Newcastle Transport

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ScaniaGrenda
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

Rode 2386 ST on route 24 this morning which was running late by 12 mins, bus was having gearbox problems and not changing gears and the ride felt very sluggish. I put in a complaint to 131500 and had a call from Newcastle Transport this afternoon to tell me what the go was with 2386 ST. Apparently it broke down not long after I got off it and It had to be towed back to the Depot.

I asked why if it was having gearbox problems why was it still put into service and I was given some answer along the lines of "it happens". They did tell me tho the buses go through regular checks and I'm no expert on gearboxes but I highly doubt this Issue just flared up in the middle of the service run. Also if the bus was having gearbox problems, why did the driver wait until it broke down to radio the depot? Why didn't he radio back to base and tell them straight up about the problem and ask for another bus to be sent out?

No blame on the driver, they do what they can do but the driver did have some possible options to consider.

So I guess don't expect to see 2386 ST on the road for a bit.
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Linto63
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Linto63 »

I doubt many drivers will take a bus out of the depot knowing is is likely to fail, most likely that the problem manifested itself during the shift. Drivers are damned if they do, damned if they don't; if they try and get to the end of the run, some will complain, if they pull the pin mid-journey, no doubt others will complain.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Swift »

Don't forget the mantra: it's always the bus driver's fault (usually isn't).
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boronia
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by boronia »

Linto63 wrote:I doubt many drivers will take a bus out of the depot knowing is is likely to fail, most likely that the problem manifested itself during the shift. Drivers are damned if they do, damned if they don't; if they try and get to the end of the run, some will complain, if they pull the pin mid-journey, no doubt others will complain.
Quite often these problems will appear without warning, and often disappear just as quickly if you continue driving.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by 1whoknows »

yes. Troubles can appear out of the blue. And for all ScaniaGrenda knows the driver might have already radioed ahead and there may even have been a changeover bus waiting up the road somewhere.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

Okay question then, why continue driving the bus if the gearbox feels like it's going to go out the window? Wouldn't it be safer to pull over, wait and see what the go is and if safe continue on? Why go against that?

I recall years ago being on a private operators Hino PMCA (school run) and as we got around a corner the gearbox locked up and grunted and made horrible sounds and you could smell smoke / burnt rubber, the driver instead of choosing to continue ahead pulled over and terminated the service right there and then. Yesterdays case wasn't as bad as my Hino example here but not far from being similar problems with the gearbox acting up badly.

And for anyone who thinks I'm blaming the driver and chooses to jump to conclusions, I'm not, all I'm saying is there was options they could've considered, that doesn't equal to me saying the blame lays on them.

small problems are bound to happen but this problem wasn't going to go away at the state the gearbox was in and I could tell. I'd been told at least the driver of 2386 ST didn't radio anyone till it broke down long after I got off and had to be towed back to base, I don't know whether they transferred passengers to a replacement 24 bus or whether they made them wait for the next timetabled 24 to show up. I wasn't told where it had broken down
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Linto63
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Linto63 »

You will probably have to ask the driver
ScaniaGrenda wrote:Okay question then, why continue driving the bus if the gearbox feels like it's going to go out the window? Wouldn't it be safer to pull over, wait and see what the go is and if safe continue on? Why go against that?
Who knows, but I doubt that anybody here is going to be able to provide an insight into the driver's thinking.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Swift »

In my days of driving STA, If I iced every bus with transmission flares, crunching changes, thumps etc, I wouldn't be able to complete hardly any trips!
Yet they kept going with these problems remaining for months, if not years, at a time!
They don'ta wanta spenda thuh money *rubs thumb and two fingers together*.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by boronia »

ScaniaGrenda wrote:Okay question then, why continue driving the bus if the gearbox feels like it's going to go out the window? Wouldn't it be safer to pull over, wait and see what the go is and if safe continue on? Why go against that?
As you, and the rest of us, don't know the full story, it is unfair to speculate on the cause or outcome.

Complaining to 131500 is a bit of overkill, as wouldn't change the outcome, it is something the operator has to wear.

