Getting it right: the Tuesday, June 2, 2009 By Riccardo I’m glad my recent post on incrementalism received a lot of responses and debate. I’ll move on from that to talk about the recent experience of the Sydney urban rail system under the dying government of Nathan Rees. I’ve blogged a few times on what I see as the paradox of a dying government with a history of poor decision-making and inappropriate relationships – actually getting it right. How is it I can say it is right when: -the route is incomplete and somewhat hard to justify -the cost seems exhorbitant for the short length involved -the outcry from those areas that missed out, such as the NW suburbs, is deafening -and the federal Infrastructure Department found it so wanting, it missed out on funding? My answer to this paradox is: because they have got the service model and technology right – and everything else is something that can wait for another day. Why is this important? Because Australia has had, for a very long time, perhaps since the beginning, a misconceived and misapplied approach to rail planning and investment, and a poor operating culture, which incremental investment approaches have only perpetuated. A dying government, in its last days and with little financial or planning credibility left, has actually thrown the right spanner in the works, called a halt to the Australian rail paradigm once and for all. A commendable step. We’ll have to see if this line survives the transition to a Liberal Government. Planning: First of all, the gives primacy, above all, to addressing congestion issues: the primary motivator for sensible passenger rail investment in Australia. Where the people are in abundance, that’s where rail needs to be. Not where they vote (still not many voters in the CBD itself to fill with pork). Not in areas of ‘deprivation’ or those areas deemed worthy by social workers or whatever. The system is aimed specifically at two types of congestion – rail congestion on the Cityrail system, especially at the existing stations of Town Hall and Wynyard. I will confess I would like to see more work on how these two stations could be modified to improve capacity, but I accept the basic premise, and wonder at the danger of having 6 platforms, loaded with full double deck trains, and a fire breaking out. How would you clear that many people? The other form of congestion is of course road congestion. Victoria Road, especially from Gladesville inwards, is one of Sydney’s busiest road corridors that is not freeway, nor has a parallel rail alternative. Again, I can foresee alternatives to a metro on this route – but support the fundamental view that it is congestion visibly driving the investment. A turn-up-and- go 100% reliable and quick rail service to the CBD will be very competitive with driving on the route, and steal much market share. Secondly, the Sydney metro is planned as an expandable system. You might say “aren’t they all” but it is clear to me that some rail enhancements in Australia are anything but. Look at Melbourne’s City Loop for example. Expandable doesn’t just mean route length – it means that you can ramp up services perhaps 5 fold over the original brief. An off the shelf metro, as planned for Sydney, has a starting spec of 5 minute headways, but can likely take 1 minute headways if and when it gets busy enough to do so. This is amazing. Can Melbourne’s City Loop accommodate a 5-fold increase in traffic? Granted, it was set up to accommodate 3 minute headways, but seems to struggle as it closes on that mark. The rest of the Sydney system cannot cope with service expansions. The easy wins, such as going from single to double deck, started in the 60s and were complete in the 80s. There is still more need for track amplification but some key locales, for example Strathfield to the City, will not cope. Sourcing The realisation that Australia is not the place for custom manufacture of rail track and rollingstock has only taken 150 odd years to percolate into the transport bureaucracies. Rail innovators need some core characteristics – considerable existing support for rail, a risk taking culture, and environments that actually require innovation (such as the need for speed). Australia has none of those three things, and any rail innovation in urban areas is doomed as a result. It becomes an ugly ducking (Melbourne’s 4D), a political target (the Tangaras in Sydney) or destined to never reach its potential (XPT). I’ll grant the Sydney double deck interurban (Comeng V-set) program has been a raging success over the years, possibly due to the ‘actually requiring innovation’ criterion being met, due to the large pool of Central Coast and Blue Mountains commuters. Sydney’s metro, by being promoted blatantly as off-the-shelf, turns that 150 years of culture on its head and gives the planners the confidence that outcomes will be met, and the public the confidence that it will be just like the ones they’ve ridden overseas. Operation The planned operation of the system is just out of the Transport Textbook, with most of my training track concepts adopted (not that I invented any of them!) I sometimes wondered if I was going crazy, pointing these things out in hostile places like Railpage only to have seasoned posters in that place suggest that these things don’t matter. Clearly they do, and when the chequebook is open wide enough for someone to implement them, they are. These concepts include: -a published service standard (which happens to be TUAG, but that is not the point, the point is that it is published, unlike say the service standard to Penrith, which is what? -a service standard of TUAG -realisation that dedicated rollingstock are needed for the line (fitting the rollingstock to the line) -single deck stock (high density and high speed loading and unloading) -cross platform interchange and no single seat journeys -dedicated operator, not part of Cityrail. I maintain that it is the passenger’s job to change vehicle and the coordinating authority’s job to plan interchanges and timetabling, but it does not matter who operates the vehicle as long as they achieve the service standard applying to the service. Of course the other key operational characteristic is driverless operation. I won’t turn this into a union-bashing thread, but it is clear that the union parasite has killed its Cityrail host. Unless is can be