COM: Glenelg Tramline Upgrade

[Ho Really]

Mr Conlon said he hoped the train system would be converted to a light-rail system within the next decade.

"The concrete re-sleepering work sets a base for doing that and that will mean the Outer Harbor line, the Noarlunga line and most of the Belair line will be suitable for conversion," he said. "I have no doubt that one day we'll turn those rail systems into light rail and that will add huge value along the corridors."

Congratulations, you're an idiot. Why the hell would you convert to light rail when it's slower and has lower capacity and the system is already struggling to cope with peak demand?

Well said Bulldozer!

Cheers

[SRW]

Mr Conlon said he hoped the train system would be converted to a light-rail system within the next decade.

"The concrete re-sleepering work sets a base for doing that and that will mean the Outer Harbor line, the Noarlunga line and most of the Belair line will be suitable for conversion," he said. "I have no doubt that one day we'll turn those rail systems into light rail and that will add huge value along the corridors."

Congratulations, you're an idiot. Why the hell would you convert to light rail when it's slower and has lower capacity and the system is already struggling to cope with peak demand?

Well said Bulldozer!

Cheers

Indeed. I'd been holding out judgement on Conlon, but that comment really leads me to conclude he's a fool.

[AG]

I noticed the teething issues on the tram line this morning. Took about 4 trips back and forth today, and noticed some interesting things:
- A lot of people still seem to be confused about the operation of the new services. Lots of people heading for Glenelg kept stepping onto South Terrace terminating shuttles.
- Some people still don't seem to understand that the service is free in the city (still validating tickets)
- A lot of trams were bunching up at times. After midday there were about 4 City West bound trams (in the period of about 10 minutes) before a tram arrived on the down platform. Similar situation at Rundle Mall about 5pm when there were 5 City West bound trams before a tram heading south arrived, then another 3 South Terrace/Glenelg trams before any more City West trams arrived.
- Not a single tram was displaying City West or South Terrace on the desto, although most had signs with "City Shuttle" on them. Some had the Glenelg Moseley Square or City Victoria Square desto up instead.
- Half of the trams had the auto PA system on, the other half either had the driver announcing stops or none at all.
- One driver kept getting City South and City West mixed up over the PA.

[jk1237]

I used the shuttle tram today in morning and arvo peak, and it was great. I felt like I was in a cosmopolitan city. So many people were using the Pirie St and train station stops. I can forsee that some more trams will be needed down the track.

Question to BillD and Will409, why couldnt the desto's show City West or South Tce? Would have thought this would be quite simple to program up by TA. There were a few bunching up by trams, looked like Melb. Excellent for 1st day trial, no major problems I see.
Some drivers were rather cautious, but 1 tram I was on this arvo 'flored it' down King William St, and hooned around the curve. It was great

[crawf]

Its going to be a bit messed up for the first few days, always is when something new is introduced.

After that it should be fine , though what is the speed limit for the trams along King William Street and North Terrace?

[muzzamo]

If trams ran often on the Noarlunga line do you really think the system would struggle to cope with peak demand?? Trams can run right behind each other can't they, you can cram 10 of them in the stretch of rail that one signal would take up...

What it comes down to is the line is stuffed and needs re-sleepering (they are doing that now), the stations are third world and need to be upgraded to meet disability requirements and the trains are approaching the end of their useful life and need to be electrified. So you have to give them points for thinking outside the square.

What I see happening is electrification of the hills, Gawler and Noarlunga lines, with an almost certain extension of Tonsley to "flinders interchange", and a possible extension to seaford.

Grange/Outer harbor gets converted to light rail. Strain is taken off Adelaide railway station because Grange/outer harbor trams go through the city streets.

[skyliner]

A little belated - but what an excellent event

A great day and magificent photography from all concerned - makes it easier to be involved from a distance.

Adelaide appears diffeent now - buzzing, especially central Nth. Tce. looks more active (urban) with the new added dimension - like when they had a double deckker bus system as well as the trolly bus arrangement WITH the tramlines. I too thought of Melbourne's Swanson St. when going through the pics.

Very impressed to see Rann speaking of more extensions and letting this one give merit to those ideas first.

As to converting the heavy rail system to light rail - what utter rubbish I though they could think with more logic. What a rediculous idea to take out the Port line as light rail .Bulldozer said the exact relevant remark.

After the garbage in the last praragraph, ,this would HAVE to have consideration -
Have an impressive name for openers - like the 'Grand Trunk Connector '.
Go somewhere the light and heavy trail systems DON"T go.
Light rail down Grote St. from Vic Sq., diversion line to the bus terminal. Continue down Grote St and then
over the rail yards North of that shocking isolated interstate rail station. Make a branch to it. Continue over
the yards and to the airport; thereby linking ALL major transport nodes together via one system. This
could also then be integrated into the western CBD loop proposed already and the current extension. All these
places require movement of sinificant crowds when used. Put ALL of this in the context of a city of 2m
by 2050 and it's a real option.IMO. I spoke of this with an Adelaide CEO yesterday and he said it had significant
merit as a transport development. (We spent about 6 hours debating Adelaide developments - mentioned
Sensational Adelaide to him - very interested. (Showed him the mining site and Currie St site)
Comments please?

Interesting to see the Advertiser backflip on the tramline mentioned earlier - no real surprise - it is the media.

Also interesting to see if the new stops will cope with the people without spreading out onto the streets - might need more trams. I hope they keep the H class - they carry something iconic about their appearance.

FINALLY a way to get 'Sensational Adelaide' site more publicity and recognition - draw up a hard copy (booklet) on the history of the tramline extension - illustrated, with cmmentaries etc etc. I would willingly be involved. Sell it under 'Sensatiuonal Adelaide' authorship to prospective customers We have enough info to fill a book on this thread. Comments please?

