[COM] Flinders Rail Link

[PeFe]

Jeez the wheels of government turn slowly......very slowly.....the Flinders train line has been in planning for years. Talked about for years (first proposed in 1969) then given the green light at least 3, 4 years ago(?) and now the powers that be start investigating the best place for a bus interchange......

Terminating some southern suburbs buses at Flinders was always going to happen, Labor or Liberal government, it was always the most logical and economic thing to do.

Governments that are unable to integrate the two developments at the same time....wow that says a lot about their planning capabilities....

Is the 1969 date true? Were they really planning to extend an industrial railway that had passenger trains at shift change and car parts in, cars out on trains, only three years after the branch line was built to serve the new Chrysler factory? Noting that the factory and the university opened at about the same time, it seems odd to have proposed to extend the line, but not to have built the whole thing in one build.

I cant remember where I heard the 1969 date......Railpage(?)

It was a suggestion/proposal......makes sense to me. Flinders University was established in 1965. So even if the Tonsley Line was also used as industrial line you still could have run trains up to Flinders at peak hours leaving the line free for industrial uses during the day.

[SBD]

Jeez the wheels of government turn slowly......very slowly.....the Flinders train line has been in planning for years. Talked about for years (first proposed in 1969) then given the green light at least 3, 4 years ago(?) and now the powers that be start investigating the best place for a bus interchange......

Terminating some southern suburbs buses at Flinders was always going to happen, Labor or Liberal government, it was always the most logical and economic thing to do.

Governments that are unable to integrate the two developments at the same time....wow that says a lot about their planning capabilities....

Is the 1969 date true? Were they really planning to extend an industrial railway that had passenger trains at shift change and car parts in, cars out on trains, only three years after the branch line was built to serve the new Chrysler factory? Noting that the factory and the university opened at about the same time, it seems odd to have proposed to extend the line, but not to have built the whole thing in one build.

I cant remember where I heard the 1969 date......Railpage(?)

It was a suggestion/proposal......makes sense to me. Flinders University was established in 1965. So even if the Tonsley Line was also used as industrial line you still could have run trains up to Flinders at peak hours leaving the line free for industrial uses during the day.

The factory and branch line were 1966, hence my wondering why 1969.

It's easy to forget how far we have come since those days. Back then, Noarlunga was a station on the WIllunga Railway which used a different route than now past Hallett Cove. South Road looked a lot different to what we now want to see upgraded.

[Westside]

Back then, Noarlunga was a station on the WIllunga Railway which used a different route than now past Hallett Cove. South Road looked a lot different to what we now want to see upgraded.

Kinda, but not quite. The Noarlunga station on the old Willunga line was nowhere near the current Noarlunga Station. It was adjacent what we now call Old Noarlunga, quite close to the current Seaford Meadows station.

[1NEEDS2POST]

How frequent is the Flinders line going to run? I would think every 15min in peak if they want Uni students / medical workers to use it and the people from the 12 x G2X buses an hour. The single section of track is only 2.5km, it starts just north of Mitchell Park Station. Looking at old timetables (the current timetable shows Clovelly Park's time as the time the train would have arrived at the old Tonsley Station) it's 3 min from Mitchell Park to Tonsley add 1 min to get to Flinders Station, so it will take 4 or 5 min to get from the double track section to Flinders Station, to meet the next train in the double track section (on the Tonsley / Flinders line) the driver will have 5 or 6 min to change ends. I really don't think the gov't is going to spend $141 million on this extension to offer the same level of service the line currently gets in peak. Don't forget the Flinders line will have peak load in both directions taking commuters to the city and the flinders precinct. Flinders Uni alone has 30,000 students and staff. The line should operate every 15 mins 7am to 9am and 3pm to 7pm, 20 mins 9am to 3pm and 30 mins at other times, students will be coming and going all throughout the day, so a 20 min frequency would be good in interpeak.

Asking the important question. If it's going to be infrequent, may as well rip it up and replace with buses. They could rip out the Tonsley line and replace with an O-Bahn. It would make the buses from near Happy Valley faster too.