removed, there is no way the sorts of operational improvements Cityrail needs can be implemented, especially with a dying Labor government at the helm. These people will be thinking about their lives after political office, and won’t be making enemies in the union movement between now and then. But it will be hard for the union to argue for drivers in a system that can run without them. Funding While it is regrettable the money is not available to extend the system further, it appears to me that a ‘line in the sand’ has been drawn against Treasury whiteanting, and the money, though exhorbitant, is somehow quarantined for the project. Contracts and so on are clearly being drawn up so that the Libs can’t overturn them without considerable expense (although there are plenty of precedents in Sydney including Maldon-Dombarton, several iterations of the Eastern Suburbs line and so on). In marketing terms, I’ve noticed the Government ’sticking to its guns’. Clearly someone in charge believes what they are doing – a pleasant change for a Melbournian used to plastic smiles and thinly veneered spin. Conclusion The project has a lot to be critical of, but I believe I have pointed out that, at its heart, it is the right project. The right technology, the right operational setup, the right planning approach and acceptance of core transport truisms about what make urban transport tick. I’ll hold judgement on whether the right funding model and right terminus have been adopted. I do have every confidence the outcome is somewhere between ‘no regrets’ and ’should have done it decades ago’. I fear more for Melbourne which, if current plans are accurate, has not learnt the lessons of 150 years of pain and grief. If we see Siemens electrics running through to Sunbury on tracks shared with Vline and freight, but then pretending to deliver a ‘metro’ service under the city, then they have learnt nothing – from the City Loop debacle, or from the Dandenong line dramas, or even from the period of decline and marginalisation in the 1970s and 80s, when so demonstrably failed to meet the needs of a changing city, yet was so admirably clung to by bureaucrats and unions alike. This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Economics, Planning and Operation, Politics and History, Victorian Transport Plan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. 20 Responses to “Getting it right: the Sydney Metro” Jarrett of HumanTransit.org June 3, 2009 at 10:22 pm I’ve worked extensively on station area planning around driverless metros, and commuted on one when I lived in Vancouver. The real payoff of driverlessness is not in sticking it to the unions; there will still be a staff and it will still be unionised, but there may be fewer than one per train. The point is to reduce the cost of increments of frequency. Vancouver’s driverless SkyTrain runs very frequently (every 5 minutes or better) all the way to midnight even though patronage is low, because once the line is built the increments of frequency are cheap. This has HUGE benefits in terms of people’s ability to really contemplate living without a car along the line. Cheers, J +++++++++++++++ 453 dfai June 3, 2009 at 11:47 pm Hi, this is my first post, though I’ve been keeping tabs on this site for a while, and I’ve been following the Sydney Metro drama ever since the Christie Report. Essentially I agree with you that the proposed operating model for the CBD metro is the optimum one, viz: off-the-shelf products (I’d be happy if they just treated the line as an extension of, say, Line 14 of the Paris metro), driverless trains, 2-3 minute headways obviating published timetables, single-decker rolling stock with high acceleration rates, quick loading times and mainly standing capacity. However, my two main reservations about the project lead me to hope that it fails (and most predict it will). My first objection is that, if I had $5.3b to spend on capital works improving Sydney’s rail system, a line from to Central, areas already served by numerous rail/light rail/ferry/bus public transport options would be quite low on my list. Going by the last figures given (although these have a crazy rate of inflation) this would be enough to fund the entire NW and SW rail links, which would be much more successful at getting cars off the roads and attaining city planning objectives. Sure, the line underneath the harbour is a much more distant prospect, but it wouldn’t be too hard to squeeze a bit more capacity out of the network to allow these lines to be serviced with 4-6tph without deleteriously impacting other lines to a noticeable extent. The argument has been made that the metro would increase CBD capacity and allow western line expresses to terminate at the Countrylink platforms. I actually think this second idea is very sound and should be implemented even without the metro. Looking at Cityrail’s current timetable, only the and Western line is running at maximum capacity. Lines have a theoretical capacity of 40 trains over the 7-9am peak, yet on the Circle via Town Hall there are only 30 trains in this period, on the Circle via Museum there are 26 and on the Illawarra line there are 27. Yes, there are other timetable constraints to consider, but these could be dealt with to allow running 20tph on all lines during peak at not too great an expense (I have a plan in my head which I might submit here later). This said, I do believe that after the NWRL and SWRL are completed, future rail expansion in inner areas (up to about 15km from the CBD) should be in the form of off-the-shelf metros. In this sense, the CBD metro is an “enabler” of future lines, however, for this purpose I think the alignment within the CBD is completely wrong. It is broadly accepted that there are four primary extra-CBD corridors which require metro lines in the medium-term: Rd out to Parramatta, Victoria Rd to West Ryde, Military Rd to the Northern Beaches and Anzac Pde to Malabar. Clearly these all have to enter the CBD and allow interchange with each other and with existing Cityrail lines, as well as hopefully providing new intra-CBD transit routes. Common sense would indicate that the four corridors can form two lines passing right through the CBD. The CBD metro, which theoretically forms the stub for future Victoria Rd and Parramatta Rd metro lines, seems to do this. The problem is, however, that it