[last time I put in a complaint about a misbehaving train, it took a week before someone contacted me and offered to get it checked out. They obviously don't want "misinformed" passengers dictating maintenance issues]
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

I called 131500 because it was unacceptable the bus was running late (at first) by 12 minutes and I was a bit annoyed but then further issues with the bus. I don't care if the community thinks we shouldn't be calling up and reporting these issues "Because it doesn't change outcomes" or is "overkill", if the bus Is running in such a poor condition you bet yourself I'll be calling them up and telling them about it. It's also feedback in a way. "2286 ST is having problems? right thanks for your call we'll note it down and have a look at it when it gets back to base" for example.

And when Newcastle Transport called back they even said "you were right about the gearbox". The mechanics back at base will know more than I ever will but I think operators appreciate it when someone calls in and can give further input into problems that way they know what the problem is, what can done to fix it and how they can resolve it. I doubt operators or 131500 hears much of someone calling in whose on the ball with what the problem is, I would've expected others to just say "the bus is shaking", that leaves a million questions to what's causing it instead of my direct "this bus is having gearbox problems and is having trouble keeping up with the gears and is slugging along like a snail".
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by tonyp »

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

So 54% of its users are riding it as an internal circulator, something that the heavy rail line could never do and was inappropriate for.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by moa999 »

3600 daily trips is pretty poor.
Each tram has 60 seats and 276 capacity, say 200 for a comfortable capacity.

So that's on average only 18 moderately full trips a day.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by tonyp »

moa999 wrote:3600 daily trips is pretty poor.
Each tram has 60 seats and 276 capacity, say 200 for a comfortable capacity.

So that's on average only 18 moderately full trips a day.
There's no doubt that it's overkill for now, but should be seen as a starting point for a longer system extending westwards. It still provides that internal circulator that the railway could never provide. Yes, a Gong Shuttle type of bus service would be the logical alternative, but the local type of bus design and methodology (front door loading, poor internal load circulation and distribution) is unsuited to handling high-turnover crowds with prams, surfboards etc, as the Gong Shuttle proves daily. If it's not a tram it needs to be something like this:

Image
Image

Otherwise, it has to be a tram, even if that's overkill in a particular case. The Australian bus sector is its own worst enemy, yet they go on about the wonders of "BRT" ....
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Swift »

^ a real modern bus. Meanwhile on planet Australia....
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Re: Newcastle Transport

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Swift wrote:^ a real modern bus. Meanwhile on planet Australia....
... Midis with standard seating layout and steps to the back are used on CATs. Such a regression from the DABs (reliability concerns aside) or even OCs with some longitudinal seating.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by tonyp »

Merc1107 wrote: ... Midis with standard seating layout and steps to the back are used on CATs. Such a regression from the DABs (reliability concerns aside) or even OCs with some longitudinal seating.
The all-door loading makes a huge difference to the operation of the CATs compared to the Gong Shuttle, if you've ridden both. But the steps up to the back aisle certainly inhibit crowd distribution (thus fitting more people on board) even considering the lack of a back door. In NSW, with its vastly greater number of PT users, you can understand the reason for adopting trams again, even if it's sometimes very costly overkill. The bus sector simply won't rise to the occasion and make any effort to bridge the gap between the two modes. Resistance to acquiring artics worsens the situation greatly.

Coincidentally I find just today that I am blocked from Australian Bus and Coach magazine on Facebook, seemingly over a polite comment I made on an item about a new articulated bus about which they opined that this meant that trams were no longer needed. I simply listed some comparitive statsistics about the capacity per hour of two or three Australian bus and tram routes which tended to disprove them and they block me! Yeah, denial and burying heads in the sand is really going to go a long way for the bus industry. I miss Truck and Bus Transportation. It didn't just uncritically fill its pages with hubris-laden press releases.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Merc1107 »

tonyp wrote: The all-door loading makes a huge difference to the operation of the CATs compared to the Gong Shuttle, if you've ridden both. But the steps up to the back aisle certainly inhibit crowd distribution (thus fitting more people on board) even considering the lack of a back door. In NSW, with its vastly greater number of PT users, you can understand the reason for adopting trams again, even if it's sometimes very costly overkill. The bus sector simply won't rise to the occasion and make any effort to bridge the gap between the two modes. Resistance to acquiring artics worsens the situation greatly.