[Norman]

How frequent is the Flinders line going to run? I would think every 15min in peak if they want Uni students / medical workers to use it and the people from the 12 x G2X buses an hour. The single section of track is only 2.5km, it starts just north of Mitchell Park Station. Looking at old timetables (the current timetable shows Clovelly Park's time as the time the train would have arrived at the old Tonsley Station) it's 3 min from Mitchell Park to Tonsley add 1 min to get to Flinders Station, so it will take 4 or 5 min to get from the double track section to Flinders Station, to meet the next train in the double track section (on the Tonsley / Flinders line) the driver will have 5 or 6 min to change ends. I really don't think the gov't is going to spend $141 million on this extension to offer the same level of service the line currently gets in peak. Don't forget the Flinders line will have peak load in both directions taking commuters to the city and the flinders precinct. Flinders Uni alone has 30,000 students and staff. The line should operate every 15 mins 7am to 9am and 3pm to 7pm, 20 mins 9am to 3pm and 30 mins at other times, students will be coming and going all throughout the day, so a 20 min frequency would be good in interpeak.

Asking the important question. If it's going to be infrequent, may as well rip it up and replace with buses. They could rip out the Tonsley line and replace with an O-Bahn. It would make the buses from near Happy Valley faster too.

If you're replacing the Tonsley Line with O-Bahn track (which is silly in my opinion), what happens to the Seaford Line?

Many train services in the world (cities comparable to Adelaide) run every 15 minues in peak and every 30 minutes in the off peak.

[muzzamo]

Asking the important question. If it's going to be infrequent, may as well rip it up and replace with buses. They could rip out the Tonsley line and replace with an O-Bahn. It would make the buses from near Happy Valley faster too.

I live near happy valley so have thought of this too.

The Tram was upgraded with the Flexitys introduced as a knee jerk reaction to the old trams no longer being DDA compliant.
The Train lines were re-built with concrete sleepers in preparation for electrification

Here is how things should have played out instead, in my vision with perfect planning:
1) Retire rattler trams because they are no longer DDA compliant, rip up entire glenelg line and replace with O-Bahn. New line serves 5x as many people due to higher catchment area compared to trams. Buses can be run at a lower operation cost because they are running at twice the speed (less buses for same throughput). Tell Jetty road traders to be thankful for their new service, that this benefits more people, and to STFU about their missing tram.
2) Re-do the train line between the tram overpass and the tonsley branch, running the train and a new O-Bahn in paralel for the 5km, and replacing level crossings with overpasses/underpasses. Emerson crossing is complicated but running the train/OBahn under the crossing will simplify future works greatly. Major Tram/Train/OBahn interchange at goodwood, and train/OBahn interchange at Ascot Park.
3) Run OBahn to the current Tonsley terminus.
4) Down the track, as part of the darlington upgrade, buses don't even need an overpass. They can run at grade with separate bus lanes to Flinders and up to the uni.
5) Support all this with city bus lanes, gated bus stops or just dual door boarding, and other CBD infrastructure as needed.

We would have had
- Glenelg O-Bahn with a huge catchment area compared to the tram
- O-Bahn which can take people all the way up to the university as well as the hospital
- New Southern O-Bahn has a catchment area in the 400,000 people range, and includes buses to Aberfoyle Park but also expressway buses to Reynella, Morphett Vale, Hackham, and all the other places not served by the Noarlunga line.
- Huge untimed bus routes via the city, ie bus routes from Hackham to Golden Grove. Even though not many people will catch a bus from Hackham to Golden Grove, these lower the operational cost of running the busses as they spend more time on the road and less time at terminuses/waiting around (this is a key way of reducing the cost of public transport)

[claybro]

Anyone advocating replacing rail.. light or heavy with Obahn style buses, I would strongly recommend you stand near the Obahn track in the linear park near StPeters. 1. The noise of a high revving diesel bus trying to maintain 80kph is very unpleasant. 2. Add to that the "roar" of rubber on concrete. 3 top of concrete track structure is approx 1m above ground level. The existing Obahn largely follows the linear park, so these issues are not such a problem.. however in a tight inner suburban environment as along the Glenelg tram route, it would be a disaster, let alone all the elevated crossings that would be required as Obahn can't be at grade with road crossings. If the Flinders train setup is half arsed with no proper interchange.. it should have been planned better to facilitate buses from further afield, but an Obahn is not the solution.

