News & Discussion: Trams

[SBD]

At the end of the article, it claims in 1950 you could turn right onto North Tce. Some 68 years later we can't figure out how to do it again in a safe manner.

Just seems so wrong lol

I have no doubt we could do it if you are happy with that area of the city having the same amount of road traffic it did in 1950.

wonder what the essential characteristics of the trams that used that turn in the 1950s (or earlier) were compared to the trams we have now. Perhaps shorter wheelbase and disconnected carriages would make a difference.

[adelaide transport]

It is still a mystery that trams heading East on North Terrace can turn right(same radius as the cancelled turn) into King William Street (including Citadis trams)?

[SBD]

It is still a mystery that trams heading East on North Terrace can turn right(same radius as the cancelled turn) into King William Street (including Citadis trams)?

The intersection is not flat. I assume that the difficulty relates to the camber of the curve.

[EBG]

Just add 10 of these Melbourne trams to the current order in Melbourne . They can stop and start on hills and go around corners. Better still just tell PTV Melbourne what you want and let them do all the work supply - track and trams and operate.

[ml69]

It is still a mystery that trams heading East on North Terrace can turn right(same radius as the cancelled turn) into King William Street (including Citadis trams)?

The intersection is not flat. I assume that the difficulty relates to the camber of the curve.

Yet there is a left hand turn from North Tce into King William St with the just completed tram extension?? No derailment risk with that?

Anyway I'm glad it's now off the table. Unnecessary to turn right anyway.

[bits]

Yet there is a left hand turn from North Tce into King William St with the just completed tram extension?? No derailment risk with that?

North of the intersection the northbound rails are steeper than the southbound due to the land.
Also there is a difference between descending into a bend and climbing into a bend, the same when driving cars.

Something is clearly different to many decades ago.
Road heights, trams or building standards.
I do not care what they luckily got away with years ago. Previous luck should not be some proof of what should be built today.
Let's stick to good current standards.

[rubberman]

Yet there is a left hand turn from North Tce into King William St with the just completed tram extension?? No derailment risk with that?

North of the intersection the northbound rails are steeper than the southbound due to the land.
Also there is a difference between descending into a bend and climbing into a bend, the same when driving cars.

Something is clearly different to many decades ago.
Road heights, trams or building standards.
I do not care what they luckily got away with years ago. Previous luck should not be some proof of what should be built today.
Let's stick to good current standards.

I suggest that if hundreds of trams per day for close to fifty years could use the turn without incident, then it's got nothing to do with luck.

Next, trams, even Citadis, have to be able to deal with different track elevations in ordinary service, since often track such as open ballast gets misaligned over the years. Citadis handle this worse than others, but they get by...slowly.

We should stick to good standards, but current standards don't seem to be appropriate on the face of it. If current standards cost $117m, and we must abandon tried and true standards which served for fifty years and over a million trams round the curves without incident, then the new standards do little except waste public money.

I suspect the peddlars of these "standards" are just heavy rail types who have no clue about trams...and add nothing in terms of safety, reliability, or cost.

[rubberman]

Just add 10 of these Melbourne trams to the current order in Melbourne . They can stop and start on hills and go around corners. Better still just tell PTV Melbourne what you want and let them do all the work supply - track and trams and operate.

While I would be happy to see these in Adelaide, there are others just as good round the world.

If we signal to Bombardier that these are the ones we want to have, it is an open invitation to them to double the price, and no need to hurry to fill the order.

In fact, they might not even be able to do it. If their present construction rate is optimized already, adding facilities for another ten trams might not be economic, so maybe Bombardier wouldn't even consider doing it till the Melbourne order is finished. Of course, whenever that is, that might be the time to snag a bargain. Although, by then, these trams might no longer be competitive with others, if it's far into the future.

[skyliner]

I suspect the next thing the Marshall gov't will do is not use the spur at all, citing all sorts of reasons - incl. it being pointless if going no further. They won't make much effort in capitalising on this line, give it bad public profile etc etc. Will be interested to see if I am right.

ADELAIDE - TOWARDS A GREATER CBD HEIGHT

[claybro]

Just add 10 of these Melbourne trams to the current order in Melbourne . They can stop and start on hills and go around corners. Better still just tell PTV Melbourne what you want and let them do all the work supply - track and trams and operate.

While I would be happy to see these in Adelaide, there are others just as good round the world.

If we signal to Bombardier that these are the ones we want to have, it is an open invitation to them to double the price, and no need to hurry to fill the order.

