8:08, there might be a reason for a difference in tram wheel profiles. i understand that tram wheels are different to train wheels because it helps them negotiate tight turns on city streets. it also makes them wander at higher speeds. your comment makes me think there is no real reason for differences within a system. what is the top speed allowed in melbourne? is it on the royal park section or burwood section? there are differences in railways in the pilbara. this might be contrived to prevent new start-up companies going to the government demanding it force companies to share their tracks.
The L1 wheels were designed so that they could go through railway pointwork which was expected to be necessary beyond Lilyfield, but in fact the railway aspect closed before trams got that far. Nevertheless the wheels also had tramway size flanges. When trams were ordered for the George St lines, nobody bothered to specify that those trams would have wheel shapes compatible with the L1 so they ended up different. The Citadis had to take it easy through pointwork and probably on curves when running to the Lilyfield maintenance centre. Pointwork check rails were modified Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill to eventual let Citadis trams run there, but there were other incompatibilities which remain and essentially they are too scared to allow faster speeds. That is why the 2 wheel types need to be standardised, and altering L1 wheels and track would be the easier option. Melbourne trams are governed to a maximum speed of around 60km/h. Road speed limits essentially apply to the trams except where stipulated otherwise. I can’t comment about Pilbara but did read of friction between old and new companies.
@@tressteleg1 , so do any sydney trams have the same wheel profile as melbourne? i'm disappointed to hear of such a low top speed of melbourne trams. on the road-fine. but on separated sections-no. it is speed that gets bums on seats. its a conspiracy!
@@vsvnrg3263 No. Modern tram wheels are built with larger flanges and wider wheel treads which seems to be more the case in Europe these days. The low maximum speed in Melbourne was set decades ago when I was driving, around 1992. Somebody decided that tram drivers could not be trusted to keep down to the speed limit, so when the tram reaches the limit, then 65 but I think now 60, the power is cut off and will not come on again until the speed drops. Brakes are automatically applied if speed gets too fast down a big hill. Even with the 60 limit, more and more speed limit boards are being placed around the tramway to make them even slower, especially all point work now being 15 K. My Gold Coast line does 40 through similar point work. It is designed better.
Admittedly the L1 does have the disadvantage that a runaway down the slope needs fairly slow speeds, especially with all the dead leaves which would make the rails slippery if the wind blew them there, at least at one stage later it is only about 500m behind the GC tram, and with more stops to service so it is not terribly bad in the circumstances.
In the new proposal by Altrac for a Parramatta Road to Green Square LR line (link below), Altrac suggests a number of realignment options for L1 on pages 46-47 including: - Option 1 a base case of leaving L1 as is. - Option 2 moving L1 away from the Colonade instead turning south at George Street and terminating at a new terminus facility at Railway Square on Lee Street. - Option 3 moving L1 away from the Colonade instead turning south on George Street, removing Haymarket LR stop entirely, and L1 terminating at a combined stop for all LR services including the new Parra Rd service, with a new LR hub station built on Eddy Avenue in front of Central Station. - Option 4 moving L1 away from the Colonade instead continuing on relaid double-track along Hay Street, right onto Elizabeth Street then through-running down to Green Square alongside the new service (though L1 can only run
Thanks for all of that. I did hear of that briefly on the radio during the week and wondered how it could be simply added onto George Street which is already close to capacity with Randwick and Kingsford. There was much too much in that report to read, but I will bear it in mind. However shortly after the original tramway was closed in 1961, ever since there have been proposals to bring trams back to Sydney, but in all those 60 years, you can see how little essentially has resulted, not that they have failed to be effective. After seeing so many previous propositions fail to get off the ground, I’ll wait and see if any government takes up the proposal, because without massive government funding, (and the extravagant cost of the George Street lines must be remembered) I will believe it when I see them digging up the roads. Additionally, Labor in New South Wales has never been particularly interested in trams until now as it was them that shut the tramway in 1961.