connects up the wrong lines. It would be far more effective for the Victoria Rd line to link with a future Anzac Pde line (via Wynyard, Martin Place and St James’ unused platforms – as per the original Anzac Line plan of 2007) and for the Parramatta Rd line to link with the Northern Beaches line (via the CBD metro’s Railway Square and Pitt/Park St stations, then onto Wynyard 1/2, the east lanes of the harbour bridge and the extra platforms of North Sydney). Planning for these lines should also allow for a future Cityrail line through the CBD and under the harbour, distant though this prospect may be. What is inefficacious about the CBD metro? Well, for start it undermines the point of having through lines if they end up running parallel to each other (i.e. I’m not going to catch a metro through the CBD in order to get from Drummoyne to Haberfield). Secondly, it makes the alignment for a mooted Northeast-Southeast metro line quite difficult. Thirdly, connections between the metro lines and Cityrail would be more inefficient (especially with regards to the second line, which would have no connection to Wynyard, Town Hall or Central). In short, Rees’ metro plan is a short-term solution from, as you said, a “dying government” looking only to get re-elected and maybe soothe capacity problems, rather than achieve wholesale modal shift onto public transport. What it really shows is the need for Sydney to adopt a long-term plan for new rail lines (say, over 30 years), and for the government to assign $1- 2b a year to an independent body to go about constructing it. If Labor had done so when it was first elected (14 years ago) the plan would be half done by now (and yes I’m aware of Action for Transport 2010, but it never saw any funding). If such a body had $5.3b for starters to spend on a CBD metro, I’d go with the Railway Square to North Sydney alignment, then if I had any change from that (what with the Wynyard-North Sydney section essentially already in place) I’d start work on a Wynyard to Martin Place stub line, possibly extending out to Moore Park. P.S. Sorry for the long post. +++++++++++++++ 454 Riccardo June 4, 2009 at 12:14 pm Thanks to both Jarrett – welcome and thanks for your comment. I agree the low staffing requirement is the key driver of wanting a driverless metro but I will just mention for your benefit, union politics in NSW has now become toxic, with the current state premier a puppet of one union faction. But the other interests in the government see that their best chance of getting out from under that spell is to build a rail system they will have no say in. The construction union is very weak (unlike in Victoria) so putting more capital and less labor is desirable. Certainly I would not want to be extending Cityrail with its requirement of: -compulsory 2-manned trains -double deck only fleet with custom made cars -station staff who do not want to do their work eg security, cleaning -poor overall cost recovery dfai – you’re welcome too and thanks for your post Agree with your comments and the Rozelle destination is regrettable. The same short stub could have been routed across to Mosman, or down to Taylor Sq and Kingsford, and done much more good than a place that already has a ferry service and light rail at hand. I’m also on the record as saying that the existing system needs retrofitting to metro standard, especially the multitrack core to Hurstville, Homebush, Chatswood, , Revesby, and the lines to Bondi and the Airport. And my line zero would actually be the Rozelle (White Bay) to Dulwich Hill line, but exclusively for training and concept proving for the first couple of years. Once the concept is proven, you could then use the Mungos, Catherine St and other sites for very high density housing. And you could upgrade the existing SLR into a medium capacity light metro, (line 0.5) and tunnel through the rock from Wentworth Park direct to Darling Harbour and under the water to the CBD. Which would then leave the tram cars running on the existing original SLR section from WP to Central Colonnade. But on the basis that the ALP has jammed a block into the path of the very poor developmental pathway of Australian rail, and slowed 150 years of incompetence, I’m prepared to support it. I’m also starting to have second thoughts about a NWRL, with a belief that Parramatta should be further built up and people discouraged from coming down from Rouse Hill to Sydney CBD. Obviously they would be served if the Parramatta-Epping line had been finished (as they would come down, somewhat indirectly but still a reasonable route, from RH to Epping then to Parramatta) But a direct route north from Parramatta into the Hills district is the real solution. Of course, they once had one! +++++++++++++++ 459 dfai June 5, 2009 at 5:17 pm Riccardo – I like your idea about retrofitting inner Cityrail lines to metro operation. My preference would be to carve two metro lines out of Cityrail: one taking the local tracks from Homebush, then Circle, Airport line and local tracks out to Revesby (Line 1); the other taking the local tracks from Hurstville to the city, then the Eastern Suburbs line to Bondi Junction (Line 2). Add this to the two proposed metro lines (3 + 4), and a conversion of the SLR into light metro (5), make them all t-u-a-g, and voila: you have a sophisticated, five-line metro network serving the transport needs of a large proportion of inner-city residents. Later down the track, Christie’s Dee Why-Cronulla and Castle Hill-Hoxton Park metro lines could also be built (though these are decades away, and low on the priority list). Retrofitting Ciyrail lines could range from simply putting single-decker, single-driver only metro trains on existing tracks, or doing a major upgrade of the lines and station facilities (which may even allow for driverless trains). Even with SDO, staff levels can be kept low: for instance, the line, which now has 15-minute headways, could move to 5-minute headways with only a 50% increase in staff costs (less if the trains ran faster due to higher acceleration rates, quicker loading times and no need for timetable padding – all-stations trains from Strahtfield to Central are currently timetabled to have an average speed of 28.4km/h, which is appallingly low). These retrofitted lines should be completely physically independent of each other, and of the remaining Cityrail