Planned closures - discussion

[JimmyP]

I took the train to the Valley today which necessitated going through the closed South Brisbane section. However the default automated announcements were still in in the train ("This is a Brisbane City and Ferny Grove train, stopping at all stations"). The one time when they should override the default, and didn't bother to. 

I think they leave it on as normal until the closure section so as to avoid confusing people who have been told to get a specific train. For example, a tourist is told to get the Airport train from Beenleigh, but then a train saying 'South Brisbane'turns up, so they don't get on, delaying their journey for no reason.
Easiest to leave it all as normal and ensure plenty of announcements are made on approach to the closed section IMO.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/QueenslandRail/status/1075590167375732737

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/TransLinkSEQ/status/1075960303236603905

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1078007252810776576

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1078377294241001472

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1078735716631232512

[ozbob]

[JustSomeTrainGuy]

All signals (UP and DOWN) were red when I passed Taringa 20 mins ago. Also noticed a three car SMU260 stopped at Indooroopilly platform 4 earlier today, presumably for testing?

[verbatim9]

Central  platforms 1-4 still closed today as well as inner city Tracks 1 and 2 from Roma Street to Bowen Hills. Major delay on the Gold coast line Northbound!

[ozbob]

Central  platforms 1-4 still closed today as well as inner city Tracks 1 and 2 from Roma Street to Bowen Hills. Major delay on the Gold coast line Northbound!

What is the delay specifically?  Nothing has been reported by TL et al.

[verbatim9]

Caught the Caboolture line instead North, it was running about 12 mins late. Lots of suitcases and waiting passengers too at Central. Every min they were making announcements of it being delayed and the time waiting just kept on increasing on the PID.

[ozbob]

Caught the Caboolture line instead North, it was running about 12 mins late. Lots of suitcases and waiting passengers too at Central. Every min they were making announcements of it being delayed and the time waiting just kept on increasing on the PID.

Thanks.  Was it an NGR?  Seems they might be getting very naughty again and not reporting the delays ...

Naughty!!   

Do you know what time it was due at Central and what time it actually arrived?  Thanks ..

[verbatim9]

Caught the Caboolture line instead North, it was running about 12 mins late. Lots of suitcases and waiting passengers too at Central. Every min they were making announcements of it being delayed and the time waiting just kept on increasing on the PID.

Thanks.  Was it an NGR?  Seems they might be getting very naughty again and not reporting the delays ...

Naughty!!   

Do you know what time it was due at Central and what time it actually arrived?  Thanks ..

Plus being a weekend I don't think they need to report delays? It didn't have the NGR icon on the PID so not sure. It was due @ 1401 it was still 7 mins away @ 1407 when I hopped on the Caboolture line.

[not_available]

Caught the Caboolture line instead North, it was running about 12 mins late. Lots of suitcases and waiting passengers too at Central. Every min they were making announcements of it being delayed and the time waiting just kept on increasing on the PID.

Thanks.  Was it an NGR?  Seems they might be getting very naughty again and not reporting the delays ...

Naughty!!   

Do you know what time it was due at Central and what time it actually arrived?  Thanks ..

Plus being a weekend I don't think they need to report delays? It didn't have the NGR icon on the PID so not sure. It was due @ 1401 it was still 7 mins away @ 1407 when I hopped on the Caboolture line.

I haven't seen the ngr icons being used on the PIDs at Central/Roma Street

[verbatim9]

Caught the Caboolture line instead North, it was running about 12 mins late. Lots of suitcases and waiting passengers too at Central. Every min they were making announcements of it being delayed and the time waiting just kept on increasing on the PID.

Thanks.  Was it an NGR?  Seems they might be getting very naughty again and not reporting the delays ...

Naughty!!   

Do you know what time it was due at Central and what time it actually arrived?  Thanks ..

Plus being a weekend I don't think they need to report delays? It didn't have the NGR icon on the PID so not sure. It was due @ 1401 it was still 7 mins away @ 1407 when I hopped on the Caboolture line.

I haven't seen the ngr icons being used on the PIDs at Central/Roma Street

Yeah you are right they don't seem to appear on the inner city stations just the suburban ones. I wonder why?

[verbatim9]

Caught the Caboolture line instead North, it was running about 12 mins late. Lots of suitcases and waiting passengers too at Central. Every min they were making announcements of it being delayed and the time waiting just kept on increasing on the PID.

Thanks.  Was it an NGR?  Seems they might be getting very naughty again and not reporting the delays ...

Naughty!!   

Do you know what time it was due at Central and what time it actually arrived?  Thanks ..

