Sydney Metro

[ozbob]

Hills Shire Times --> Sydney Metro northwest: Rail union demands investigation into 'violent shaking'

Union leaders are demanding the State Government launch a full-scale investigation after NewsLocal revealed commuters on the Sydney Metro northwest network were raising concerns over violent shaking of carriages.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union NW secretary Alex Claassens called on the State Government to conduct an "urgent investigation" into Sydney's driverless metro system.

It comes despite the Transport Department stressing the issue is not safety related and would be fixed by standard maintenance.

"It's not good enough to just tell passengers not to worry," Mr Claassens said. "Violent shaking certainly doesn't sound like a train running safely.

"This is just one of the many reasons why we need train crew on our trains — if this system had train crew on board they would not only be able to indicate immediately whether there was an issue, but they'd be there to assist in the event that something does go wrong."

Mr Claassens said commuters deserved a world-class, safe system on the Metro.

"Driverless trains are a disaster waiting to happen," he said. We're putting passengers inside a big metal container and sending them off down a track with no one in charge and no one to assist in the event of an emergency."

A Transport for NSW spokeswoman reassured passengers the issue "is not safety related".

"Sydney Metro has instructed Metro Trains Sydney (MTS) to urgently address this issue," she said.

"MTS has been fully aware of this issue and is in the process of carrying out work to re-profile Metro train wheels, which is a standard part of operating and maintaining a rail line."

The spokeswoman said the wheels on all trains require re-profiling over time: "a grinding process to restore wheels back to their original wheel profile as a result of steel-on-steel contact".

"The Sydney Metro is a new rail line using new technology and systems but this issue applies to all railways," she said.

"Rolling stock on railway lines around the world are subject to regular wheel re-profiling."

[Gazza]

Sounds like a wheel flat.

[verbatim9]

[verbatim9]

[verbatim9]

[verbatim9]

Wow! The transformation at Martin Place and Central Station is phenomenal.

[verbatim9]

[verbatim9]

[kram0]

Someone should forward these to useless Bailey so he can see what a real project looks like, without corners being cut.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/RailExpressNews/status/1348496747983605760

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/ozbob13/status/1348651349160861698

[ozbob]

Sydney Morning Herald --> Warning that Sydney's biggest rail project risks costing $27b and opening late  $

The NSW government was warned last year that the cost of building its flagship rail line between central Sydney and Parramatta risked ballooning to almost $27 billion – nearly $3 billion more than earlier internal estimates – and opening three years late.

The forecast for Metro West was made about eight months ago, before the government committed to an extra station at Pyrmont, which will add hundreds of millions to the final cost of Australia's largest transport project. ...

[verbatim9]

https://youtu.be/ZI-YNU39H00

[verbatim9]

New Video Sydney West Metro

[timh]

New Video Sydney West Metro

New CBD station looks great. I do also like that last frame with the dotted lines showing long term extensions.

Honestly looking at this project just makes me sad how appalling the state of things is in QLD

Sent from my SM-G780F using Tapatalk

[kram0]

Agree Timh, we are still living in the steam train age compared to Sydney. Disgusting!

[#Metro]

I had to double take there when I read "aquaduct"

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/GladysB/status/1405309934867140609

[kram0]

An amazing project and one we can only dream of here in Queensland.

[JimmyP]

I' personally luke warm on the Metro in Sydney.
While I certainly believe Sydney is certainly big enough for a Metro, I very much dislike how the NSW Gov is spending so much money converting the Bankstown line (which works perfectly well as heavy rail) to Metro, instead of actually increasing the footprint of rail across the city. Just like the Newcastle line truncation, just to put LR in the exact same corridor.
I also think the current outer terminus is a bit far out for a Metro service. IMO Metro should only go out to around Chatswood, Epping, Parra, Hurstville etc style distances from the City, but that's just my opinion.

[verbatim9]

Track laying nearly completed under the harbour.

[Gazza]

I' personally luke warm on the Metro in Sydney.
While I certainly believe Sydney is certainly big enough for a Metro, I very much dislike how the NSW Gov is spending so much money converting the Bankstown line (which works perfectly well as heavy rail) to Metro, instead of actually increasing the footprint of rail across the city. Just like the Newcastle line truncation, just to put LR in the exact same corridor.
I also think the current outer terminus is a bit far out for a Metro service. IMO Metro should only go out to around Chatswood, Epping, Parra, Hurstville etc style distances from the City, but that's just my opinion.

I think there's nothing inherently  wrong with going longer distance with a metro, like the Tung Chung line in HK is 31km long, and the Dubai metro is 50km long.
Arguably here in Aus the Joondalup line is almost a metro (Grade separated, longitudinal seating, high frequency). What matter is the travel time to the terminus IMO.