lines (so no flat junctions, etc), but interoperability may be desirable for emergency situations. They should also be separate from the new metro lines, thus allowing completely different specifications for the new lines (in terms of loading gauge, platform length, gradients, etc). You would end up with a two-tiered metro network (three-tiered including the light metro) along the lines of London’s sub-surface and deep tube lines. This is where Glazebrook’s plan falls down, in my opinion, in that he proposes to retrofit Cityrail lines into a single network with new lines, thus hamstringing the new lines to existing Cityrail standards. Where Glazebrook also goes wrong is incorporating things like the NWRL as metro. Metro has a specific purpose in public transport: to run high-frequency, high-capacity services in mainly underground lines to serve the multi-purpose transport needs of people in high-density, inner-city environments. In Sydney this means out to about 15km away from the CBD (with maybe a secondary hub focussing on Parramatta). Further out than this and Cityrail already does an admirable task at ferrying people between transport hubs (and should be used for the NWRL and SWRL, which are both unsuitable for metro). Metro lines should always be all-stations services, and the absolute maximum distance between two stations should be 1.5km (i.e. no part of the line should be beyond the ped-shed of a station – as the walk-up crowd is all-important). Of course, to retrofit the lines I proposed would require improvements to the Cityrail network: at the very least a sextuplification of Sydenham-Redfern and a continuation of this line underground through the city, ending with a Bondi Junction style turnback in Martin Place or The Rocks (in order to handle Illawarra and East Hills trains – at a later date this could be extended to North Sydney under the harbour). To vacate the Inner West local tracks, South Line trains via Granville would also have to move to the suburban tracks and then head to North Sydney, which would be possible if Penrith/Richmond express services were moved to the mains. I would also terminate trains at Central platforms 21/22, with cross-platform interchange with the metro (though St Peters and Erskineville would be moved from the Bankstown line to the Hurstville metro). +++++++++++++++ 478 Riccardo June 6, 2009 at 8:46 am Thanks dfai – I can see we are of one mind on all except a few minor details. The Bankstown line is entirely suitable for a metro style package and like you, I would give it its own tracks into the city from Sydenham. If all else fails we still have the unused underground platforms at Redfern and Central for them to run to. Stopping Cronulla and Waterfall trains at Kogarah, Rockdale, Sydenham etc must stop. These are stations best served by a continuously high frequency metro from Hurstville, with extension to Mortdale car sheds when funds allow (a few tight cuttings to sort out). The Cronulla, Waterfall and South Coast trains should then have a clear, express run to the city, and can terminate at the dedicated terminus platforms at Central. Here’s a thought. You could eliminate the Waterfall group of services. There’s basically only 3 stations – Loftus, Engadine and Heathcote. If you eliminated stops from services in from Sutherland, you would be no worse off. So potentially rebuild Sutherland station with cross platform interchange in mind, and have a service patterns Wollongong - Thirroul-all to Sutherland-Central, another Cronulla all to Hurstville and express to Redfern, Central. Then the metro pattern from Hurstville to Bondi Junction. Later you could dump Penshurst and Mortdale from the Cronulla pattern as you extended the metro cars to Mortdale or even Oatley. Further south, I would have a Thirroul to Port Kembla and Kiama service and a Sydney to Wollongong, Kiama and all to Nowra service on lower frequency say 1/hr. My general requirement for the metros would be their own pair of tracks for each metro service. So you would definitely need 3 pairs at least through St Peters, and you could avoid duplicating Waverton and Wollstonecraft in the short term by tackling the easier section from Chatswood to St Leonards, running the new line down to their, and giving the Upper Shore permament relief from having to stop at Artarmon. Once you’d sorted out what to do at W and W, North Sydney would then be the next logical terminus for lower shore trains. I’m not worried about the harbour crossing, I’ve seen what HK does between Central and TST. The assumption is that with a lot of people having got off at NS for the major employers there, a high capacity crossing (2 minute headway), high capacity vehicles, and potentially a bus interchange taking people via the Cahill direct to the eastern CBD destinations – there should be room for people of 2 sets of services on the shore to merge into one. Later, when another rail harbour crossing can be afforded, it would be to Mosman but would reduce demand on the lower Shore rail services. I strongly agree a second metro hub would be built around Parramatta, potentially drawing in the Carlingford, Fairfield, extra corridor to Homebush bay, pair of tracks to Blacktown and future links suggested to Hoxton Park and Castle Hill. This is common in Japan and Europe, overlapping metro systems. Provided it is supported by a separate intercity network that caters to those who genuinely need to travel intercity, rather than a ‘default’ option as at present, it can work well, and encourage the separate development of Parramatta. I understand that even more government departments are moving out to Parramatta. This work, by the way, would be done within the 8 figure envelope not the 9 figure one. A lot of station rebuilds, miscellaneous trackwork, resignalling, a few small track amplifications, a lot of work on navigability (signage, fixed and electronic, to make interchange easy) and of course assumes no more DD car orders after the current one. And that’s what it should be about, sensible projcets within the current envelope, not having to expand the envelope all the time. +++++++++++++++ 481 john-ston June 6, 2009 at 9:00 am Alright, let me get this straight, the primary reason why everyone seems to support a Metro for Sydney is because it would deal to the problem of unions. If the problem is to do with the unions, shouldn’t we deal