@@tressteleg1 LNP got the closures started though, it was LNP that closed the Northern Beaches tram system, and I believe they commissioned the report by planners from London that recommended large-scale closures of the system and replacement with buses around WW2. To their credit they later opposed alot of the closures Labor enacted, particularly in the Eastern and Southeastern Suburbs before the saga of the Eastern Suburbs Railway could be completed. Im sure you are aware was supposed to run all the way to Kingsford and potentially Maroubra or Roseberry but later got cut back to Bondi Junction by Labor as costs spiralled and construction dragged on. I agree the trams have been slow thus far to take off, but on the other hand we now have a number of case studies showing massive success and transformative Impact, we now have much more of the knowledge and skills to operate, they have done the hardest bit which was George Street, the current political and social zeitgeist is firmly for more Public Transport, and there is FAR more housing pressure than ever before.
@@kyletopfer7818 I simply don’t have time to debate any further especially past history but it is generally believed that it was Labor which closed Sydney which is probably why, at least perhaps until the present government, it has essentially been anti-tram. Wait and see.
@@tressteleg1 Fair enough - I will just quickly add that possibly the worst aspect of CSELR is that they didn't have a design capable of dealing with football/cricket/concert crowds at Moore Park, even though the former tramways had a brilliant system for events capable of handling over 50k in an hour which could have been redeployed.
@@kyletopfer7818 Well the need for public transport is now much less than in the years up to around 1960. Not living in Sydney, I don’t know how well the trams shift the crowds but I do know that it was a Big Fail a year or 2 ago when for some reason trams were not running through Moore Park. If the stoppage was for maintenance which could have been a day or 2 later, that is totally unacceptable.
Yes, I suspect that is because the cone shape taper of the Citadis is a different taper compared with the CAFs, result being that only part of the wheel flanges is touching the side of the rail, causing fear that any faster speed might cause the Citadis to jump off the tracks. Another reason why wheel and track standards should be made the same. With less trams on the L1, it would be easier to change.
Thanks Richard. Great comparison again. A little question I have is I always thought the L1 stage 1 only went as far as Lilydale. I remember catching variotram from Central and at Lilydale just looking at bare earth under the road bridge at Lilydale.
You are not mistaken. From memory, the present line was extended bit by bit. The first terminus was at Wentworth Park, next at Lilyfield, and finally Dulwich Hill. Quite a few years passed between construction of each new stage. If any Variobahns were still running when Dulwich Hill opened, they did not do so for very long.
@@tressteleg1 It was less than 3 years between official opening of the first section to Wentworth Park (31 August 1997) and the opening of the extension to Lilyfield (13 August 2000) so there could only have been about 2 years without construction activity in that Glebe section. Then there was still goods traffic running to White Bay up until mid-2009; thereafter Premier Keneally announced the LR extension to Dulwich Hill would be going ahead in February 2010 so there was only half a year of inactivity along that section. Initial work started on the extension a couple of months later, and was scheduled to open in 2012, but then the Government lost the election and the new government immediately announced that the DH extension would be delayed until 2014. Ridiculous they couldn't use that time to build a better terminus facility at DH which limits frequencies to every 6 minutes in peak but it is what it is!
@@kyletopfer7818 Okay, thanks for your more detailed explanation. As for the postponement of the Dulwich Hill extension, since Labor in New South Wales closed the original tramway in 1961, until very recently they have not been at all interested in building tramlines. A lot of the overcrowding on that line would be helped if some services shuttled between Central and the casino, or the nearest crossover beyond that destination.
@@tressteleg1 you are correct, Labor have made a LOT of mistakes on transport in NSW, though i'll note that the LNP have not actually been very good at getting the quality right: - platforms built too short on L1 underground stops - ordering crap CAF trams and retiring the Variotram early - the Newcastle LR line is a total disaster, the worst system i know of - proprietary wireless technology on L2/L3 and Newcastle which is constantly fucked - a missed interchange at Lewisham between L1 and T2 trains - until recently a terrible interchange at Dulwich Hill where you had to walk all the way around - the managing of the budget for CSELR was woeful - Parramatta LR has been incredibly slow to open particularly the Carlingford line portion, most of the go-slow phases of the Project occured under LNP
@@harrygoldun5779 that is what you get when you order the cheapest which apparently if often required in government spending. Whether expensive repairs, as with the earlier CAF trams on the L1 seems not to be a consideration.
@harrygoldun5779 And you believe that the E-Class is the holy grail of modern low floor trams? Criminally arrow aisles, pathetic door placement and sucks power like theres no tomorrow. G-class is a step in a better direction, however maintains the narrow aisles over the bogies and only has a single leaf door behind the cab. But that in-itself is an upgrade.