A basic look into track speeds on the North Coast Line

[Marshal]

I've become very interested in the track speeds of the regional network lately, especially after riding the tilt train myself and finding the speeds to be very up and down over the course of the journey. I've been doing some very basic investigation and analysis into it, and I thought I would share what I have so far. This isn't exactly meant to be some sort of plan or call to action, more something that has interested me lately, that I think would interest others here.

When you do a basic timetable analysis of the North Coast line passenger services (focusing on the Tilts and the Spirit of QLD) you find they have a rather low average speed despite being capable of 160km/h top speeds. Obviously different sections of the track have different speed limitations, but given what the tilt trains are capable of, their lower average speeds suggest much of the track isn't really up for even 80km/h speeds.

So I've been digging around for publicly accessible data on the track speeds of the network. I have no doubt that somewhere within QR (and probably Aurizon) they have a data table with every section of track and their current speed limit, but what they release publicly is a lot less clear. The best source I have found so far are the system information packs on QR's site (https://www.queenslandrail.com.au/forbusiness/the-regional-network).

These are very basic info packs intended to provide potential operators with a broad overview of the operating conditions of QR's managed tracks. They only offer limited information (often not in the most ideal format) which isn't surprising for a public facing document, but I'm disappointed by the highly inconsistent formatting of data tables and the fact that they haven't been updated since 2016. I don't see how any private operators would find these documents useful.

However, they do at least have some track speed information. Speed sign locations are presented with a distance value to indicate location. This would be great, but because of the dodgy formatting it's difficult to collate that data, as well as difficult to pinpoint the exact location of the speed signs on the network using only the distance from Roma St. It wouldn't be impossible, but the way it has been set up makes it a nightmarish task of manual data entry and measuring out each location.

We do have section speeds though, and these are at least easier to digest than the speed board locations. With the track diagrams we can reasonably discern how long each section is, then use the listed travel time to gauge the average speed each section is travelled within. With this data, I've produced these two charts.

These are admittedly pretty rough, I'm not committing too much time towards polishing them further right now, as I am hopeful of finding better data through the forum! Basically they plot the speed at every Km past Nambour (based on the average speed of the section that km is part of).

We start at Nambour because this is where QR seems to start their own data in the NCL south doc. You'll notice that Gladstone to Rockhampton is very flat compared to the rest of the chart. It seems that QR doesn't have, or doesn't publicly share data on that section due to it being managed by Aurizon, so this is just based on Tilt-train timetables.




My big take-away from this is that yeah, the speeds are incredibly inconsistent up till Rockhampton, beyond which they are more consistent, but generally never that high. Townsville through to Cairns is dreadful, with the speeds pretty much never climbing back above the overall Nambour - Cairns average for any substantial period.

It's also interesting that, although it struggles to consistently run at high speeds, the tilts get to run above 100km/h way more frequently prior to Rockhampton, presumably because we actually put real work into track improvements for them when they were introduced.

Where I would be going with this kind of data (if I had that kind of power....) would be to start focusing in on 'easy' fixes to improve travel times on the inter-city network. While the trains are slow, they aren't that far from being competitive with car travel times. I suspect a lot of these downward spikes are to do with relatively minor track deficiencies (such as rural level crossings or old wooden bridges) that could very easily be upgraded. I suspect a lot of the reason why the network is so slow is because averaging just under 80km/h is nice and speedy for freight, and it's a freight network first and foremost. We aren't going to spend money speeding up freight trains, so it simply doesn't happen.

My next step is to look into the Master Tran Plans. It should be possible to reverse engineer track speeds from them. I believe this will take more work then the section speeds, but it does mean I could fill out Gladstone - Rockhampton with some more detailed data.

That said, if anyone knows where I could get my hand on better, or at least more conveniently formatted data, I'd be very appreciative!

[HappyTrainGuy]

Not public as it's to much varying data as track pairs aren't always the same speed and trains while are meant to be sectorised can use both lines Eg Albion-Bowen Hills the subs have a higher inbound track speed while the outbound line has a slower track speed when compared to the mains.