with them instead? In that case, here is what I would do. First of all, I would provide a semi-guarantee for all those who are presently employed with CityRail that their jobs would be reasonably safe on two conditions – no new people will be employed until staffing levels have decreased to a desired level (whatever that is could be decided by the people with knowledge); and that the employees might be required to switch roles (e.g. guard becomes driver). Then, what I would do is merge the Inner West and South Lines together, and have them terminate at Glenfield instead of Campbelltown or Macarthur, and somehow take the Airport and East Hills services out of the loop (perhaps use the unused platforms at Central and Redfern like you suggested for the Illawarra services) which would allow the Bankstown/South pair sole access to the loop (BTW, I would shut Berala and Regents Park). Increase all day frequency like mad using shorter consists, and draw from your pool of unnecessary staff to form the basis of new drivers and the like. Further to that, as the existing staff retire, you get a much leaner operation without having to go to the expense of building a system of new lines to deal with the union problem, or without causing the union to get annoyed at you. Of course, I have assumed that the union would be reasonable and allow this to happen. Of course it is unfortunate that Howard’s Work Choices scheme didn’t go through; if the Employment Contracts Act here is anything to go by, it would have completely destroyed the unions of Australia. +++++++++++++++ 482 Riccardo June 6, 2009 at 1:33 pm Thanks Johnston So I’m clear, I’ll point out I’m not anti free association of employees, nor am I anti industrial democracy or industrial representation. On the contrary, I wish we had it. What I’m anti is these giant, bloated and careerist secretariats that are nothing more than platforms for individuals to practice politics, including their own political careers. On both sides too, I am down on the farmers federation, the doctors union, the police union as well. For the same reasons. I’m also against local government in Australia for much the same reason, but not against local governance and democracy. Cityrail might be repairable, but the parasite/host relationship of railway, management, union and political party is beyond repair in my book. It has hit policy gridlock, a bit like Middle East politics. No agent in the story will (or can) cede any group without copping a bullet from their backers. You’re lucky to have had a change of government, though the Auckland electtrification might be set back a bit. Gotta make the Labour party want to win, not just share the spoils of office, they gotta want to do something. There’s any amount of rearranging you could do, and I’d happily do it for free. But the need for competition in the political system and also in the management cliques means time for a new operator. You could split Cityrail into pieces like they did with Melbourne, but you’d get the same result – make it worse because both pieces fundamentally underfunded and overpoliticked. While I rejected workchoices as an attack on the poor, I did support Howard on one thing, he unwittingly did and his conservative backers will condemn him for doing- and that is centralising government. His workchoices case in the High Court led to the complete centralisation of Australian government and has sowed the seed for the eventual demise of the states and decentralised government. Forgive him, for he knew not what he did. A future left wing administration will have no trouble now centralising authority into one government. And this is why I reject the careerist secretariats known as Unions – they are an anachronism, like the 150km cartage limit or respirators on locomotives – because the situation that caused their rise no longer applies. I can’t speak for NZ industrial law, but in Australia we had a great shearers strike before federation. The rural industrial class had no representation in parliament (either rich farmers or city business men) so the only way to set wages and conditions was to strike. The potential for strikes to spread interstate gave the feds the opening to regulate wages and conditions, but this has been constrained by a lack of willingness on the political class to actually enact legislation to do so, preferring to leave it to the courts. But since Hawke was elected, the unions abducated their role in setting wages and conditions, but we were left in no-mans land as to who did set wages and conditions. Now it is clear, the Deputy PM Gillard will do it herself, by legislation, and the unions have no role. And as we know, idle hands are the devil’s plaything. Unions with no real role in the economy now want drivers to report windscreen scratches or have their members stand in a compartment of an electric train, pressing a button or doing other useless things. +++++++++++++++ 484 john-ston June 6, 2009 at 10:27 pm In terms of industrial events here in New Zealand, the 1890 Maritime Strike (same event as the Australian Maritime Strike) had a massive impact here, it resulted in the election of the First Liberal Government which set in place an arbitration structure which lasted for nearly a century until the Employment Contracts Act – the unions were largely kept happy during that period, and we only had two major events here in New Zealand – the 1912 Miners Strike and the 1951 Waterfront Strike; the latter strike was put down very harshly and ironically helped result in a massive shift in transport priorities, during the strike, the roading system was put to the test and was found to be very inadequate (coal shortages and general capacity problems meant that no additional freight could be put on the rails). I suspect though that it was the behaviour of the unions here in the 1970s and 1980s that put many New Zealanders off unions. Every year at Christmas, the Interisland Ferry workers would go on strike and in general, strikes were a very common occurrence during that period. When the Employment Contracts Act came in, unions were generally not mourned and even today after ten years of the Employment Relations Act, the union movement here is still very cautious. “You’re lucky to have had a change of government, though the Auckland electtrification might be set back a bit. Gotta make the Labour party