Beenleigh/Gold Coast Rail Proposal

[ilovebrisvegas]

Hi there - I'm new to this forum, and thought I'd share an idea that I've been mulling over to improve the efficiency and attractiveness of the Beenleigh and Gold Coast rail lines with the current level of infrastructure. Would love some thoughts on it. While there are pros and cons, I reckon it could be a viable option for a very small level of investment. So here's the idea:

Kuraby line: all stations to Kuraby.
Frequency - 15 minutes all day, every day.

Gold Coast line: Current Gold stopping pattern with the addition of Bethania and Woodridge stations.
Frequency - 15 minutes all day, every day. Peak times every 7-8 minutes (8 trains per hour).

How would this be achieved?

Gold Coast line: It would require closing a few stations, particularly on the outer section of the Beenleigh line: Holmview, Eden's Landing, Kingston and Trinder Park. But when you look at the patronage levels for these stations, they are all very low (I believe Kingston is the highest but barely scrapes 100,000 trips per annum. All other stations are much lower). While this will annoy some people, priority should be put into a decent feeder network to serve these surrounding suburbs. Since there would be no competing all stops Beenleigh services, there would be no worries about services being slowed down or needing passing loops/additional tracks.

Kuraby line: Running 15 minute frequencies all day would be possible as this has the 3 track section. The middle platform of Kuraby could be used for terminating services while the additional tracks could facilitate the Gold Coast services which would pass through. If you closed Sunnybank, Runcorn and Rocklea stations (I know closing stations isn't ideal but these are low patronage stations) then it would speed up the services a little which would make the journey times a bit more attractive, considering driving to the city is much faster in this part of town than taking the train. Runcorn station commuters have Fruitgrove and Altandi stations nearby, Sunnybank has Banoon and Altanda. Rocklea doesn't have too much super close, so could see the point of keeping that station open if need be.

Based on my calculations, I could see the services fitting to a realistic schedule using the current infrastructure. As I said earlier, a better feeder network and possibly a bit more parking facilities at some stations would be good too.

The obvious disadvantage of this would be closing several stations. But the potential to me seems much greater. All day 15 minute frequencies on both services which could potentially be good for alleviating congestion on the M1, encouraging more people to travel from Brisbane to the Coast, better integration with G:Link, and more people using the train to get to the airport. I've attached a snapshot of what the timetable could look like.

I still think major upgrades of this line are needed, but could be a good solution for the interim period. If those upgrades happen, maybe even some of the stations closed could be reopened.

So here's the idea, let me know your thoughts!

[achiruel]

Why would you put Bethania on the Gold Coast stopping pattern? Woodridge I kind of understand, because there's lots of buses you could interchange with there, but Bethania? Makes very little sense to me. The other issue is of course that the all-stoppers are terminating at Kuraby but the express trains don't stop there, resulting in people who transfer between them needing to go in the reverse direction from Altandi. Hardly attractive.

Also I think closing most of those stations is a big mistake. Taking access to public transport further away from people has rarely drive increases in patronage. Holmview I could probably deal with. Trinder Park's biggest problem is that it's far too close to Woodridge. Relocating it might be a good idea, maybe to somewhere near Nyanza St, it would be a lot more accessible to the northern part of Woodridge then. Of course the issue is that section of the track seriously needs re-alignment, and then the new station will be useless. Perhaps what we should be looking at is realignment from Kingston to Compton Rd.

[timh]

Agree with closure of Eden's Landing station, but not Kingston. If redevelopment of the Butterbox into a major entertainment venue goes ahead under Federal Labor, Kingston station would serve as an important public transport link for events.

I also wouldn't add more stops to Gold Coast services. With the eventual extension to the line you'd want to be removing stops if anything.

15min all day Kuraby services I can get behind. Same as closure of Runcorn station. Fruitgrove is better

[Cazza]

^Just quickly Achiruel, I think Bethania was chosen because he'd decided to close both Holmview and Edens Landing. You'd want to have one of those stations left open so I guess Bethania was chosen as it has higher patronage than EL and it's closer to the City (so people don't have to back track all that much). I agree with your Kuraby part too.

On a whole, I can see what you're trying to achieve. I'm sure a few others have more of a justified opinion as they use the GC/Beenleigh Line corridor more often but just from my view, I think this is a fairly sound approach. Although, as others have mentioned, try avoid closing stations as it further disincentivises the use of PT to areas that already struggle to draw any decent patronage. Obviously, further refinements would be needed.

Based on current infrastructure, there are obviously constraints on running this proposal. For instance, with Kuraby terminators during peak, you'd obviously having them run every 7-8 mins or better. You would then need another platform or siding for trains to turnback without disrupting the flow of other services. As Manly Station has shown us, without adequate infrastructure, reliability can fall to pieces very quickly and easily. And the sheer lack of leadership around infrastructure spending (or most things to be honest) that is currently happening around 1 William St.

[SurfRail]

Parts of this appeal to me.  You will have issues with station closures because there is a difference between a lightly used station and a basically vacant station (eg Bindha) or one sandwiched between nearby alternatives (the Wynnums), and Edens Landing and Bethania serve pockets where getting buses in is an utter pain.

The big problem is it does nothing for journey times, you need a new alignment for that.  It will also lead to considerable peak overcrowding north of Beenleigh seeing Gold Coast trains are either largely or fully seated on departure from Beenleigh or sooner.

