News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Trains

[dbl96]

Also, slightly off-topic, serious consideration should be given to relocating Parafield Airport to the Dry Creek saltpans, and the planned housing estate at Dry Creek built where Parafield Airport currently is now. Look at Google Maps …. you could build a suburb bigger than Mawson Lakes in that area.

This would have numerous benefits of no flood risk for new housing, moves flightpath away from existing houses and importantly utilises the existing Gawler rail line (just need to upgrade the stations already there).

This is a very elegant solution. You should write to the minister suggesting this.

I had previously considered that a good idea would be a land swap with industrial uses in the Regency Park/Kilburn/Islington area. Relocate the factories and warehouses out to Dry Creek, where they would benefit from easier access to the Port and to freight corridors heading north and east. This would allow large areas of prime land around the Gawler line to be rezoned for Bowden style mixed use development. I calculated, based on Bowden densities that this area would fit over 60,000 homes with existing good access to public transport along the Gawler line, and close to the city and existing activity centres like Prospect and the Churchill Centre. I’m still broadly in favour of this idea, but I think your solution would be easier to implement as they would be dealing with just one landholder (Parafield Airport), rather than a patchwork of smaller landholdings in the Regency Park/Kilburn/Islington area.

[ml69]

Also, slightly off-topic, serious consideration should be given to relocating Parafield Airport to the Dry Creek saltpans, and the planned housing estate at Dry Creek built where Parafield Airport currently is now. Look at Google Maps …. you could build a suburb bigger than Mawson Lakes in that area.

This would have numerous benefits of no flood risk for new housing, moves flightpath away from existing houses and importantly utilises the existing Gawler rail line (just need to upgrade the stations already there).

This is a very elegant solution. You should write to the minister suggesting this.

I had previously considered that a good idea would be a land swap with industrial uses in the Regency Park/Kilburn/Islington area. Relocate the factories and warehouses out to Dry Creek, where they would benefit from easier access to the Port and to freight corridors heading north and east. This would allow large areas of prime land around the Gawler line to be rezoned for Bowden style mixed use development. I calculated, based on Bowden densities that this area would fit over 60,000 homes with existing good access to public transport along the Gawler line, and close to the city and existing activity centres like Prospect and the Churchill Centre. I’m still broadly in favour of this idea, but I think your solution would be easier to implement as they would be dealing with just one landholder (Parafield Airport), rather than a patchwork of smaller landholdings in the Regency Park/Kilburn/Islington area.

Yeah i might do that … thanks for the suggestion.

As for your suggestion to use the Regency Park/Islington area for housing, I think Regency Park probably won’t work as there would be too many individual landowners. With the Islington Railway workshops - presumably this is already owned by the SA government so it’s possible to move the Railway workshops further out. I read somewhere that the railway land is quite contaminated so a business case will need to be evaluated to determine whether the land can be made fit for housing and how much will it cost.

Proximity to the CBD, Churchill Centre and Gawler rail line are big pluses. The partly-hidden Kilburn station should be relocated southwards to the Churchill Centre. Rename it “Churchill” and include overhead pedestrian walkways to the station platforms.

[Nort]

I mean, everyone in this discussion is conveniently not mentioning Edinburgh as an option for AA... It's largely out of suburbia so there's more chance of lifted curfews, it's within an earshot of the existing North-South Corridor and Gawler Line so connecting these with an airport wouldn't be cost prohibitive, it has plenty of room for expansion (additional runways and terminal infrastructure), it's existing runway's length is halfway between both operational runways at the existing AA, and the best part? The federal government own the site. Before the argument of it being a military airport, remember that both Darwin and Brisbane Airports double up as civilian/military airports and offer far more critical services to the RAAF.

All this is much bigger than the Parafield swap proposed, and would require moving Parafield Airport anyway.

I think the idea of moving Parafield to the salt pans and housing on the current site is worth discussing because it's largely the same scale of work as is currently proposed in the official plan and fits in with the idea of better using the existing train line. Bigger ideas of moving Adelaide airport are magnitudes larger in scope and probably deserve their own thread.