want to win, not just share the spoils of office, they gotta want to do something.” Well, let me put it to you this way, I have been forced to defend my political views (I actually voted ACT in the last election, although I am generally a National supporter) on the CBT Forum. A number of unfortunate decisions have been made, but that is life. In terms of the Labour Party, the way they are going, it doesn’t look like they really want to win at the moment. I suspect that Goff will be Labour’s English in that he will weed out the old, and get Labour set up for a 2014 election (while being martyred in the process). With regard to CityRail, I think that any entity can be fixed if everyone is willing to engage in the process. Unfortunately, I do have to agree with you, the politicians over there are far more involved in getting their little pet projects done than actually engaging with the issues. +++++++++++++++ 488 dfai June 7, 2009 at 2:48 am Riccardo – your ideas are extremely interesting. In essence we agree that Cityrail should be converted into an U-Bahn + S- Bahn style system, which can be done at little cost. What’s really needed is to start from scratch: abolish Cityrail (as being way too discredited in the eyes of the public) and replace it with three networks – Underground, Overground and Interurban (or some such). Underground would be characterised by point-to-point lines in the inner metropolitan area, with stations 0.5-1.5 km apart from each other and all-stations services running every 2-5min. They would be used for short journeys (under 30min), meaning standing is fine. Overground lines would serve the entire metropolitan area, but keyed for longer hauls (so a seated journey is a must). Stations would be further apart (1-3km) and service patterns mixed (though much rationalised from Cityrail’s current hotchpotch). Lines would branch off in the outer areas, meaning that the branches would only have services every 10-15min, but when they converge in the centre this increases markedly to metro-style frequencies (much like Paris’ RER). They would also run express through areas served with parallel metro lines (ie Starthfield-Central, Hurstville-Central). The question then becomes what gets allocated to Underground and what to Overground. I went for the two lines outlined before, as the other parts of the Cityrail network are compromised too much, in my view, to be effective metro lines. The problem with the Bankstown lines is that, even giving them their own tracks between Central and Sydenham, they overlap with Cityrail too much in the Regents Park/Liverpool end (I believe it’s still worthwhile keeping the Liverpool via Regents Park line). Additionally, I think it’s wise to keep the metro lines free of branch-offs, and wonder whether a metro frequency is required, given the relatively low density of much of the line’s catchment area. In the end I would keep it in Overground, with two lines (Lidcombe and Liverpool to Central) both running all stations at 15min frequencies (meaning to Central has 7.5min frequencies). But perhaps it would be useful to use single-decker trains on the line. Could you be more specific about what you would do with the North Shore line? Once again, I think it would be better to keep it in Overground, but give it metro-style frequencies by having four lines run through it (Blacktown, Epping via Strathfield, Campbelltown via Regents Park, SWRL via Granville from the south, going to Upper North Shore, Hornsby via Epping and NWRL via Epping in the north). Its only problem in regards to being an effective S-Bahn-style line is the fiddling it does around Waverton and Wollstonecraft. As for the Parramatta hub, I would utilise two lines within the Overground network, but demarcated as somehow separate (along the lines of the Parramatta Overground), and, like Bankstown, possibly using single-decker trains. The first would be the present , but making it a frequent, full-time service, and extended to Penrith. The second line would go from Richmond to Carlingford, sharing the Blacktown-Harris Park trunk with the other line (some work would need to be done on this: duplicating up to Richmond, and duplicating Carlingford and changing its interchange with the mainline by making it go west to Granville rather than east to Clyde). This mini-network could later be supplemented by a Castle Hill-Hoxton Park proper metro (or light metro) line, resuming some of the existing T-Way. However I think it is a priority to link the Hills District with a Cityrail line from Epping, as there is a greater need to connect it with employment areas in Macquarie, Chatswood and North Sydney than Parramatta. To sum up:- Underground: Line 1 – Homebush-Revesby via Circle Line 2 – Hurstville-Bondi Junction Line 3 – West Ryde-Malabar (new) Line 4 – Manly-Parramatta (new) Line 5 – Dulwich Hill-Central (converting SLR, maybe later extending to Bondi Beach via Oxford St) Overground: Western Express group: Line A – Emu Plains-Central (stopping all to Blacktown, Parramatta, Strathfield, Central) Line B – Richmond-Central (all to Blacktown, Parramatta, Strathfield, Central) North Shore line group: Line C – Epping-Hornsby (all to Burwood, Ashfield, Redfern all to Hornsby via Gordon) Line D – Blacktown-Hornsby (all to Burwood, Ashfield, Redfern all to Hornsby via Gordon) Line E – Campbelltown-Berowra (all to Burwood via Regents Park, Ashfield, Redfern all to Berowra via Macquarie Park) Line F – Leppington-Rouse Hill (all to Burwood via Granville, Ashfield, Redfern all to Rouse Hill) Pitt St line group (utilising new line from Central 26/27 to The Rocks along MetroPitt corridor): Line G – Macarthur-The Rocks (all to Revesby, Wolli Creek, Redfern all to The Rocks) Line H – Leppington-The Rocks (all to Revesby, Wolli Creek, Redfern all to The Rocks) Line J – Waterfall-The Rocks (all to Hurstville, Wolli Creek, Redfern all to The Rocks) Line K – Cronulla-The Rocks (all to Hurstville, Wolli Creek, Redfern all to The Rocks) Bankstown line group: Line L – Liverpool-Central (all to Sydenham via Bankstown, Redfern, Central) Line M – Lidcombe-Central (all to Sydenham via Bankstown, Redfern, Central) Parramatta hub group: Line N – Penrith-Campbelltown (all to Campbelltown via Parramatta) Line P – Richmond-Carlingford (all to Carlingford via Parramatta) Olympic Park shuttle Line Q – Lidcombe-Olympic Park New infrastructure