In terms of increasing the reach of rail, Sydney faces the same issues as Brisbane. A lack of core capacity, and new areas needing rail.
I think Sydney Metro is trying to do a bit of both, it's providing access to new areas with the bit to Tallawong, plus Barangaroo (Though it should have gone via UniSYD instead of Waterloo)
And it is attempting to provide core capacity with the 2nd harbour crossing and taking Banko trains out of the loop.

So at the present time, sending the metro to a new area instead of retrofitting Banko would be a bit like building rail to Flagstone ahead of CRR.......Great for the people in the new area, but probably not good for the network as a whole.

[ozbob]

Central Station Metro quarterly newsletter

> https://www.sydneymetro.info/sites/default/files/CSM_Q3_Newsletter_July-Sept_2021%20FA_WEB%20%5Baccessible%5D.pdf

[ozbob]

" ... today's focus will be 2 of the system's future lines - the West line and the Western Sydney Airport line. Enjoy!"

[verbatim9]

Very comprehensive. I like his critical reviews on Public Transport around the world.

[verbatim9]

Sydney Metro: the new Hunter Street (Sydney CBD) metro station

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/Dom_Perrottet/status/1453874088225624070

[ozbob]

https://www.sydneymetro.info/station/martin-place-station

Martin Place Station Bi-Annual Newsletter December 2021

https://www.sydneymetro.info/sites/default/files/2021-12/Bi-Annual%20Newsletter%20December%202021.pdf

[#Metro]

Ka-BOOM! (sound of massive cost explosion)

Ms Terrill said the extent of contract variations highlighted a cultural problem within the construction industry that would not be tolerated elsewhere. "There is a very pronounced culture ... of using the period after contracts are signed to increase the price paid," she said.

Sydney's flagship harbour metro rail line billions over budget

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-s-flagship-harbour-metro-rail-line-billions-over-budget-20220301-p5a0jw.html

Metro Western Sydney Airport - $11 billion (estimate)
Metro West - No official govt forecast. Internal govt estimate: Up to $26.6b*

Maybe they should start looking at Commuter-style Light Rail.

[SurfRail]

 

The volumes involved here require metro levels of service.  It's expensive because it's commensurately beneficial for what is needed, and because construction costs are skyrocketing for numerous reasons and which would also be the case for any project ($2.5bn for GCLR 4 now for instance).  They aren't going to be running North American style ops because they simply don't need to.

As an aside - I raised Calgary style operations a while ago specifically because there are technical constraints in adapting the busway corridors for rail (gradients, turn radii, being able to drive on-sight rather than needing signalling, the need for a limited amount of pedestrian interaction in places etc), and because it would represent a sizable improvement in the capacity that Brisbane "Metro" can deliver. 

We all know BCC rabbits on about the busways providing 18,000pphpd, but that only applies to the Gabba Junction - Allen Street/Stanley St off-ramp section (ie a section with zero stops and including all the peak hour services which bypass South Bank), only in one direction at a time, and with logjams a common occurrence as a result because of conflicting moves in the CBD, the Gabba Junction and in other places.

If you exclude other bus operations, Brisbane "Metro" is going to offer 4,500pphpd.  That is being generous - it assumes 2 minute headways and a chockers capacity of 150 pax per vehicle.  That 2 minute headway can also only apply on the common stretch between the Harrogate Tunnel junction and Roma Street - it would presumably be half that on the UQ and Eight Mile Plains branches, and north of Roma Street, so 2,250pphpd (which is less than G:Link which runs at 2,400pphpd normally with 300 pax x 8 per hour). Ticketing will be onboard which will also slow dwell times, and because they have not provided for trolley-wires that could charge in-motion down-time will also be a factor as they need to recharge at each end.  With only 60 vehicles I suspect they will struggle to maintain the promised headways, even just in the peak direction.

To get to 18,000pphpd you need to run many more Brisbane "Metro" vehicles than are being delivered (with many more drivers), or rely on smaller buses from the existing fleet (each of which individually carries fewer pax).  This means continuing to have a substantial number of "normal" buses using the busway.  This does not solve the problem and will mean you still have shitty interchange experiences at places like the Cultural Centre.  I have no problem with the infrastructure being delivered but the service paradigm is not going to be as revolutionary as we are being promised, especially since everybody will kick up a stink about protecting their single-seat connection to the CBD.  Zero BUZ routes will be curtailed to be non-CBD routes and peak hour expresses will still exist.

