Train talk

[happy]

TBF we have some of the better space efficient carriages I have seen, can't think of any double deck carriages anywhere else in the world.

we have some double deck carriages here in Germany

 

[marinermick]

if we had a 14 car platform at tascott it would meet up at pt clare!!!!

 

[dibo]

TBF we have some of the better space efficient carriages I have seen, can't think of any double deck carriages anywhere else in the world.

we have some double deck carriages here in Germany

ally and i caught a double decker TGV from avvignon to nice too, back in november.

looked a bit like this:

 

[dru]

If we are talking about totally impractical trains for our population spread how about maglev 

OK, I am an idiot. Why would a train that's capable of some 300k/hr be impractical for Coasties and Scum dwellers looking to travel Sydney - Newcastle?

because of the populations, distances and the usage outside of peak times, It would make sense if we had a city the size Brisbane located at newcastle, Something like Canberra at Wollongong and Melbourne moved to where Canberra is and it was used to somewhere near 50%. seating capacity during non peak times but the way our spread is and the way our trains are used in non peaks it won't work.

There is also the fact that trains that do that speed also work on dedicated tracks which would envisage double the rail needed to be maintained.

A dedicated rapid express service (preference given to it on the lines) running, Newcastle, Gosford, Hornsby, Central would be nice, could then run a central coast network of local trains and a Newcastle network separately.

if we had a 14 car platform at tascott it would meet up at pt clare!!!!

Would suggest that it would be spread both ways from the existing platform or more towards Koolewong.


And duely noted I was wrong on the double deckers, cheers.

 

[clarence]

Thanks for the info Dru. Would the Maglev technology mean less or more maintenance?

I'm thinking it is a great concept but with the thin (by world wide comparisons) spread of population over such a long distance, it could be prone to a lot of maintenance costs here, and also the higher risk of some real catastrophe if the likes of CityRail imposed their usual "fix it when it breaks" mentality to rolling stock upkeep. If properly maintained it could possibly end up a white elephant as the cost of a ticket rises out of reach of the average commuter.

 

[Jazzie]

Due to the fact that I haven't been able to drive for the last six months, I use the trains locally quite a bit. It astounds me how many people don't buy tickets. Getting off or on at Gosford, time and time again I see yobs and non yobs either push their way through, or jump over, the automatic barriers in full view of the station master/assistants (who don't do anything about it - I've even seen them open up the gates when a group of non-payers come through). It fairly pisses me off when I, and many others, pay for the privilege of riding on crappy, dirty trains, And I know that if you haven't got a ticket whilst riding the trains, and Inspector will issue an on the spot fine, but how many have you seen actually doing this? Not many, I'll bet. 

 

[dru]

Thanks for the info Dru. Would the Maglev technology mean less or more maintenance?

I'm thinking it is a great concept but with the thin (by world wide comparisons) spread of population over such a long distance, it could be prone to a lot of maintenance costs here, and also the higher risk of some real catastrophe if the likes of CityRail imposed their usual "fix it when it breaks" mentality to rolling stock upkeep. If properly maintained it could possibly end up a white elephant as the cost of a ticket rises out of reach of the average commuter.

Really the suggestion was just a piss take, as far as I know there is only 2 working commercial maglev lines in the world at the moment, one in Japan (low speed and less than 10km long) and one in China (Shanghai, pudong airport to downtown shanghai reportedly cost US$1.2 billion and about 30km long). The Japanese started back in the 80's testing and developing it and for the Tokyo to Kyoto line they want to build (the existing test track is on the proposed route) they are aiming for 2025 or something although they are getting speeds over 580km/hr at the moment.

No idea on what relative maintenance costs would be, and I really haven't kept up with the advances since I studied it for an assignment 5 or 6 years ago at uni.

the only way to make anything close to economically viable would be to have the second (read main) Sydney airport based at Newcastle with the Newcastle station at the airport. with travel times to central well under an hour.

Of course leaving cityrail responsible for this would be a disaster, really needs to be a privately owned corporation to make anything like this work reliably over the distances we are talking about.

 

[marinermick]

Due to the fact that I haven't been able to drive for the last six months, I use the trains locally quite a bit. It astounds me how many people don't buy tickets. Getting off or on at Gosford, time and time again I see yobs and non yobs either push their way through, or jump over, the automatic barriers in full view of the station master/assistants (who don't do anything about it - I've even seen them open up the gates when a group of non-payers come through). It fairly pisses me off when I, and many others, pay for the privilege of riding on crappy, dirty trains, And I know that if you haven't got a ticket whilst riding the trains, and Inspector will issue an on the spot fine, but how many have you seen actually doing this? Not many, I'll bet. 

cityrail developed a business model with making train travel free

with the cost savings from ticket machines, staff, policing etc; offset against ticket sales the black hole came to about $3 billion

obviously cannot be afforded by the current state of finances but wouldn't it be amazing if we coulkd aspire to this in the future

 

[FFC Mariner]

I still dont understand how I can go online and buy a rail ticket in China from here but I have to go to a freakin station to get a ticket in NSW.

How freakin hard is it FFS.........

1) Stored value card - check
2) Online store - check
3) Reader at station - check

If anything summed up Labour in NSW more, I'd love to know what it is

 

[dibo]

I don't think it's down to the party in power. I think it's more to do with the internal culture of Railcorp. Successive Transport Ministers have been unable to push through changes in Railcorp, and frankly if it takes a monster of a Liberal State Government to beat seven shades of shit out of the luddites in there then all the better.

I've heard that internally, Railcorp and State Transit basically managed to kill off the Smartcard by forcing the contracting company to adopt their pre-existing ridiculously complicated and unwieldy fares and ticketing system rather than taking the opportunity to reform the system into a simple and easily understood and programmed system.

Similarly I've heard that the Smartcard company basically flatly refused to do some of the work required to make the smartcard system meet up with the ticketing system without rough edges...

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Having used the Oyster card system, and similar systems in other European cities, I think it makes a lot of sense and is very attractive. It's quicker and easier than a paper ticket system and takes about 2 minutes to learn how to use. In contrast, the ticketing of buses, trains and ferries in NSW is baffling to most residents.