[achiruel]

I've had a bit of a stab at producing a comparison between a re-aligned Beenleigh line and a completely new line via the M1 corridor. I'm not convinced that the M1 corridor is a good idea; it is a couple of km shorter (33 vs 35 between Yatala and Dutton Park) but it doesn't really have a lot of walk-up patronage. Not to mention with all the overpasses etc that would need to be modified, it could well end up more expensive than property resumptions/tunelling etc required for re-aligning the existing corridor. I've tried, as far as possible, to stick to existing bridges etc (e.g. Wembley Rd, Compton Rd, Gateway Mwy, Logan River) to reduce the overall cost of the project. I still expect it would run into many billions of dollars though, especially considering that it really needs quad to Beenleigh.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OXRnxkyhwoBTTzyni6yePPQoNaJpMPJR&usp=sharing

[James]

I think the biggest issue with this proposal is the proposed addition of two extra stops on the GC line - and probably two more in practice (Eden's Landing and Kingston being essential). That is +4 minutes of travel time, assuming one extra stop means one extra minute in travel time. Could very well be more. This isn't much more than the 7.5 minutes saved by reducing your average wait time at stations south of Beenleigh (average wait of 15 mins at 2tph down to 7.5 mins at 4tph).

There is also some loss of amenity under this service pattern - the stop at Altandi is pretty important thanks to the Mains Rd connection. I would close Sunnybank station before Altandi station. And of course closing several stations through Logan would be unpopular.

Operationally, it's been found in this forum that operationally, there is no reason why the current Coopers Plains-terminating services can't be extended to Altandi, aside from for contingency and timetable fat.

Really, the government should look into figuring out a corridor for future RRR and starting to preserve it NOW, rather than continuing to flounder along and periodically trotting out with fancy graphics and a video from France showing a train really quickly and saying that you will be able to get to the Gold Coast* within 45 minutes. On this point, I think the only way to improve the corridor is to re-align it. Three focus points would be:

• Dutton Park to Yeronga - The very first CRR would have fixed this problem by putting GC trains into a tunnel all the way to Yeerongpilly, avoiding the relative slowness of the existing corridor. This one probably can't be fixed without significant capital works, and with all the development now going in here, any realignment would be an ugly, expensive process.
• Coopers Plains to Runcorn - Where you can get the biggest time savings, but also the most expensive to do. You'll either have to resume houses or tunnel from about Low St in Coopers Plains down to Runcorn Station, mostly running beside Stable Swamp Creek, which would provide technical challenges in itself. There is a considerable 'plain' of land north of Banoon station, and the removal of the rail corridor would also allow the government to sell back land later.
• Trinder Park to Woodridge - from Compton Park to Heather St (south of Woodridge Station), straighten it out. Easiest to do north of Woodridge station, south of there you have a lot of businesses and a school.

Slowly buying up lots to become rental / housing commission, then demolishing them in 15 years time, would be far more palatable than simply bulldozing the lot.

[Cazza]

I had all this typed out then James posted and covered most points. But here's my fairly uneducated view anyway.

I'm a bit 50/50 on the whole property resumption idea (obviously aside from this completely insane level).

Yes, Brisbane's suburbs were built back in the early to mid 1900s where urban planning didn't really exist (and the railway building technology was limited to following the Earth's contours) so that gives us the squiggly line cutting through the suburbs. It's not much help when we want to be running trains upwards of 130km/h yet some curves only allow 40km/h. So, sometime in the very near future, we do need to bite the bullet and almost completely straighten the whole rail corridor (as you have done).

This also allows for new communities to be built surrounding the station (including TODs etc.) and for councils to undertake some gentrification work to the local suburbs (reducing crime, increasing liveability etc.). For example, although the whole Woodridge/Kingston area surrounding the rail line would have to be almost completely resumed, it would allow for the existing rail corridor (and to some extent, most of the surrounding area) to be rezoned or update the current houses. It also allows for other public assets such as parks and community facilities to be built (similar to what Skyrail has done in Melbourne, rising the surrounding house prices and creating more of a community feel (which itself has been proven to increase liveability).


On the other hand, a project at this scale is a completely ridiculous and insane idea that will probably never come to light (even if the government had unlimited resources to fund and built the project). Aside from the fact that it would be a logistical nightmare, "The Castle" provides a comical (yet somewhat accurate) sense on the lengths people will go to to protect their homes, even if they are a complete eyesore.

These days, you have NIMBYs up in arms about the smallest intersection upgrade meaning that they will have to walk an extra 2m home from the shops because the pedestrianised crossing has been slightly moved, so have fun trying to bulldoze thousands of buildings to build a rail corridor.


I think you would be able to straighten a fair bit of track though without too many property resumptions. Even just readjusting some of the curve angles will make a crazy difference. A tunnel from Loganlea/Kingston to Kuraby and Altandi to Rocklea would probably be the best idea though because of the amount of houses within a fairly close proximity to the corridor.

I assume all this will be undertaken if RRR ever makes it any further than a politicians campaign speech, so I guess we shall wait and see.

[SurfRail]

I don't know why everybody assumes the existing railway is what needs to be rebuilt.  We didn't convert Logan Road into the M1.

[James]

I don't know why everybody assumes the existing railway is what needs to be rebuilt.  We didn't convert Logan Road into the M1.

A few things:
1. The M1 corridor was set aside quite a while ago - north of Eight Mile Plains the road corridor was busy led in the 70s, and south of Springwood the road was already there in the 1950s and 60s.
2. Land was much cheaper to acquire back then.
3. You would still need to serve the existing Beenleigh line rail catchment, which is pretty extensive. By re-aligning what's there, rather than attempting to retrofit the busway and then who knows what for the next 15-20km, you deliver considerable enhancements to this corridor (major travel time improvements and capacity increases), vs minor improvements along the SE Busway corridor.

Of course, a feasibility study would clear this up once and for all, but I can't see an SE corridor being less expensive. It probably depends on the structural suitability of the busway to support heavy rail. If it can't - which I reckon is the case - forget it.

[tazzer9]

I stopped reading after you suggested closing kingston station.   One of the busiest stations on the entire line