Article: More trains could run

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From the Melbourne Age click here!

More trains could run

More trains could run

    * Clay Lucas
    * March 9, 2009

MELBOURNE'S existing suburban rail network could run more than double the present number of trains if it was operated as designed, Connex's own documents show.

During the morning rush hour, between 8am and 9am, 100 trains arrive at Flinders Street Station ? the same as in 1975 before hundreds of millions of dollars were spent building the City Loop in a bid to run more trains.

Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky said last week that few extra trains could be run into central Melbourne during rush hour. This was because the train system ? and the Loop in particular ? could not handle more trains safely, Ms Kosky told ABC Radio's Jon Faine.

"We don't have the capacity for the expansion of a lot of extra services (because) you can only provide as many trains coming into the CBD as the City Loop allows," she said.

Ms Kosky's comments echo those of the Department of Transport, which describes the Loop as "approaching capacity", with trains running through it at about three- to four-minute intervals.

But internal Connex rail maps, produced in 2006, show that far more trains were designed to be run on the city's railway lines, including through the Loop. The rail diagrams show that each of the eight suburban tracks that run into Flinders Street Station ? four via the Loop and four "direct" ? can handle a train every two minutes.

If run efficiently and as the engineers who built the Loop intended, 240 trains could run during rush hour, alleviating the overcrowding now being experienced during peak times.

A Government film released in the mid-1970s while the Loop was under construction, and now featured on the Department of Transport's website, describes its designers' plans.

"At the moment Flinders Street Station handles about 100 trains an hour during peak periods," it says.

"When the Loop comes into operation (the central city's rail stations) will be able to cope efficiently with twice as many trains and twice as many people."

Connex spokesman John Rees confirmed that "precisely 100 trains" currently arrive at Flinders Street Station between 8am and 9am during a weekday rush hour. He also agreed that the Loop, which opened in stages from 1981 to 1985, had been designed to run far more trains.

But trains were now so overcrowded they had to stop for longer at stations to let passengers off and on, he said.

The Loop was designed to have 20-second stopping times.

"(Stopping) times now frequently exceed one minute at peak times at certain stations in the Loop," Mr Rees said. "This has the effect of ? decreasing capacity."

Connex is trying to shorten the time trains stop at stations by remodelling carriages to make getting on and off easier.

RMIT transport academic Paul Mees said Ms Kosky's claim that few more trains could be run was an insult to previous generations of rail engineers.

"Either we have become a lot dumber in the last 35 years, or the minister is so lazy she can't be bothered questioning her own department when they tell her we can't run more trains," he said