required: West Ryde-Malabar metro line, Manly-Parramatta metro line, NWRL, SWRL, MetroPitt line, Redfern-Sydenham sextuplification, Kingsgrove-Revesby quadruplification, Richmond duplication, Carlingford duplication. This is probably a 20-30 year programme. +++++++++++++++ 491 Tom June 7, 2009 at 2:30 pm If only the Warringah railway had been built. Then there would be 4 tracks over the Harbour Bridge, more capacity through Central, Town Hall and Wynyard and one of Sydney`s transport black holes would be gone. It would however pose junction issues for a Metro system because there would be an argument for both metro and suburban lines in both directions. +++++++++++++++ 497 Oldfart June 8, 2009 at 12:03 pm Can’t think of too much to say that hasn’t already been said. The CBD Metro is correct from a ‘grand strategic’ perspective; it remains to be seen if the exact route is the most optimum from other perspectives. Sydney does have some scope for metrofying existing Cityrail lines. Bondi Junction to Hurstville (and perhaps eventually Sutherland) is the obvious one, but I’ve rambled on in other places about Hornsby (and Dee Why) to Wynyard (and beyond?) via the eastern side of the bridge with the bridge’s western side tracks following a new U/G express line from Hornsby to Chatswood and then via the ECRL. Revesby to Homebush is another possibility, although it introduces complications about accommodating both South and Western line services on the suburban tracks and what to do with other services currently using the . South/Western capacity is already limited between Granville and Homebush, though improved signaling, six tracks through Granville and grade separated junctions around Clyde could help in that area. Mind you, a Western Metro might also reduce demand on those suburban tracks and make all that unnecessary. What a shame it’s so awkward to engineer the local inner west tracks to connect with a quadruplified at Strathfield. That way two tracks could extend an inner west metro up to Epping. I’ve never been a big fan of metrofying the Bankstown line (for the Cabramatta area traffic mixing reasons already alluded to in other posts above). I suppose it might be possible if you used the proposed underground down platform at Cabra for Cityrail services and the above ground down platform as a metro terminus. Not sure that actually provides much in the way of improved amenity though. At the other end, if there was a Bondi Junction to Hurstville Metro in place, would Bankstown line services need to go to the City past Sydenham anyway, especially if cross-platform interchanges to a metro were possible? In a quirky sort of way the Rees government is in a good position at the moment. Everyone expects them to fail no matter what they do, so they might just as well do something ‘courageous’ with the hope that longer term history judges them more kindly. +++++++++++++++ 512 Riccardo June 8, 2009 at 5:11 pm Thanks Oldfart. Interesting idea about not needing Bankstowns to come to the city after Sydenham. Another is could the Bankstown line be diverted at Dulwich Hill – don’t know what you’d do with Marrickville though! I agree it is Liverpool that messes up the metrofication of this far west. Otherwise I would have thought a continuous operation from Lidcombe to Homebush would do the trick. In the Sydenham area you would need the following track pairs -Bankstown (1) -Long distance via East Hills (1) -Hurstville metro (1) -Long distance Illawarra(1) -Revesby local via Airport (1) Already 10 tracks and we’ve only 6 at the moment with a plan for the next 2. So maybe you could do it two ways – change at Dulwich Hill AND change at Sydenham, depending on where you are going. But terminate Bankos at Sydenham. Then you’ve got 6 tracks plus the airport which should be enough. Then on the Lidcombe route you could have one pair of tracks for the local line metro (routed to Revesby) another pair of tracks for all Cityrail suburbans and the interurbans and country and the extra pair, plus a metro service from West Lewisham into the city via Rozelle. Still don’t feel wonderfully comfortable about it. You shouldn’t need dozens of parallel tracks – but nor should you be mixing them. +++++++++++++++ 515 dfai June 10, 2009 at 12:01 am Oldfart – it’s an interesting idea idea to merge the Northern and Inner West lines, but apart from the problems at Strathfield I think it’s Cityrail’s experience that all-stations services aren’t very popular west of Strathfield, with the current timetable putting the all-stations trip from Strathfield to Central at 25min. Of course, there is a certain amount of timetable padding here, but it goes to demonstrate the inadequacy of Cityrail’s lumbering double-decker fleet at servicing short-haul trips with frequent stops (averaging <1km for this stretch). If these were replaced by metro trains matching those on Paris’ Line 14 (capable of averaging 40km/h with similar station distances) then the trip could be cut to as little as 18min. This can also have a huge effect on staffing levels. An Inner West metro with single-driver trains taking 18min at 12tph would only require 8% more on-train staff than a driver + guard Cityrail unit taking 25min at 4tph, but a 200% increase in frequency. Even bumping up to 20tph (the maximum capacity of the line) results in only an 80% increase in on-train staff and a 400% increase in frequency. I don’t share your concerns about the Homebush-Granville stretch. Sure, sextuplification would come in handy, but if you terminate all Inner West stoppers at Homebush turnback, put the Richmond and Penrith expresses on the mains (terminating at Central) along with Blue Mountains trains, then I think there’s easily enough room for Northern, Blacktown stoppers and South line trains (though a few flat junctions might need to be upgraded along the way). Riccardo’s right: the real bottleneck would around Sydenham. Even the Redfern-Sydenham sextuplification (which is half- done anyway) won’t do the trick: you’d still need dedicated tracks for Hurstville metro and Bankstown line trains (I can’t countenance terminating Bankstown trains at Sydenham or diverting), meaning all East Hills, Illawarra and South Coast trains would be on the same pair of tracks, which would create real congestion problems. The only thing I could suggest would be continuing the sextuplification to Wolli Ck, and