' acceleration of 1.1m/S2 and maximum deceleration of 1.3m/S2 in emergency mode. The problem on the Sydney Trains' network is not the capability of the latest rolling stock, but the reluctance of the government to actually utilise it. In fairness, this is unlikely to be achievable until all of the older S, K and C sets have been replaced.

To put to bed another myth, there is no problem with dwell times for DD trains on the Sydney Trains' network, other than three stations in the CBD, Central, Town Hall and Wynyard on the T1 Line. This would be alleviated by the new CBD line, whether it were to be a metro or part of the existing network, taking pressure off the interchange congestion. Even with a DD service on a new line through the CBD with modern station design, this wouldn't be an issue.
tonyp
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by tonyp »

Get over to Perth Transtopic and watch your theory being turned on its head.

You're also ignoring the fact that Sydney is a polycentred city and is planned to become even more so.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by rogf24 »

Dwell times can get pretty bad at peak times outside those stations as well, like in Parramatta, Redfern, Strathfield and even Epping ECRL platforms (modern design) was fairly bad before ECRL closed. I would expect Chatswood would face dwell time challenges with DD trains once Metro opens. Trains definately stop at those stations longer than even any CBD station in Melbourne during peaks. Even at Hurstville it's longer, of course these dwell times are built into the timetable but it's still long.

The main limiting factor of dwell times in DD trains is the stairs. Wider platforms help but ultimately it's the stairs inside the train. We need wider stairs inside the trains (which can be done btw). And an extra door too.

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tonyp
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by tonyp »

rogf24 wrote: The main limiting factor of dwell times in DD trains is the stairs. Wider platforms help but ultimately it's the stairs inside the train. We need wider stairs inside the trains (which can be done btw).
There's also a constraint on capacity that goes with this, as the combined deterrents of stairs and lack of doors means that each carriage won't fill to capacity as people won't move far from doors in case they get trapped when they want to disembark. It's an endemic engineering design problem in both trains and buses in Sydney. The apparent lack of appreciation of the issue by TfNSW is deeply disturbing for a major transit agency.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by mandonov »

Map of Metro West geotechnical testing sites (made by zoomwhoosh on SSC): https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewe ... FWqruo-U19

It's interesting to see how far south of Camellia they're doing test drills. It's clear that the PLR Stage 2 delay is likely related to the MW route still not being set in stone.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by moa999 »

Think it's more there will be a station near the Camelia light rail stop them it swings south under James Ruse Dr
tonyp
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by tonyp »

I have a hunch that the Rydalmere-Olympic Park branch of the PLR might be on hold while they check the feasibility of crossing the West Metro to the north side of the river and back again to (sort of) do the job that the tram was going to do. After all, it's underground, so a shallow river isn't an obstacle. Additional journey time might be a theoretical negative but, considering the metro is pretty zippy, this shouldn't account for more than a couple of minutes.
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swtt
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by swtt »

tonyp wrote:I have a hunch that the Rydalmere-Olympic Park branch of the PLR might be on hold while they check the feasibility of crossing the West Metro to the north side of the river and back again to (sort of) do the job that the tram was going to do. After all, it's underground, so a shallow river isn't an obstacle. Additional journey time might be a theoretical negative but, considering the metro is pretty zippy, this shouldn't account for more than a couple of minutes.
Wentworth Point at least deserves a major upgrade either via metro (unlikely) or light rail.

At the moment, it's practically in limbo.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by moa999 »

swtt wrote:
Wentworth Point at least deserves a major upgrade either via metro (unlikely) or light rail.
.
Smallish (albeit high rise) suburb.. it's got a ferry and a bus/pedestrian bridge to Rhodes. Better serviced than many suburbs including say Newington nearby.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by boronia »

Sydney Metro approval clears way for exact locations of train stations

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/syd ... 531mc.html
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tonyp
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by tonyp »

So I scooped the Rydalmere alignment in my post of 9 Sept above. 8)
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by Transtopic »

tonyp wrote:So I scooped the Rydalmere alignment in my post of 9 Sept above. 8)
If you're right, then it might open up the option for a possible Stage 2 of the Parramatta Light Rail to instead follow the more direct alignment from Dundas to Macquarie University via Eastwood, which was the preferred route in Parramatta Council's original feasibility study. Any extension beyond Carlingford to Epping, let alone to the Macquarie Park region, is unlikely and has quietly been dropped.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by grimlock81 »

Exact station locations now revealed

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/120 ... 532dq.html
Sydney Metro West station locations
Westmead: The eastern side of Hawkesbury Road, south of the existing Westmead station. The new station will have one entrance on Hawkesbury Road.