In fact, they might not even be able to do it. If their present construction rate is optimized already, adding facilities for another ten trams might not be economic, so maybe Bombardier wouldn't even consider doing it till the Melbourne order is finished. Of course, whenever that is, that might be the time to snag a bargain. Although, by then, these trams might no longer be competitive with others, if it's far into the future.

How would they double the price when it would be quite easy for SA to find out what Vic pay for theirs. And if they received an order for 10 new railcars, surely there would be a delivery time attached to that contract. Also, if an order for another 10 railcars dropped into their lap, I'm sure they would make it work.

[rubberman]

Just add 10 of these Melbourne trams to the current order in Melbourne . They can stop and start on hills and go around corners. Better still just tell PTV Melbourne what you want and let them do all the work supply - track and trams and operate.

While I would be happy to see these in Adelaide, there are others just as good round the world.

If we signal to Bombardier that these are the ones we want to have, it is an open invitation to them to double the price, and no need to hurry to fill the order.

In fact, they might not even be able to do it. If their present construction rate is optimized already, adding facilities for another ten trams might not be economic, so maybe Bombardier wouldn't even consider doing it till the Melbourne order is finished. Of course, whenever that is, that might be the time to snag a bargain. Although, by then, these trams might no longer be competitive with others, if it's far into the future.

How would they double the price when it would be quite easy for SA to find out what Vic pay for theirs. And if they received an order for 10 new railcars, surely there would be a delivery time attached to that contract. Also, if an order for another 10 railcars dropped into their lap, I'm sure they would make it work.

If a contractor knows they are the only tenderer, why should they give SA the same price as if they were in a competitive tender situation with three or four other contenders? The whole point of competitive tendering is that it's competitive, and that competition drives prices down. By announcing that we are going to purchase something from a single supplier totally eliminates competition. The idea that eliminating competition is going to provide a good deal is pretty novel, I must say.

Again, if a supplier knows that they are the only tenderer, then they just put in their own completion date in the tender documents. What do you do then? One tender, the only tender, and the tenderer supplies whenever it suits them. What are you going to do if you've locked yourself into that supplier? Point being, their construction line for Melbourne trams simply might not be able to be easily increased for ten trams only. It might not even be worth Bombardier's while to do an order for ten until they get to the end of the Melbourne contract. It's actually more common than you think for a supplier to have a full order book for two or three years, and they simply don't have the capacity to do a job lot in the middle. We'd look pretty silly if we only asked Bombardier, and they couldn't do it until Melbourne's contract finished.

Now if it was ten trams to replace the Citadis, and another ten trams for Outer Harbor light rail, and another ten for the Hills line light rail, plus forty or so for the balance of a tram system in Adelaide, that's an order of 70 trams. In that case, yeah, it would be worth while for Bombardier to set up another production line. Of course, with that number of trams, other suppliers would also be keenly interestec. Why not give others a chance? There's plenty of other manufacturers out there, if we go to competitive tender, we could easily save a couple of million dollars per unit. That's $140m.

Are the ten new railcars for Gawler?

[Goodsy]

We should license a design and open our own production facility

[SBD]

We should license a design and open our own production facility

It's probably not worth anyone setting up a new production facility for ten trams and ten railcars. If we were planning to buy enough of the same thing that a new production line is needed by whoever makes them, then they might be convinced to put it in SA. The comments by others about the full order book is the same as the order book that Boeing runs for planes, with production scheduled several years into the future, dropping one off for each customer as they have saved enough pennies to pay for it.

[EBG]

PTv Melbourne initially ordered 50 "6000" type trams, then ordered an other 20 then 10 more and currently has an order for another 10. So they have proven to be reliable and suitable for use in Australia.

[rubberman]

PTv Melbourne initially ordered 50 "6000" type trams, then ordered an other 20 then 10 more and currently has an order for another 10. So they have proven to be reliable and suitable for use in Australia.

Certainly. I don’t think anyone would disagree.

However, let's not lose sight of the fact that it is extremely unlikely that the present government will go ahead and buy any new trams. It's far more likely to scrap the right turn idea, and declare the North Adelaide and city loop extensions uneconomic. In which case no new trams. So, we are discussing something, that if it happens, will be four or five years in the future, at least.

Now, by that time, the Canberra Urbos trams, and the Gold Coast Flexitys will have a track record able to be evaluated. Further, other manufacturers such as Stadler, Škoda, Pesa all have good offerings. There'd need to be a very good reason for excluding such a wide range of reputable suppliers from tendering. It's not just ten trams we are talking about, since once we do settle on a model of tram, that gives that manufacturer a big advantage in future tenders. I would sincerely hope that a future government would not repeat the mistake made with the Citadis.