Plus being a weekend I don't think they need to report delays? It didn't have the NGR icon on the PID so not sure. It was due @ 1401 it was still 7 mins away @ 1407 when I hopped on the Caboolture line.

I haven't seen the ngr icons being used on the PIDs at Central/Roma Street

Yeah you are right they don't seem to appear on the inner city stations just the suburban ones. I wonder why?

Anyway despite the NGR icons on the PIDs The inner core between Roma Street and Bowen Hills wasn't fully opened today and the Gold Coast line was experiencing delays Northbound around 1400.

[ozbob]

Caught the Caboolture line instead North, it was running about 12 mins late. Lots of suitcases and waiting passengers too at Central. Every min they were making announcements of it being delayed and the time waiting just kept on increasing on the PID.

Thanks.  Was it an NGR?  Seems they might be getting very naughty again and not reporting the delays ...

Naughty!!   

Do you know what time it was due at Central and what time it actually arrived?  Thanks ..

Plus being a weekend I don't think they need to report delays? It didn't have the NGR icon on the PID so not sure. It was due @ 1401 it was still 7 mins away @ 1407 when I hopped on the Caboolture line.

Thanks.  I think they don't always report until 10 minutes adrift.  Borderline ... but my bet is it was not reported due to operation pressures with the subs closed. 

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/QueenslandRail/status/1084993862794268672

[achiruel]

Interesting that the major track closure for the weekend of 16-17 February is on QR's website but isn't on TransLink's. Almost like they don't communicate or something

Also does QR really have that much crew to work on all those lines at once. Everything on the northside except Ferny Grove is closed. I smell something fishy going on. Masking crew shortages?

[HappyTrainGuy]

Interesting that the major track closure for the weekend of 16-17 February is on QR's website but isn't on TransLink's. Almost like they don't communicate or something

Also does QR really have that much crew to work on all those lines at once. Everything on the northside except Ferny Grove is closed. I smell something fishy going on. Masking crew shortages?

Are you are referring to the Feb 16-19th closures on the NCL??? If you want to keep thinking something fishy is going don't read past this sentence. Its a total closure. So lots of track machines, rail replacements, sleeper replacements. New culverts/culvert works. General. Bridge work/inspections. mtce etc etc etc. Closure is actually Bowen Hills to Wokka with Curra-Wokka works being run until 6.30 Monday. Also times in with the Rocklands closures of Rockhampton-Rocklands/Glenmore and St Lawrence to Kalarka closure to all traffic for ohle and Fitzroy River bridge and Alexandra Bridge inspections which is Saturday-Tuesday. Next major closures should be first week of April (Toombul-Tamaree IIRC) and first week of June (Northgate-Glanmire).

Sorry if I wrecked the conspiracy theory

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

13th February 2019

More rail replacement bus timetables needed please

Greetings,

We have constant track closures on our Citytrain network these days.  Rail replacement buses are an important and critical part of the closure process.  We have seen some closures recently with proper rail replacement bus timetables but this has been patchy.  It is important that TransLink and Queensland Rail endeavour to have rail replacement bus timetables in place for all future closures.  It is very frustrating when  the rail replacement bus services  are non-timetabled.  Recent closures have even seen passengers holding doors open on trains so that transferring passengers from bus can make the train and avoid a long wait for the next rail service *( https://www.facebook.com/TransLinkQLD/posts/3048668048492573 ).  Better coordination between bus and rail MUST be achieved.

Constant track closures with the poor non-timetabled rail replacement bus services are forcing people off public transport.

Every effort must be made to improve the rail replacement bus services and ensure proper timetabling.

Thank you.

Best wishes,

Robert

Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track https://backontrack.org

* https://www.facebook.com/TransLinkQLD/posts/3048668048492573

Remove my posts all you like, rail bus at murrarie arrived at 7:43am, train departed as the first group made the platform. At 8:15am the following railbus arrived and thanks to a few customers who had already waited on the train for 30 minutes stopping the doors from closing the next group didn't meet the same fate and we travelled together!

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1095354079130247168

[brissypete]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1095354079130247168

Agreed, it happens with some closures and not others. I don't know what the logic is, if there is any.

And accessible buses are needed as mentioned above, I too have experienced the Brisbane Bus Lines bendy buses and while nice buses they have no space for wheelchairs or prams. Having bikes, prams and walkers in aisles is not safe.

Sent from my G8141 using Tapatalk

[SurfRail]

We also have to stop using coaches and step-entry buses on rail replacement.  There are enough low-floor buses to provide all rail replacement services for metropolitan routes, and for longer distance runs where coaches might be justified (and in the first instance it shouldn't be, we aren't generally talking about 3 hours on a bus), it can't be that hard to find buses that have wheelchair lifts.

