COM: Glenelg Tramline Upgrade

[Tom]

Transadelaide tonight, has confirmed that the driver of the tram went thru a red light.

[AG]

One thing about the design and layout of the new siding at South Terrace has me curious. One wonders why the siding wasn't built between the up and down tracks, rather than next to the down track, would make operations a bit simpler, and prevent forming shuttle services on the up from blocking the down line when entering service, as well as increasing the turnaround capacity.

[Norman]

I think because introducing a centre sliding would require a lot more track modification I would guess.

[frank1]

Any guesses on how long people blame the tram line and Pat Conlon for this human error derailment. This incident
just provides those tram haters for an excuse to blame the tram line for everything wrong i.e. late 5 mins
for work, tram lines fault. peak hour last for 30sec longer, tram lines faults, lost money betting on the melbourne cup, tram lines fault

[BillD]

I went through town tonight around ten and came across the signalling types working on the City-West intersection.
All lights were flashing yellow, some guys were working in pits and some were dealing with the equipment cabinets.

Shouldn't be long until the transponder equipment is working.

Bill

[rogue]

Any word yet on when the desto problem will be solved?

[skyliner]

Spoke to a shop keeper on Semaphore Rd last January who spoke of a tramline to be layed down Semaphore Rd. Originally it went from Pt.Adelaide down Swan Tce, over Semaphore Rd and down Woolnough Rd to Largs. (See Australian Railway History Vol.57, No. 823 P194). Does anyone know of such plans the shopkeeper was alluding to or any extra info?

On a different 'track', originally there were 26 H class trams needed to run the Glenelg tram line (see 'Official History of the MTT, Adelaide, SA, prepared by the ABC) and maintained at least to 22 in 1974. How many H class are left, how many flexis are there and how many on order? It seems to me the current system is very low on stock,. The population has grown extensively around the current tramline area from 1974. Serving the CBD as well suggests to me at least 50 are needed (at th present service rate operating coupled to it's high demand levels).

BTW - to cope with demand on the Glenelg tram line it got to three car sets (H class) in use at one stage.

Thanks for the help in anticipation

ADELAIDE - A CITY ON THE MOVE

[Will409]

30 H class were built with road numbers 351-380 being issued. As a side note, the present 380 was originally numbered 359 but was renumbered to 380 sometime in the 1950s/1960s after the original was withdrawn. In addition to the Glenelg line, the H class were used on the Henley Beach line as well as racecourse traffic to Cheltenham. They were occasionally used on either lines also. 8 were withdrawn and scrapped in the 1950s (dictated by traffic demands caused by system closure) and some of the remainder were renumbered. The use of 3 car sets was an early operation which ran between 1929 and 1937 after an accident at Grovene (now called Glengworie). The braking effort on a triple set isn't as strong as it is on a 2 car set because of the design of the air brakes on the H class.

The reason behind the renumbering was because of the MTT maintenance policy on the H class. Since they were generally coupled together, they made an effort to keep consequtively numbered sets together as much as possible so they would rack up the same milage between a service/overhaul. Something like that anyway.

At present, 5 H class remain on the books (351, 367, 370, 374 and 380). 374 has been in storage since 2004 after underframe damage at Glenelg. As well as the 5 H class, there are 11 3 unit Flexis bringing the total fleet number to 16 which is similar to the fleet size in 2005 when all services were H class run. There is a rumour that more Flexis are on order but we (railfans) are not 100% when. For the current timetable, 10 Flexis are needed during peak with only one spare unit. If they can deal with all the lighting sequences and boom gates, it would be good to have say 15 Flexis running at a time with say 3-5 spare as well as the H class. However, Glengowrie depot would be too small to cope so a new depot on a larger site or an expansion of Glengowrie would be needed. It is already struggling with the current fleet size.

[BillD]

Going past the depot tonight I spotted this in the front yard. I didn't think to get its number from head-on so I'll just call it the Clipsal 500 Flexity.

Sorry about the lighting, it was getting late!

[jk1237]

Spoke to a shop keeper on Semaphore Rd last January who spoke of a tramline to be layed down Semaphore Rd. Originally it went from Pt.Adelaide down Swan Tce, over Semaphore Rd and down Woolnough Rd to Largs. (See Australian Railway History Vol.57, No. 823 P194). Does anyone know of such plans the shopkeeper was alluding to or any extra info?

Well the plan that I know about is that if the Outer Harbor/Grange line is turned into light rail, the proposal is to run a spur line down the middle of Semaphore Rd to the beach, as well as reroute the line through Port Adelaide (run down Commercial Rd then left into St Vincents st), so the viaduct wont be needed.

Wow, the clipsal tram looks pretty cool, apart from the fact it is advertising cars

[Brando]

Going past the depot tonight I spotted this in the front yard. I didn't think to get its number from head-on so I'll just call it the Clipsal 500 Flexity.

Sorry about the lighting, it was getting late!

Thanks for that BillD, that looks great and will be a great way of advertising our brilliant race.

[BillD]

Having missed Flexity 111 for most of the day, I finally took this shot late on Saturday afternoon. I spent an hour waiting at the City-West terminus around 1pm until a friend reminded me that trams weren't coming that far due to closures related to the Christmas pageant.

The tram is advertising the upcoming Clipsal 500 motor racing event.

Once again, late in the day, the lighting was poor...

[crawf]

that looks awesome, cheers BillD

[Shuz]

Oh dear god. What is that?

[Cruise]

Oh dear god. What is that?

Whats your matter?