Calgary style services run with SD200 trainsets that can carry 250 pax at chockers load per set.  With the available busway station dimensions you could run 2 sets in MU carrying 500, or if you wanted to spend the money you can lengthen all the busway platforms to around 80m to enable 3 set MUs at 750pax (and you would need to do work to raise them or lower the road bed anyway.  You could run these comfortably at say 6 minute intervals for a capacity of 7,500pphpd on an individual branch, and at 3 minutes internals in the core for 15,000pphpd.  The way I envisaged it, the branches would only be at the outer ends (ie no Carindale or UQ to CBD operations to minimise conflicting moves), so most of the route length would be at that high frequency.  The ultimate capacity would depend on how quickly you could clear station platforms and how big a fleet you can sustain - I would guess maybe a train every 90 seconds is the practical maximum, which is 40 per hour, which is 30,000pphpd.  That capacity would be reliably available in each direction, and serves every single station.  It can also be delivered by adapting the existing busway corridors and expanding them, without having to build substantially more expensive new tunnels via the CBD (which has only limited possible future alignments that need to be protected for future heavy rail expansion or a metro in the future).

[Gazza]

Maybe they should start looking at Commuter-style Light Rail.

The circle of life is complete, and #Metro will change his username back to TramTrain?
(Current flavour of the week)

[achiruel]

Ka-BOOM! (sound of massive cost explosion)

Ms Terrill said the extent of contract variations highlighted a cultural problem within the construction industry that would not be tolerated elsewhere. "There is a very pronounced culture ... of using the period after contracts are signed to increase the price paid," she said.

Sydney's flagship harbour metro rail line billions over budget

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-s-flagship-harbour-metro-rail-line-billions-over-budget-20220301-p5a0jw.html

Metro Western Sydney Airport - $11 billion (estimate)
Metro West - No official govt forecast. Internal govt estimate: Up to $26.6b*

Maybe they should start looking at Commuter-style Light Rail.

Article written by someone who clearly has no clue about the massive increase in input costs the construction industry has faced in the past two years.

Prices of timber, metals, and other construction materials has increased massively, yet somehow you still expect construction to occur at the same cost?

[#Metro]

Some of these projects are now so expensive, they are pricing themselves out of existence, and will almost certainly be cancelled.
I can't really see a strong justification for a metro to Western Sydney Airport at this stage, that would probably be the easiest to cut.

Perhaps it is time to start awarding risk scores to individual contracting firms based on their past contract value and history, and project characteristics, similar to how insurance firms vary your premiums based on risk. The involvement of multiple firms in projects makes it a non-trivial task, but there are techniques to estimate it, even in this case. I would expect some variation between firms in their ability to control costs.

[verbatim9]

There is no need to worry about the initial outlay and costs associated with an automated metro. These projects will pay for themselves over time with lower operating costs and the return from a healthy fare box.

[Gazza]

It makes no logical sense to say projects will price themselves out of existence.

If it were true, the rail projects happening in Qld now wouldn't happen because they cost several times what the projects built in the 90s cost.

Am I really to believe that at some point in the future Australia will stop building new rail because it's too expensive, at which point all the rail infrastructure and rolling stock providers will close up.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/Sydney_Stations/status/1507495659536281602

====

https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1507574241109159936

[#Metro]

The Sydney metro design is interesting because it is clearly adapted for a spread out city (some have interpreted this deviation from traditional design principles as a flaw, it is not).

- Stations spaced much further apart than a usual metro (e.g. NOT like Paris, etc)
- High Speed (and a high value placed on that, even if it means no local service)
- Fewer stops
- Long distance

Sydney and Melbourne have taken divergent paths to improving their rail networks to become all-day high frequency.

Melbourne is focusing on non-automated whole-of-network frequency improvement with core capacity upgrades to support on branches. Sydney is focusing on entirely new lines and line conversion, which is extremely expensive upfront. On the other hand, operating the existing commuter rail network has huge operational costs and is a legacy system.

[ozbob]

Rail Express --> Sydney metro track laying almost complete

Track laying through Sydney is more than 95 per cent complete in the 15.5 kilometre metro twin tunnels, as part of the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project.

The progress brings Sydney one step closer to seeing metro trains through the city in 2024. ...

[ozbob]

History in the making as last track laid for next stage of Sydney Metro

> https://www.sydneymetro.info/article/history-making-last-track-laid-next-stage-sydney-metro

[ozbob]

Rail Express --> Sydney's new driverless trains start passenger services

The New South Wales Government is celebrating major milestones with Sydney Metro – 50 million commuter trips since opening three years ago and the start of passenger services on the first of 23 new trains for the next stage of Australia's biggest public transport project.


Transport, Veterans and Western Sydney minister David Elliott said 50 million passenger journeys made it very clear that commuters across Sydney's north-west had embraced travelling on the Metro.

"We have hit another major milestone as new driverless trains for the Sydney Metro City and Southwest project join the existing North West Metro Line trains, following a rigorous testing regime," he said. ...