Coincidentally I find just today that I am blocked from Australian Bus and Coach magazine on Facebook, seemingly over a polite comment I made on an item about a new articulated bus about which they opined that this meant that trams were no longer needed. I simply listed some comparitive statsistics about the capacity per hour of two or three Australian bus and tram routes which tended to disprove them and they block me! Yeah, denial and burying heads in the sand is really going to go a long way for the bus industry. I miss Truck and Bus Transportation. It didn't just uncritically fill its pages with hubris-laden press releases.
The problem I've witnessed with CATs when operating supplementary 003 and 004 services is passengers tend to board and alight through the rear doors, rather than spreading evenly between both. Where an artic is used, passengers use the centre and rear doors. Can't win with the travelling public, it seems!
Last edited by Merc1107 on Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by tonyp »

In Europe most people board and alight through the centre and rear doors (the rear door being the one behind the rear axle) because the front door is more remote from where all the internal seats and space are, so that's natural. An artic is even better because there are two, in some operations three, centre doors. In terms of efficiency and productivity the artic is the most tram-like bus type, but with less capacity. Yes, moving off topic for Newcastle, but illustrative of why they decided on trams. When you have a choice between overkill and underkill, you go for overkill to provide for future growth.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Swift »

tonyp wrote:
Coincidentally I find just today that I am blocked from Australian Bus and Coach magazine on Facebook, seemingly over a polite comment I made on an item about a new articulated bus about which they opined that this meant that trams were no longer needed. I simply listed some comparitive statsistics about the capacity per hour of two or three Australian bus and tram routes which tended to disprove them and they block me! Yeah, denial and burying heads in the sand is really going to go a long way for the bus industry. I miss Truck and Bus Transportation. It didn't just uncritically fill its pages with hubris-laden press releases.
Sound like how the lefty side of politics roll! Throw facts that upset their narrative and they simply block you.
They destroyed their own position and credibility doing that.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote:Coincidentally I find just today that I am blocked from Australian Bus and Coach magazine on Facebook, seemingly over a polite comment I made on an item about a new articulated bus about which they opined that this meant that trams were no longer needed. I simply listed some comparitive statistics about the capacity per hour of two or three Australian bus and tram routes which tended to disprove them and they block me!
Maybe they felt you had not been a bit loose with the facts...wouldn't be the first time.
tonyp wrote:I miss Truck and Bus Transportation. It didn't just uncritically fill its pages with hubris-laden press releases.
Great publication in its day, but by the late-1980s it was pretty light and fluffy. Subservient to its advertisers with compromised product reviews that were gushing with praise of new buses that were dogs, with the manufacturers taking out full page colour adds in return.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by tonyp »

All of these journals that are reliant on advertising are like this, but ABC descends to new depths, being little more than a bulletin board for various press releases. I caught them being loose with facts to support a particular narrative which they obviously don't want to see challenged. The capacity calculations are a simple mathematical exercise on a calculator, almost impossible to get wrong. Even application of common sense yields the answer without even resorting to a calculation. It's frustrating that some in the industry prefer to waste effort pursuing fantasies rather than getting down to working on improving the things buses can do best.
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by boronia »

Linto63 wrote:Great publication in its day, but by the late-1980s it was pretty light and fluffy. Subservient to its advertisers with compromised product reviews that were gushing with praise of new buses that were dogs, with the manufacturers taking out full page colour adds in return.
This tends to apply to any motoring journalism.

How many "car of the year" winners have turned up in the "10 worst cars ever made" lists a few years later?
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

Amid the current restrictions, the RTBU wants the Newcastle Driverless bus trial scrapped
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2020/05/26/u ... bus-trial/
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Re: Newcastle Transport

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Has such a trial been announced?
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Re: Newcastle Transport

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

The Driverless trial has been running since late last year, I've actually ridden on the Newcastle Driverless bus myself but at the time I did ride it KD prohibited me from filming any of the inside which I never really understood if they were offering rides to the general public, I never had the opportunity after riding it the first time to go back and give it another go.

Newcastle Flyer has probably also ridden on it but can't remember off the top of my head.
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