merging South Coast trains with the Bankstown line between Sydenham and Redfern, before separating again to go to Sydney Terminal and Central respectively. +++++++++++++++ 528 Oldfart June 10, 2009 at 7:36 am dfai – Apologies, I might not have expressed myself clearly enough there. The (very unlikely) Epping to Inner west connection was intended as an extension of an inner west metro, not as the existing Cityrail service. Hence the need for all South Line services to go onto the suburban tracks and for quadding on that part of the northern line. I was also not suggesting sextuplification between Granville and Homebush (an outrageously awkward and expensive enterprise), but maintaining six tracks through Granville (there appears to be room for that) then blending the South and Western lines with grade separated junctions somewhere around Clyde. Ideally that would be done west of Granville but space seems too limited to me. It’s just an answer to the question “If you wanted to eliminate flat crossing between the South and West lines, where would you do it?” In effect I’m concurring with your views and certainly support the express western services being terminated at Central. I should also clarify that those suggestions are purely speculative and designed as an exercise in looking at what might be possible, rather than what would be probable. My expectation is we will see Clearways completed (including the sextuplification through Erskineville at some point), some form of Metro through the CBD and maybe some light rail extension. I might live long enough to see a Western metro and the Cityrail SW LInk completed. Beyond that I wouldn’t be backing too much. Freight is a different story. The SSFL for example appears to be far more rationally and economically driven. To me it looks better thought through than anything else on the books and I expect the northern freight corridor will gradually take shape as well. +++++++++++++++ 532 Greg July 2, 2009 at 11:54 pm Wow – I cant believe I have stumbled upon somewhere with intelligent and robust discussion on transport planning matters. I think the discussion above is great and in the next week I am going to try to pull together some of my thoughts on the metro proposal (I think I may plagiarise from my many posts on the topic on the ‘other’ transport boards around, which always seem to fall on deaf ears.) For the record I find it hard to fault the metro at an overall level, with most of my criticisms being at a minor detail kind of level, and think that it is sorely needed in Sydney and will influence Sydney’s urban form for the better for years to come if it does indeed go ahead. +++++++++++++++ 855 Riccardo July 3, 2009 at 7:57 am Thanks Greg and welcome This site is unashamedly a place where you can discuss the theory and policies of transport without needing to focus on recent observations or counting rivets, which are provided for on other sites. You might detect a bit of skepticism from posters on this site towards the view that all trains are good and should be cheap- but you’re welcome to post on that view provided your up to contesting that position. Looking forward to your post – let me know if you have any trouble getting in to the system or would like to author on it +++++++++++++++ 858 Automotive Chip Repair January 29, 2010 at 7:21 pm I’ve been searching for this precise information on this subject for a while. +++++++++++++++ 726 Veyron407 September 19, 2010 at 3:12 pm I posted my own plan for a Sydney Metro system on RailPage a few months ago. As RailPage is down at the moment (again…), I will try and remember the plan. Line A will be the existing Airport and East Hills line from new underground platforms at Glenfield into the city, stopping at underground platforms at Central and going clockwise around the City Circle. There will be a stabling and maintainance facility near Glenfield to store Line A and D trains. Line B will be a shuttle going anticlockwise around the City Circle. Could be a 24/7 operation. Will most likely use Luna Park stabling yard. Line C will be the existing North Shore Line from underground platforms at Central to Chatswood, then to Epping, then to Round Corner, where there will be a stabling and maintainance facility. Line D will be the existing Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra Line on the easternmost tracks from Rockdale to Bondi Junction, possibly with an extention to Bondi Beach. 2 new tracks will be laid from Sydenham to Erskineville to accomodate CityRail Bankstown Line trains. Line E will be the proposed North West Metro, CBD Metro and West Metro. Line F will be the Anzac Line until the City, where it will follow the MetroPitt alignment until Chatswood, where it will branch off to Collaroy. CityRail services will all terminate at Central (yes, this is possible with the current number of platforms, provided the metro platforms are underground), with passengers transferring onto Metro and Light Rail services. North Shore Line services will terminate at Chatswood. Benifits of converting CityRail lines to metros include reducing congestion at stations (instead of passengers waiting for “their” train, instead they get on the first one that comes) and improved frequency. Other rail-related projects in Sydney could include sinking of the Light Rail in the CBD (to increase frequency and improve speed), duplification of the Richmond line and improving off peak service on the Cumberland and Carlingford lines. +++++++++++++++ 0240 Riccardo September 20, 2010 at 10:25 am Thanks Veyron – very interesting! Why new underground platforms at Glenfield? And does Round Corner really need an underground. Certainly ageree with your second last para – pax need to board the next train that comes and not wait, especially at places like Town Hall or Wynyard +++++++++++++++ 0357 Veyron407 September 20, 2010 at 5:44 pm As there are only 3 tracks currently through Glenfield, at least 2 would be needed for the metro, and as there is little room for more tracks, the last section (from the junction to the station) will need to be underground. And as Round Corner has an abundance of farmland (that could be used to build a stabling/maintanance facility), instead of having non-revenue track all the way from Epping, putting a few stops along the line (including one connecting with the NW Metro) will get some revenue out of it.