Tram route 6 was my choice as a kid when i went to the Harold Holt Swimming Center. 5 cents for a travel from the terminus, 20 Cents for the Swimming Center and i my day was great 👍 I also remember the time as the tracks between Glenferrie Road and the terminus wher layed in concret. This was in 1973/1974
Sounds like a good day out. In an odd sort of way, I think it’s amusing that a swimming centre should be named after a prime minister who drowned! They have got their money‘s worth out of those tracks as I think they are still in quite good order, from memory.
True. In April I noticed that the George Street lines had sections of corrugated track as is the case on the Gold Coast. Whether operators will work this out and do something about it could be debatable.
Their was a maintenance blitz not long ago that saw numerous sections of railhead grounded which did iron out most of the corrugation. But given the number of axles on L2/3 trams running through per hour (especially on George St) track anomalies started to flare up quicker than the system maintainer (Alstom I think) can afford to take action.
Even the experts can’t agree on what causes rail corrugations but ‘old fashioned tramways’ (and most German and some other tramways) have a track scrubber tram which is used to keep the railhead smooth. However the ‘light rail smarties’ who think they are real railways prefer to hire rail grinding contractors. These usually leave scratches across the railhead which makes a whistling noise until the rail wears down a bit, then the corrugations start again…
Well I will let you into a little secret. From memory, this is the second recording I made of the 48. The first time was too cloudy 😆. Of course the streets were the same width both times….
They still make film, do they? Years ago I was surprised to see that some comparison photos I took with my good film camera and a Digital camera looked better with digital, so I made the change.
There is a lamp on the control panel which lights up when a stop button has been pressed. It may make a quiet sound, but if you can’t hear anything in the video, I suspect just a lamp. Drivers must remember to look at it before each stop.
Is there a speed limit for trams only. It seemed that going down hills the tram pick up speed to close 80 kpm. What safety measures are there to ensure trams don't speed out of control ? is there a dead mans/womens switch ?
All Melbourne trams are supposed to be governed to somewhere between 60 and 65 km/h. On rare occasions there may be a tram where this is not functional and they could go faster. Nevertheless police can and do stop trams if they are going faster than the road speed limit And of course the driver pays. The GoPro camera was set to wide-angle, and this makes the journey look faster.
One thing I have always wanted to know, who activates the points turnouts. Or does the tram have some sort of auto pilot that remotely changes them. According to route.
The original “automatic points“ system in use in Melbourne for many years had a contactor in the overhead which could read whether the tram was powering or coasting. A coasting tram set the points to the straight, a powering tram for the curve. Before 1990 with more pantograph trams, a new system called V-Tag was introduced. Driver turned a knob on his Control Panel left or right to go in those directions, or did not touch it for the straight. It puts out radio signals. Newer trams have push buttons instead of knobs. Apparently trams could be programmed to automatically set the points, but that function which should be available in Melbourne is not active.
@@hartstukken I missed this one earlier. I presume that you are asking why the automatic setting of points has not been introduced. I don’t have an answer to that except to say that for many decades the setting of points by the driver was always done by the tram either by coasting or powering through an overhead contactor, and from approximately the time the A class commenced, the driver did the same function but by altering the radio frequency of the little transponder hanging below the drivers’ cabs. These were always called V Tag points even though the automatic function was not included. I can just assume that automatic point setting was not considered worth the extra expense of the necessary equipment and the despite the occasional head on tram collisions caused by drivers accidentally having the points set to the right instead of straight ahead.
It's interesting how much the more traditional trams of Melbourne get held up in traffic compared to the newer 'light rail' in Sydney and Gold Coast. Is that just due to traffic lights or is there more to it?
Having been a tram driver in Melbourne around 1990, I notice practically no improvement of traffic lights to assist trams. I reached the conclusion years ago that the traffic light programmers there have spent over 80 years perfecting the art of delaying trams as much as possible, and they are not about to change that any time soon in the absence of extreme pressure from a state government. And as you say, modern tramways such as my local Gold Coast line have had quite good priority from the start. In Sydney, bit by bit the traffic light programmers have been required to improve priority at a few locations every year.
Почему до сих пор не могут как то убрать момент когда при сбросе газа вагон начинает качать в лево и право ? замечаю это на всех трамваях единственное в Санкт-Петербурге на одном трамвае Белорусского производства Штадлер такого эффекта качения не наблюдал
I don’t know what you mean when you say “when gas is released“. If you mean when the driver cuts the electricity off, I have no idea why that should happen only after that time as I have not seen that happen on any trams here. Usually it would be a combination of a body section with only four wheels, tram rails in bad condition, or wheel shapes that are not perfect.