Parramatta: On the block bound by George, Macquarie, Church and Smith streets with an entrance on Horwood Place.

Sydney Olympic Park: To the south of the existing train station. It will sit to the east of Olympic Boulevard with the main station entrances between Herb Elliot Avenue and Figtree Drive, and off Dawn Fraser Avenue.

North Strathfield: Adjacent to the existing train station. New metro platforms will sit alongside the existing station and entry to the station would be from a new entrance on Queen Street.

Burwood North: At the corner of Burwood and Parramatta roads, with entrances on both the north and south sides of Parramatta Road.

Five Dock: Located off Great North Road, between East Street and then at the corner of Second Avenue and Waterview Street. The station entrance will be at Fred Kelly Place off Great North Road.

Bays Precinct: Located between Glebe Island and White Bay Power Station with an entrance to the south of White Bay.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by marcnut1996 »

From Sydney Metro website:
Project overview (with exact exact station locations) - https://www.sydneymetro.info/sites/defa ... r_2019.pdf
Newsletter - https://www.sydneymetro.info/sites/defa ... r_2019.pdf

And TfNSW's press release: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/news-a ... -next-year
Construction of the Western Sydney Metro to start next year
Published21 Oct 2019
Construction will soon begin on the Western Sydney Metro, with seven station locations confirmed today – a project that will slash travel times between Parramatta and the Sydney CBD down to around 20 minutes.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said construction work will begin next year, commencing at the Bays Precinct, to prepare the site for major tunnelling works.

“The Western Sydney Metro will fundamentally change how we get around our city for generations to come, connecting Greater Parramatta and the Sydney CBD with fast, safe and reliable metro rail,” Ms Berejiklian said.

“We’ve successfully delivered the North West Metro Line early and $1 billion under budget, the next line from Chatswood to Sydenham and Bankstown is on track to open in 2024, and now the next Metro project is underway.”

The first works in the Bays Precinct will include site surveys, investigations and early works such as road relocation.

The locations of seven proposed Metro stations have been confirmed at Westmead, Parramatta, Sydney Olympic Park, North Strathfield, Burwood North, Five Dock and the Bays Precinct.

The NSW Government will also fast-track work to investigate the feasibility of building a Metro station in Pyrmont, while also assessing a potential station at Rydalmere. Further work is also underway to determine the location of the new Metro station in the Sydney CBD.

The project team has today started informing affected property owners and tenants. The preference is always to reach a commercial agreement, with compulsory acquisition a last resort.

Minister for Transport Andrew Constance said the project team has been talking to communities along the alignment since 2016. Details of the exact station locations are now available on the Sydney Metro website.

“Western Sydney Metro will more than double the existing rail capacity between Greater Parramatta and the Sydney CBD and slash travel times between Parramatta and the Sydney CBD to around 20 minutes,” Mr Constance said.

With the T1 Western Line and the T9 Northern Line expected to reach capacity within the next decade, the NSW Government’s commitment to fund this project ensures that tomorrow’s Sydney has the infrastructure it needs to keep moving.

“In addition to becoming the easiest and fastest way to travel between these two cities, the project is also anticipated to create approximately 10,000 direct and 70,000 indirect jobs,” Mr Constance said.

At Parramatta, the new Metro station will serve the commercial core of the Parramatta CBD to the north of the existing train station.

Sydney Olympic Park, which is visited by more than 10 million people each year, will also get a second railway station within walking distance of ANZ Stadium in the heart of the growing town centre, reinforcing its status as Australia’s premier events, sporting and entertainment precinct.

The NSW Government has today also announced that it is kicking off a global search for suppliers capable of building more than 50 kilometres of new Metro railway tunnels connecting the two centres – the longest railway tunnels ever built in Australia, in what is expected to be the biggest tunnelling contract awarded in Australian history.

The community will have the opportunity to provide further feedback as part of the statutory planning assessment process, which will be administered by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

Suppliers wishing to express their interest in the procurement of the tunnelling contract for Western Sydney Metro will be able to register their interest on the eTendering website from tomorrow.
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mandonov
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by mandonov »

All this announcement seems to be is a confirmation of what we knew with zero details on what we didn’t; like the CBD location, the use of Zetland, or the ‘optional’ Pyrmont or Rydalmere which is still a strange choice compared to Camellia.

