Around 1990 they were governed to 65 km/h and it may be a little slower now. Before that was done, one night I got a B class up to almost 90 km/h coming from Port Melbourne down towards Port Junction (which I named). That was before Southbank Depot and crossovers were built near Montague. Normally you could get most modern trams over 70km/h. Painfully slow timetables are the biggest problem these days and many trips are much slower.
Excellent video. I think Caville Avenue should be named Surfers Paradise as it causes so much confusion for tourists. The Meriton building at 75 floors is a monstrosity, there should be a height limit.
Agreed. The Surfers Paradise stop should be SP South, Cavill Ave have SP added. Originally they said it would cost too much to change, but this could have easily been done when maps etc were added for the Helensvale extension. There are many Meriton towers in this regions. Ugly or otherwise, the afternoon sun makes it a spectacular sight.
That’s too bad. Luckily when they built stage 2, the line was close enough to my house to be usable and that I do usually twice each week. It’s always within a minute or two of the timetable.
Single tram line systems are not all that unusual. Blackpool has been in that situation for very many years, although when they eventually open the branch to I think Blackpool North railway station that will give it a second line. Canberra in Australia is another similar to this one, and there are several others in the world, but with more mundane scenery. The contrast between Gold Coast, which more or less did not exist 100 years ago, and Edinburgh could not be greater. This system used to compare its performance with Edinburgh, but I think we have surged ahead now.
@@tressteleg1 Thanks. As you may know Edinburgh's tram line is in the process of being extended, taking years and causing much disruption. I have a postcard showing how the full line will look - in 2011...
Let’s hope your extension is built without all the problems of Stage 1. The Gold Coast line is finally getting its second extension. Early works have just started, and will take it from 20km to 27km long. They hope to have a further 13km built by 2032! I won’t hold my breath…
If the NIMBYs in Palm beach get their way we can kiss the extension goodbye. Oh, we don't want the Light Rail! Oh we don't want the Oceanway! Oh we don't want development or the riff raff from the north spoiling OUR suburb! And the list goes on 🤦♂(GC local who uses the tram and wants the extension here)
I don’t think the government is taking much notice of them. While they make a lot of noise, I think their opinion is that of a minority. In connection with that extension, officers from Transport and Main Roads were having public consulting meetings throughout November and I went there on Friday the 25th. I mentioned a number of concerns, namely the ridiculously complicated and expensive method of track laying (open ballast with foot crossings would do), A simple solution for the fuss over the narrow part of Palm Beach - let traffic run on the tramline but give the tram several seconds headstart at the traffic lights, as the buses already do. What is shocking is that the planned airport tram stop is 300 m from the terminal door. I presented a plan whereby all trams would perform a clockwise loop as the buses currently do. I will have to wait and see if they took any notice of me. I am also a regular user of almost the entire line twice a week.
I put forward an idea where the tram goes underground and goes into a new interchange underneath the airport. It would have 6 platforms. 2 for LR, 2 for QR heavy rail to Brisbane and 2 for a new high speed standard gauge line linking to the existing Sydney line at either Casino or Grafton via the Northern Rivers region using 2 car DMU trains, and would also allow the casino XPT service to be extended.
Smooth, fast ride. Trams can really move quickly because tracks are in their own private right of way. The constant announcements are annoying. Thanks Tresseleg1😀💚
That tram got a particularly bad run, and you will see in Part 2 that it was only 45 seconds late, something that few Street tramways could ever I hope to achieve. Nevertheless, southbound runs seem to have the traffic light ‘stolen’ by opposing trams a lot less often and on my twice weekly return trips on that line, the 8:04 into Broadbeach North is usually on time within seconds.
You get so accustomed to the snails pace in many sections that you are grateful when you reach 40km/h or so and feel like it's the TGV in the 70km/h parts. Does the driver's area need to resemble the cockpit of a space shuttle with the techy computer screens? What happened too a pair of metal levers and a couple of round white faced instruments to tell the driver what's up? It looks like hi tech for it's own sake.
If you think this is slow, you ought to go to Melbourne. For a start, the tram speed limit through the Bourke Street Mall, fortunately only one block, is 10 km/h. while there is nowhere that trams interrupt a traffic light cycle to get priority. The old-fashioned control handles with couple of dials, went the same place that clock face speedometers, and little else, disappeared from modern motorcars.