In other places like WA where you have an entirely (or near entirely) government owned bus fleet, this is not an issue.

[JustSomeTrainGuy]

I'm all for this though;



https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/aq40j9/a_new_way_to_jazz_up_the_rail_buses/

[HappyTrainGuy]

We also have to stop using coaches and step-entry buses on rail replacement.  There are enough low-floor buses to provide all rail replacement services for metropolitan routes, and for longer distance runs where coaches might be justified (and in the first instance it shouldn't be, we aren't generally talking about 3 hours on a bus), it can't be that hard to find buses that have wheelchair lifts.

In other places like WA where you have an entirely (or near entirely) government owned bus fleet, this is not an issue.

Most low floor buses are speed regulated to 90kph (such as BT's fleet) while coaches aren't as such. Also remember KBL's and Thompsons rail bus contract is almost worth half of its Translink service contract.

[SurfRail]

^ TransLink should ensure that accessible buses are used for these services.  The vast majority of rail replacement services do not involve extended stints at 100kph, and those that do you wouldn't be using urban buses on to start with.

What the contractors make or don't make is of zero consequence to passengers.

We are 3 years off having a legal requirement for a 100% DDA compliant system.  This is an easy and obvious fix when so many other goalposts clearly won't be met.

[verbatim9]

I  noticed with some line closures Translink has used  Brisbane buslines which have low floor articulated buses.

[SurfRail]

^ Those artics have a step at the (woefully inadequte single leaf) rear door and have questionable arrangements for wheelchair pax.

Artics should have 3 doors minimum, anything less is wasting time.

[James]

^ Those artics have a step at the (woefully inadequte single leaf) rear door and have questionable arrangements for wheelchair pax.

Artics should have 3 doors minimum, anything less is wasting time.

It is an improvement on the high-floor buses which were running around last weekend. Those are absolutely woeful at doing any railbus job that involves regular 'all stops' movements.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Bbl has low floor because they are for school services which don't run weekends. Thompson, kbl, cbl and others use the high floor buses because it comes from a different pool of rollingstock while their low floor buses provide the local translink routes.

Those are operators that have high floor buses because they use highways frequently.

[ozbob]

Letter to the Editor Queensland Times 15th February 2019 page 11

Timetable co-ordination needs fixing

[SurfRail]

Bbl has low floor because they are for school services which don't run weekends. Thompson, kbl, cbl and others use the high floor buses because it comes from a different pool of rollingstock while their low floor buses provide the local translink routes.

Those are operators that have high floor buses because they use highways frequently.

Hence we shouldn't be paying them to use inappropriate vehicles for the work required.  TransLink needs to stop paying tour and charter operators to run coaches from the 90s and 00s while there are enough DDA compliant buses (which they have mostly paid for) to fully cover the work sitting in operator's depots on weekends. 

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/TransLinkSEQ/status/1096279189215502336

[ozbob]

Corinda to Rosewood including Springfield Central track closure - 2 to 3 March

https://translink.com.au/service-updates/213546

[ozbob]

Track closure 2 to 3 March - Ipswich, Rosewood and Springfield lines

https://translink.com.au/service-updates/213546

From first service Saturday 2 March until last service Sunday 3 March, tracks will be closed on the Ipswich/Rosewood and Springfield lines.

Timetabled railbuses will replace trains from Corinda to Rosewood and Springfield Central stations.
Plan your journey for routes and timetables.

Train services will return to normal from first service Monday 4 March.

Timetabled railbus trial

We are trialling something new! Timetabled railbus services.

The benefits of this trial include:

A published timetable online and at stops
The ability to journey plan
Higher frequency for most of the day.
Please check your rail replacement bus stop location.

Why are we trialling this? We are always looking for ways to improve your experience on our network. This includes how we keep you moving during a track closure. By providing a published timetable and higher frequency services, you'll be able to plan ahead and get where you need to go sooner.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/ozbob13/status/1100231089476358146

[brissypete]

Good to see. Hopefully the Beenleigh / Gold Coast closure the following weekend will also have timetabled buses.

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[brissypete]

Just another observation, I've noticed that when there are no timetabled rail buses trains still show in apps for closed stations however when rail buses are timetabled this isn't an issue.

Timetabled buses therefore likely help to reduce the number of people waiting for trains that won't come.

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[ozbob]

Queensland Times 27th February 2019 page 9

Rail replacement bus on trial for line closure