Beerwah to Caloundra (CAMCOS) with Beerburrum to Landsborough north dup.

[Arnz]

Sticking this in the foam section and thinking for a second, what if the 2 projects in the topic header went ahead, and WITHOUT the CRR.   

Beerburrum - Landsborough North duplication plus Beerwah-Caloundra extension without CRR will mean all services to Sunshine Coast/Caloundra will be taking over the majority of existing Caboolture and Nambour slots.  At least during off-peak, the Sunshine Coast region (Caloundra & Maroochydore) could help fill what are the existing Caboolture/Nambour trains during off-peak, and thus therefore push for 15 minute off-peak services to Caboolture (and Beerwah/Caloundra/Sunshine Coast) in the longer term.

By the time the #railfail is over and on the assumption the CRR still fails to get off the ground, there should be at least enough drivers/guards to operate the Northgate - Cannon Hill shuttles on weekends to maintain the current Petrie - Northgate - Eagle Junction - Bowen Hills (& v.v) express pattern on a consistent basis.

Since the Caloundra extension would take over the majority of Nambour slots.   Most trains beyond Beerwah to Nambour/Gympie North would be converted to Beerwah-Nambour/Gympie North shuttles in shoulder peak (e.g before 4pm or after 6pm), off-peak and weekends.

There is already the Woombye stabling yard for 4x NGR trains under construction (and almost completed), so there would at least be at least 5 slot pairs needed to be retained in peak for limited direct services beyond Beerwah (4x Nambour and 1x Gympie North).  The smaller Nambour yard could stable the trains allocated to the shuttle services.

[aldonius]

What are the loadings like right now in AM peak on via Dakabin services? I'm operating on the assumption that we could squeeze at most 1-2 extra trains in each hour. Surely we don't have enough spare capacity on existing services to absorb what is effectively an additional line.

[HappyTrainGuy]

You'd almost be tempted to upgrade Dakabin and north and Beenleigh and south to 9 car platforms - maybe make them doo enabled for future CRR, keep the frequency the same during peak hour and run 9 car trains in peak hour only via the exhibition line. Run IMU160/SMU260 into P10 and have staff quickly kicking off people in the final 3 carriages, lock it and send it to Central. Reverse it in the arvo by locking the final 3 Bowen Hills-Central, unlock it between Central-Roma Street (those going north would know to board the rear 3 at Roma Street as no one would be in them.

Caboolture and CAMCOS services won't be going Roma Street-Central in arvo peak which would allow services to cut across to P10. You could even knock out the exhibition section of CRR earlier to allow boarding there. Peak hour would be Exhibition express to Petrie all stops to Caloundra. Transfer to a Nambour shuttle at Landsborough.

Crew costs would be higher short term but you off set that by the longer trains/same amount of services/higher capacity/faster city services. Once CRR comes in you just maintain the same pattern minus Central-Bowen Hills. Also by this time we might even have some new carriages coming in to enable fixed 9 car NGR sets doing Varsity Lakes to Caloundra on what should be by then a doo compatible line.