And you are unlikely to speed up train timetables as they are based on a peak hour running. For peak hour runs they are also spaced and timed for slots through the city, flat junctions and dead running. This is why we see trains on the subs running express Eagle Junction-Bowen Hills or Morningside-Park Road. One example is running an Airport-Park road service express Domestic Airport-Bowen Hills to maintain its cbd run. That way it will also maintain its Park Road-Dutton Park cross with the Beenleigh/Kuraby-Bowen Hills/Ferny Grove service and also maintain its cross with the Gold Coast-Bowen Hills/Airport/Doomben service at Yeerongpilly before turning around via Sherwood or heading to Redbank/Springfield. Same applies to the mains with Roma street terminators crossing over to P10/Normanby as Bowen Hills services have stopped at P9 to load/unload passengers. With CRR you can really eat into the fat but that also depends on your rollingstock allocation and if you want to use flat junctions or run around via Tennyson.

In regards to traveltrains the single track and signal setup dictates your top speed. For example the northbound peak tilt runs on yellows and double yellows. Same with it north of Caboolture as it catches and has to deal with crosses. The Glasshouse mountains cross is a great example as it dordles along on restricted signalling. Morning peak traveltrains have the same problem aswell with the tilts hitting restricted signalling. Many of the track improvements that have been planned since the mid 90's has not appeared. For example Gympie-Caboolture has had plans for track improvements and realignments. The most notable is the quad Nambour-Caboolture 160kph corridor realignment (done as dual track with provisions on bridges/tunnels/corridor for a quad) with 80kph minimum speeds on curves. Where the tilt derailed a number of years back also happened on a section of track that was to be realigned with bridges replaced with a higher track speed. Ironically the property of the bloke that first arrived on scene would have been resumed for the realignment.

For reference when the tilts first stated they were faster than a car Brisbane-Rocky. Even with the fat in the timetable they were scheduled to do the trip in 6h50m. And that was before the Caboolture-Beerburrum duplication and realignment project.

From memory the original 98' running times were roughly (can't recall if they were the arrival or departure times)
Caboolture 42m
Landsborough 1h04m
Nambour 1h20m
Gympie 2h10m
Maryborough 3h10m
Bundaberg 4h00m
Bundaberg depart 4h10m
Gladstone 5h50m
Gladstone depart 5h55m
Rockhampton arrival 6h50m

That also included stopping at the usual stops such as Mt Larcom, Howard, Miram Vale etc. They all had 5.30pm arrival times at Rocky. IIRC the Saturday Capricorn ICE service departed at 8.30am and arrived there at 5.30pm with the tilts Sunday-Friday leaving around 10.40am.

Townsville-Cairns also runs different signalling with a lot of slow twisty curves. There are some good sections of running but the tight curves prevent higher top speeds. I can't recall if they have finally replaced all the sleepers or still use a mixed steel, timber and concrete setup. One problem during the hotter times is speed reductions on any section with steel/timber sleepers. Up north you have lots of single track but also less traffic. Freight departures are also very managed due to restrictions in the Brisbane surban area so passenger services are usually not impacted by this. Other spurs/lines have also progressively been closed down or freight contracts cancelled. We saw Aurizon dump the ass out of the FNQ cement, cattle, steel and sugar contracts. Instead of selling disused rollingstock they scrapped them so other operators were unable to purchase them. We saw this on the mt Isa line where Aurizon dumped contracts and cube/pacific national had to use trucks until they were able to source wagons to run services. During this time some wagon replacement rolling stock had issues so contracts were simply turned over to the trucking industry and has not since been returned to rail. Aurizon has also closed mtce depots/facilities and consolidated services as a cost cutting measure. The also cited due to a decline in traffic. This includes removing the Rocky, Redbank and Townsville workshops along with removing all facilities from Townsville to Sturt/Port.