[PeFe]

When an Adelaide A400 train rolls into the Flinders station (with 3 carriages) it has the potential to move 540 passengers......that's 10 buses worth.

No wonder the concept of the O-Bahn has not really taken off around the world......capacity issues that light and heavy rail do far better.

[SouthAussie94]

When an Adelaide A400 train rolls into the Flinders station (with 3 carriages) it has the potential to move 540 passengers......that's 10 buses worth.

No wonder the concept of the O-Bahn has not really taken off around the world......capacity issues that light and heavy rail do far better.

But sometimes frequency is more important than absolute capacity.

[muzzamo]

Anyone advocating replacing rail.. light or heavy with Obahn style buses, I would strongly recommend you stand near the Obahn track in the linear park near StPeters. 1. The noise of a high revving diesel bus trying to maintain 80kph is very unpleasant. 2. Add to that the "roar" of rubber on concrete. 3 top of concrete track structure is approx 1m above ground level. The existing Obahn largely follows the linear park, so these issues are not such a problem.. however in a tight inner suburban environment as along the Glenelg tram route, it would be a disaster, let alone all the elevated crossings that would be required as Obahn can't be at grade with road crossings. If the Flinders train setup is half arsed with no proper interchange.. it should have been planned better to facilitate buses from further afield, but an Obahn is not the solution.

Most of what you have said can be eliminated by not using concrete, and using a bitumen busway aka the Busways in Brisbane.
Take your point on the level crossings - in my retrospective vision the level crossings would have been removed along the train line/new busway between goodwood and Tonsley, which is something that arguably needs to be done anyway. Melbourne even has an authority - the "level crossing removal authority" than runs project after project to remove them.

As for a 3 carriage train rolling into Flinders with 400 passengers. A busway could support an enormous number of destinations, not just Flinders, and practically serving half of Adelaide. That's the key.

[PeFe]

As for a 3 carriage train rolling into Flinders with 400 passengers. A busway could support an enormous number of destinations, not just Flinders, and practically serving half of Adelaide. That's the key.

Yep a train with potentially 450 customers rolls into Flinders Station (where my guess is that 60% of passengers terminate there) and then passengers can transfer to buses for trips further south.....that's one train every 15 minutes during the weekdays. Not 10 buses trying to do the same thing......the same 10 buses that clog up city streets, that clog up the platform at Flinders....

I will say this again......why has the O-Bahn not been rebuilt all over the world as viable mass transportation for large numbers of people?

[TorrensSA]

Let's say there's a busway instead of the train lines, let's just look at the Gawler line electrified and passenger numbers. A 4000 class train can hold 540 people, but in reality it's more likely going to have closer to 350. Theres 8 trains an hour in peak direction, a bus would hold about 50 people on average, so 1 train is 7 buses. So 7 x 8 = 56 buses needed just to replace the trains, now you want to move other routes onto the busway. Now we move buses to the busway that would go to the city: Route 228 - 7 buses, Route 229F (or x) 4 buses. Once you have jiggled routes and whatnot a busway would be seeing 85+ buses in peak direction. Seriously it's insane. You could run a busway of 85 buses or run a train every 5 mins, and buy some extra train carriages and make a few 4 carriage trains. Buses: 85 x 50 = 4250, 3 carriage train 6 x 350 = 2100 and 4 carriage train 6 x 450 = 2700, combined 4800 A busway clearly does not have the capacity and theres no way Adelaide metro will run trains or buses at crush load. Why would you think a busway is practical? just run trains very 5min and connect buses to them.