ADELAIDE - A CITY ON THE MOVE

[PhilH]

Channel 9 news said that there was a signal failure during the day, so that was probably part of the reason for some bunching up - I saw two southbound trams about a minute apart at Pirie St about 12:20. I also noticed some passenger confusion at hometime (approx 5:10 pm), when waiting for my bus opposite Railway Station, with a young couple deciding not to get on a Glenelg bound tram there, and then the woman checking the timetable. Seems to me that they just wanted to get to Victoria Square, and didn't realise that all the trams go there, not just the shuttles! Saw about 4 trams on that stretch of North Terrace in the space of a few minutes - wonderful!

I hope Pat's idea about converting all the rail lines to trams isn't shared by Rann - that would make him a bigger tool than MH-S (if that's possible).

[Omicron]

Two or three trams down North Terrace at the same time was a hell of a sight. Lovely plane trees with their leaves again; sun shining; trams and people everywhere - it was a fine Adelaide day.

[jk1237]

By the way people, I have a news flash to stick in, Wed 17th Oct is national ride to work day, so if you cant get the tram to town, ride your bicycle in and have fun. OK, back to the trams, who went quietly gushing past stationary banked up cars in King William St this afternoon. Lovely to see

[Bulldozer]

If trams ran often on the Noarlunga line do you really think the system would struggle to cope with peak demand?? Trams can run right behind each other can't they, you can cram 10 of them in the stretch of rail that one signal would take up...

An average train from Noarlunga to Adelaide already takes 50-60 minutes, trams are slower than trains.

Each train car seats more than 100, and up to six cars can be linked into a set, which requires only one driver. We'll stay with the average set you see of three cars for this though. A tram seats 64, so to move as many people as a three car train you will need five trams if you want to keep everyone seated, otherwise if you want some to stand you can do it with three, but then you can fit much more than 300 on the train if people must stand.

I'd hazard a guess that like with most things, labour is the biggest cost in public transport. I don't know how much a driver gets paid, but assume $40,000. It costs roughly 2x an employees' wage to employ them. So since we need five trams to replace one train then we need four extra drivers, which is an extra $240,000. Now multiply that out by the number of trains and shifts and factor in additional drivers to make up for drivers who are on leave or off sick and it certainly adds up.

You can't get out of it by saying that you don't need to run as many trams during off-peak periods because there's not much demand compared to peak periods, because you still need that number of drivers at peak periods. This is why trains are the most efficient form of transport because they have the largest passenger to driver ratio.

[Will409]

First of all, I'd be more then happy to help out with a booklet.

The signalling failure carried on right through out the afternoon peak with the points operated manually at South Terrace. As has already been reported, services were tightly packed in the CBD. What I noticed was that the services generally had a reasonable gap ad then two flexis (one shuttle, one through Glenelg service) were right up eachother before another gap. I went on the 5:05pm ex City West 'express' service to Glenelg and the ripple effect was felt down the whole line. Normally on the run to Glenelg, you will pass by 5 trams. However today we only passed two. One at Greenhill Road and the other at Morphett Road outside Glengowrie depot. The tram at Glengowrie (107) heading towards Adelaide was flying at maximum speed to make up for lost time and as it sped over the points and Sturt River bridge, it was bouncing madly all over the place. In the end, my tram left City West 7 minutes late and even though we had an express run, it got to Mosely Square 20 minutes late. The tram was standing room only by Rundle Mall and crush load by South Terrace. To all the knockers who said that the trams wouldn't be useful, take that for capacity!

Anyway, back to this afternoon. The tram that ran the express then returned empty to the depot and soon after, tram 103 arrived for the return run. It was also 20 minutes late but thanks to a 'spirited' driver and a rather empty tram with only a few stops needed, we returned to City West 6 minutes late at 6:36pm, a very crediable performance indeed. By this time, things were starting to flow normally again and the usual number of passes en route were made. The gaps in the City were also more regular. The connie was saying that it had been reasonably smooth in the morning but the arvo was very 'pear shaped' indeed. However, it was only the first day of service and will probably take a week or two for everything to settle down and all the drivers to get used to all the new arrangements.

As for the destos, it seems TransAdelaide are more interested in getting the audio announcements set first. 103 and 106 both have altered announcements for the extension programmed in. They still have to set them for the new stop numbers though but everything else is fine. After 4:58pm, all trams from City West go to Glenelg anyway so the Mosely Square desto isn't out of place. As for the shuttle, all they have done is got a blank desto and a cardboard 'Shuttle Tram' sign in the windscreen (whether they are the right side up as on 106 is however worth looking at ). Photos of this afernoon's madness will be coming over the next day or so. Video footage from the opening is also being prepared for uploading.

[bmw boy]

could someone please care to explain these 'shuttles'.

ps. I wonder where froggy is??

[jk1237]

the shuttles run from South Tce to City West, in between Glenelg-City West trams, so that there are regular trams in the city. A siding has been built a South Tce specially for the shuttle
I wonder if Froggy is on board one of the trams right now.

By the way Will409, I decided this arvo to take a tram to South Tce. Its desto read Glenelg, but actually was a shuttle. The driver got to South Tce and told about 50 people to get out

[Omicron]

the shuttles run from South Tce to City West, in between Glenelg-City West trams, so that there are regular trams in the city. A siding has been built a South Tce specially for the shuttle
I wonder if Froggy is on board one of the trams right now.

By the way Will409, I decided this arvo to take a tram to South Tce. Its desto read Glenelg, but actually was a shuttle. The driver got to South Tce and told about 50 people to get out

I was on a Glenelg tram this afternoon that was suddenly overrun by 50 people trying to get in at South Tce for that very same reason.