News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Trains

[ChillyPhilly]

A super cool site showing every single rail line, light and heavy, of Australia (and NZ) from 1850 to 2025: https://railhistory.io/

You can slide along the timeline year by year. Quite sad when light rail and some passenger rail instantly vanish within a year.

Credit to the creator on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MelbourneTrain ... ?rdt=59850

[Spotto]

Asbestos removal works are scheduled on the old Rosewater Loop in the coming week.

Great to see that progress hasn’t stalled on the greenway conversion.

[baytram366]

I was under the impression that the greenway was shelved and that there was an albeit small possibility that it was going to be used for trains again. Guessing that thought bubble has been canned....

[claybro]

With the rapidly increasing population of the Port.. and employment opportunities around multiple points on the Gawler Line… any other city would have Port Dock and Mawson lakes connected. Especially given there is already a corridor.

[ChillyPhilly]

I was under the impression that the greenway was shelved and that there was an albeit small possibility that it was going to be used for trains again. Guessing that thought bubble has been canned....

Different corridor I'd say. There is a more direct line between the Port and Dry Creek.

[rev]

I was under the impression that the greenway was shelved and that there was an albeit small possibility that it was going to be used for trains again. Guessing that thought bubble has been canned....

Different corridor I'd say. There is a more direct line between the Port and Dry Creek.

Surely there's a route they can find from Port Dock to the former salt pans that are going to be home to about 30,000 odd people in the near future? Spur the Gawler line off near there as well and continue it north past Bolivar and Burton, to Virginia, Riverlea and Two Wells..that new line could spur off towards Angle Vale as well.
These are only going to be the fastest growing regions population wise in Adelaide in the coming decades, if they aren't already.

[Spotto]

I was under the impression that the greenway was shelved and that there was an albeit small possibility that it was going to be used for trains again. Guessing that thought bubble has been canned....

Different corridor I'd say. There is a more direct line between the Port and Dry Creek.

True, cutting out the Rosewater Loop from a future rail link eliminates crossing Grand Junction Road, plus the loop would only realistically serve one very minor station on a route that borders almost exclusively industrial land and would have no other stations.

[SBD]

I was under the impression that the greenway was shelved and that there was an albeit small possibility that it was going to be used for trains again. Guessing that thought bubble has been canned....

Different corridor I'd say. There is a more direct line between the Port and Dry Creek.

True, cutting out the Rosewater Loop from a future rail link eliminates crossing Grand Junction Road, plus the loop would only realistically serve one very minor station on a route that borders almost exclusively industrial land and would have no other stations.

Why is serving industrial land with public transport considered a negative these days?

We complain there are too many cars domiciled in residential suburbs, then tell the workers they have to drive to work because we don't want to service industrial sites with trains or buses. There's a few big carparks near the shipyards at Osborne. I wonder where the other end of the journeys are for those cars. I suspect it's Mawson Lakes, Riverlea Park, Andrews Farm etc.

Rosewater Loop is not needed to connect Port Dock Station to the Dry Creek line. It was to connect the Outer Harbour Line to the Dry Creek Line. The link from Glanville to the Osborne line through New Port has already been lost to housing, replaced by the Mary MacKillop Bridge.

[Spotto]

Why is serving industrial land with public transport considered a negative these days?

We complain there are too many cars domiciled in residential suburbs, then tell the workers they have to drive to work because we don't want to service industrial sites with trains or buses. There's a few big carparks near the shipyards at Osborne. I wonder where the other end of the journeys are for those cars. I suspect it's Mawson Lakes, Riverlea Park, Andrews Farm etc.

Unfortunately it’s typically not worth the investment to build stations in industrial areas in today’s world. Prime example being Lonsdale smack dab in the middle of industrial land but sees very limited usage.

[SBD]

Why is serving industrial land with public transport considered a negative these days?

We complain there are too many cars domiciled in residential suburbs, then tell the workers they have to drive to work because we don't want to service industrial sites with trains or buses. There's a few big carparks near the shipyards at Osborne. I wonder where the other end of the journeys are for those cars. I suspect it's Mawson Lakes, Riverlea Park, Andrews Farm etc.

Unfortunately it’s typically not worth the investment to build stations in industrial areas in today’s world. Prime example being Lonsdale smack dab in the middle of industrial land but sees very limited usage.

"build it and they will come" needs to include the timetable and route information, not just the station.

It also is a long-term transition. The people who have already structured their lives and bought a car to drive to work will take longer to move to public transport than new workers who had already been using public transport to get to school/uni or a previous employer.

Several of the former industrial lines had timetables that suited a 1950s-1970s industrial workforce with fixed shift changes. I don't know if it was deliberate or ignorant that the timetables did not adapt as the workforce gradually transitioned from predominantly industrial to professional with different core hours, then increasingly flexible work times. The rigid timetables and routes became increasingly inconvenient for the workers, so more switched to their own cars, then the lack of patronage gave permission to close the service completely.

[ChillyPhilly]

Tomorrow (1 February) is the last day of Keolis Downer in charge of operation of our rail network.

[NTRabbit]

Hopefully station improvements and frequency changes now start rolling off the planning board in the lead up to the next election

[Llessur2002]

Hopefully station improvements and frequency changes now start rolling off the planning board in the lead up to the next election

I'm skeptical on the station front - I personally found the upkeep of our local station 10 times better under KD than it ever was under DIT. Hopefully there won't be a return to the bad old day of graffiti hanging around for weeks before being cleaned, bins overflowing etc.

[ChillyPhilly]

The State Government will want to recover its oversight of the rail network asap because I can see it becoming effective visual cannon fodder for the opposition.

Trains at the evening peak at ARS have been arriving later than their scheduled departure time.

Granted, this happened plenty under Keolis Downer but the timing doesn't look good.

[abc]

The State Government will want to recover its oversight of the rail network asap because I can see it becoming effective visual cannon fodder for the opposition.

Trains at the evening peak at ARS have been arriving later than their scheduled departure time.

Granted, this happened plenty under Keolis Downer but the timing doesn't look good.

those platforms are so depressing

needs rebuilding