[Patrick_27]

Anyone advocating replacing rail.. light or heavy with Obahn style buses, I would strongly recommend you stand near the Obahn track in the linear park near StPeters. 1. The noise of a high revving diesel bus trying to maintain 80kph is very unpleasant. 2. Add to that the "roar" of rubber on concrete. 3 top of concrete track structure is approx 1m above ground level. The existing Obahn largely follows the linear park, so these issues are not such a problem.. however in a tight inner suburban environment as along the Glenelg tram route, it would be a disaster, let alone all the elevated crossings that would be required as Obahn can't be at grade with road crossings. If the Flinders train setup is half arsed with no proper interchange.. it should have been planned better to facilitate buses from further afield, but an Obahn is not the solution.

Most of what you have said can be eliminated by not using concrete, and using a bitumen busway aka the Busways in Brisbane.
Take your point on the level crossings - in my retrospective vision the level crossings would have been removed along the train line/new busway between goodwood and Tonsley, which is something that arguably needs to be done anyway. Melbourne even has an authority - the "level crossing removal authority" than runs project after project to remove them.

As for a 3 carriage train rolling into Flinders with 400 passengers. A busway could support an enormous number of destinations, not just Flinders, and practically serving half of Adelaide. That's the key.

Your plan fails to recognise the enormous congestion that would come from having more buses on the road, yes, they would use the busway but they would also leave the busway in the CBD for instance. Look how bad Grenfell Street/Currie Street is already, replacing one tram/train with four buses or more buses would be a disaster. You're also ignoring the environmental impact that this would have with regards to emissions, both trains and trams still aren't great but at-least being electric they significantly decrease their footprint.

Also, Melbourne are removing their level crossings because train frequencies keep some boom gates down for 40-minutes of every hour during peak periods. Adelaide has this problem at some level crossings but not all.

[Goodsy]

Most of what you have said can be eliminated by not using concrete, and using a bitumen busway aka the Busways in Brisbane.

Gotta change the buses transmissions as well, they're geared for stop start low traffic with end torque not high speed cruising.

It's part of the reason why O-Bahn buses catch fire so often

[claybro]

Anyone advocating replacing rail.. light or heavy with Obahn style buses, I would strongly recommend you stand near the Obahn track in the linear park near StPeters. 1. The noise of a high revving diesel bus trying to maintain 80kph is very unpleasant. 2. Add to that the "roar" of rubber on concrete. 3 top of concrete track structure is approx 1m above ground level. The existing Obahn largely follows the linear park, so these issues are not such a problem.. however in a tight inner suburban environment as along the Glenelg tram route, it would be a disaster, let alone all the elevated crossings that would be required as Obahn can't be at grade with road crossings. If the Flinders train setup is half arsed with no proper interchange.. it should have been planned better to facilitate buses from further afield, but an Obahn is not the solution.

Most of what you have said can be eliminated by not using concrete, and using a bitumen busway aka the Busways in Brisbane.
Take your point on the level crossings - in my retrospective vision the level crossings would have been removed along the train line/new busway between goodwood and Tonsley, which is something that arguably needs to be done anyway. Melbourne even has an authority - the "level crossing removal authority" than runs project after project to remove them.

As for a 3 carriage train rolling into Flinders with 400 passengers. A busway could support an enormous number of destinations, not just Flinders, and practically serving half of Adelaide. That's the key.

Brisbane busways are just dedicated roads that buses run along-they do not use guideways. Bitumen is completely unsuitable for guideways, as the track of use is very confined to one concentrated spot on the track. Bitumen would become a deep rut in no time, as it does near high use bus stops. Also rubber on bitumen can still be noisy, unless a quieter, softer type of mix is used, which will not have any durability. As it is, the concrete track of the Obahn has a limited lifespan (much shorter than equivalent rail) so even going to the massive expense of removing the rail, elevating the corridor, and constructing concrete tracks for the entire length would be so cost prohibitive as an initial outlay, and require replacement or at least significant maintenance within a few decades. It just does not have enough benefit for the massive outlay. Just building a decent interchange on the Tonsley line would suffice, but as usual, Adelaide beaurocrats and public just do not get bus to train connections.