Why is Westmead south of the station and an out of station interchange? Epping should be the model for this station with an entrance on the north side for direct access to the light rail stop and quicker access to the hospitals. The distinct lack of interchange at Westmead makes a more central Parramatta station difficult to justify even though it’s the best location. It’s also strange because it seems North Strathfield will be Epping style with the new platforms aligned parallel to the Northern Line and no mention of an ‘above-ground’ interchange as in the Westmead description.

Surprised that Burwood North is actually at Parramatta and Burwood Roads as I expected it to be either a little more north or east at Concord Oval. It and Five Dock will both be fantastic bus interchanges and practically eliminate buses to the CBD west of Leichhardt. I also wouldn’t be surprised if passenger flows to and from Leichhardt and the northern CBD shift northwards to interchange at White Bay, similarly the Victoria Rd corridor. 4 minutes (a guess) from White Bay to Hunter Street would absolutely be worth the interchange over the 20+ minute crawl across the Anzac Bridge and up to Martin Place.

The change of location for the maintenance centre is interesting. It was originally proposed adjacent the Parramatta Light Rail maintenance and stabling facility but is now at the Sydney Speedway in Clyde. You can see on the map in the documents that they’re using the rail corridor at Rosehill to reach the site.

The revised completion date of 2030 is far more realistic, but also a very public way of asking the federal government for more cash. Constance even said it can be done faster with the money. Metro openings in the 2020’s are already quite crowded with City in 2024, Southwest in 2025(who knows at this rate), and Greater West in 2026.
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swtt
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by swtt »

mandonov wrote: Why is Westmead south of the station and an out of station interchange? Epping should be the model for this station with an entrance on the north side for direct access to the light rail stop and quicker access to the hospitals. The distinct lack of interchange at Westmead makes a more central Parramatta station difficult to justify even though it’s the best location. It’s also strange because it seems North Strathfield will be Epping style with the new platforms aligned parallel to the Northern Line and no mention of an ‘above-ground’ interchange as in the Westmead description.
Probably because there's nowhere else to dig without causing any more significant disruption.

Parramatta is worse - it's at least 100-200m from the current interchange!
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by mandonov »

Here is the detailed proposal and concept plan: https://majorprojects.planningportal.ns ... .047%20GMT
swtt wrote: Probably because there's nowhere else to dig without causing any more significant disruption.

Parramatta is worse - it's at least 100-200m from the current interchange!
Parramatta makes sense because it's about accessing the largest catchment of jobs in the core of the Parramatta CBD. We wouldn't argue that Martin Place shouldn't have been built because St James is a block(-ish) away, because it's about expanding coverage in the CBD. Same concept here.

In the plans they go into a bit of detail about the options they had for the Westmead and Parramatta coupling, with the criteria being to serve a large employment centre with one station with a T1 connection at the other. The other shortlisted option was the inverse of what was chosen, with a Parramatta Station and Westmead Hospital stops. What they chose is the best option in my opinion, however the connection to the exisiting station is a poor outcome that, as I said, makes the more central Parramatta station option harder to justify.

The whole line has been value engineered, and the interchanges are the most visible proof: neither North Strathfield nor Westmead will have an Epping style, direct to the platform interchange.
Page 73
Interchange support at Westmead

Construction sites within the existing rail corridor would be located on land owned by Sydney Trains and vacant land along the rail corridor in the vicinity of stations. Interchange support work would involve:
› Widening and lengthening of existing station platform(s)
› Track slewing, rail systems and overhead wiring work
› Construction of a new aerial concourse with new lifts and stairs to the existing
platforms, and demolition of existing station elements
› Adjustments to existing station entry points and the overhead concourse.

Interchange support at North Strathfield

Interchange support work would involve the construction of a new aerial concourse with new lifts and stairs to the existing platforms, and demolition of existing station elements. At the current stage of design, it is not expected that any below grade work is required.
What this sounds like to me is that there might be transfers within payed sections of the station, but in order to interchange you'd need to go to the surface and then to an aerial concourse. Just picture the hassle it would be at Epping if to transfer from the Metro to Sydney Trains you had to go all the way to street level, continue going up to cross Beecroft Road to then go down to the desired platform.

Probably the worst aspect of this that I have found in the more detailed document is that The Bays is the only station who's 'Primary Function' doesn't include 'interchange'. It's not once referred to as one and the word is nowhere in the description of the station like it is for all the others.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by iamthouth »

I'm actually surprised they choose a new Olympic Park Station, rather than converting the existing one into Metro, and get rid of the Lidcombe Shuttle.
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Re: Sydney Metro West announced

Post by Fleet Lists »

I think that will still happen.
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