Single-decker v double-decker trains: Barry O'Farrell's claim doubtful

[ozbob]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-11/barry-ofarrell-sydney-trains-claim-doubtful/5371446

ABC News Fact Check

Single-decker v double-decker trains: Barry O'Farrell's claim doubtful

Another pollie spin claim put to bed ...

Well worth the read ...  even Queensland Rail gets a mention .. 

[BrizCommuter]

Interesting article, but from observations around the world I would say that single deckers with lots of doors rarely require dwell times above 40secs, whilst double deckers in Sydney often have dwells in excess of 60secs. This is this at least 20secs difference, instead if the 10secs mentioned in the article.

[SurfRail]

I'd be very surprised if 26 tph is the maximum for the line which is eventually meant to be the second harbour crossing.  30tph is the baseline.  The idea that an 8 car train can only carry 1,300 people is also doubtful, particularly if it is optimised for larger volumes.  1,600-1,800 should be a manageable comfortable level, by reducing seating and increasing standing area.  HK trains regularly get up to 2,400 or so and I'm not suggesting we need to go that far (ie by reducing the available seating to around 40-50 per carriage).  30 x 1,600 = 48,000 pphd, and it would be possible to go higher with fewer seats.

The article also conveniently ignores that through-running double deck trains are definitely not going to be running at anywhere near 5 minute headways due to the lack of capacity on the North Shore as it is, so may as well go for the option which produces the best result when plugged into a new route.

[#Metro]

I suspect it has more to do with tunnels having to be bigger for bigger trains, and perhaps the larger ones also cost more (because they have to be customised rather than off the shelf) than it is to do with pax/hour.

You can increase pax/hour throughput with better signalling.

[#Metro]

Well put!