[Spotto]

No denying the land use swap idea is a fun thought experiment, but could we get this back on track to Adelaide Metro Trains?

[Westside]

Back to the original post. I'm disappointed the Salisbury to Virginia and out to Riverlea Park isn't on this list. Surely fitting in a broad gauge line adjacent the ARTC line would be an easy win for the population already moving in the area. Even just to serve up to Virginia for now with a frequent bus service will be a huge benefit.

This line can also be used as the all-stops pattern to Adelaide, leaving the Gawler and Gawler central lines to abandon the skip stop pattern and simply run express from Salisbury, stopping only at Mawson Lakes.

[dbl96]

Yeah, the two most significant and called-for expansion projects - the North-west corridor and the Hills line are conspicuously missing.

As we've come to expect from this government, this is mostly just a bit of PR spin. They aren't promising to build ANYTHING at this stage - just to "secure the corridors". And half of the corridor to be secured in that graphic has already been secured! Gawler to Roseworthy is an existing rail alignment, and the Seaford to Aldinga segment has been reserved for years. Concordia is a very minor extension that has been considered previously and which may well just use the existing Barossa line corridor, so the only real thing of substance in this announcement is that the government is formally considering extending the Seaford line from Aldinga to Sellicks Beach. Good idea, but they would get higher passenger volumes by opening whole new corridors like the northwestern line.

[rev]

Yeah, the two most significant and called-for expansion projects - the North-west corridor and the Hills line are conspicuously missing.

As we've come to expect from this government, this is mostly just a bit of PR spin. They aren't promising to build ANYTHING at this stage - just to "secure the corridors". And half of the corridor to be secured in that graphic has already been secured! Gawler to Roseworthy is an existing rail alignment, and the Seaford to Aldinga segment has been reserved for years. Concordia is a very minor extension that has been considered previously and which may well just use the existing Barossa line corridor, so the only real thing of substance in this announcement is that the government is formally considering extending the Seaford line from Aldinga to Sellicks Beach. Good idea, but they would get higher passenger volumes by opening whole new corridors like the northwestern line.

At least they're securing corridors somewhere. If only they could have that foresight for the new northern suburbs that are popping up.

[Patrick_27]

Genuine question, but how many further spur lines can the Outer Harbour/Seaford/Gawler Line(s) take before required further tracks? I note that in Melbourne, the inner suburban portion of a lot of their train network has four or more lines before each splitting off to their respective corridors. I the problem I see with adding three further destinations/spur lines from the Gawler Lines is the main line reaching capacity and therefore slowing down all services that use it, the same for Outer Harbour...

[rubberman]

Genuine question, but how many further spur lines can the Outer Harbour/Seaford/Gawler Line(s) take before required further tracks? I note that in Melbourne, the inner suburban portion of a lot of their train network has four or more lines before each splitting off to their respective corridors. I the problem I see with adding three further destinations/spur lines from the Gawler Lines is the main line reaching capacity and therefore slowing down all services that use it, the same for Outer Harbour...

It boils down to how frequent the service is, distance between signals, and how many express services are run.

So, if services were closer than, say, 5 minutes apart, then you'd need extra lines. If an express catches up to the train in front, you need either an extra line, or a loop to go round the stopping train. The more express runs, the more loops required. At some point, you may as well duplicate the line. Even then, the cheaper solution would be to lengthen each train.

With a half hour service to Gawler, it would be hard to justify.

[Norman]

There are parts along the Gawler Line that are suitable for adding a third track for express services, such as Islington, Dudley Park and Parafield.

[dbl96]

Something interesting from the new InfrastructureSA 20 year strategy
image12.png

Sounds like capacity at Adelaide Railway Station will be a problem before the Gawler line itself reaches capacity. The priority would seem to be building the city loop before new lines can be added.

[Hooligan]

If the freight rail component of the northern connector was to be built, that would free up a rail line along the gawler line and all the way to Virginia

[Spotto]

If the freight rail component of the northern connector was to be built, that would free up a rail line along the gawler line and all the way to Virginia

And the corridor beyond Virginia is wide enough to add two exclusive AdMet tracks, though the ARTC tracks may need to be slewed over slightly in some areas to accommodate.

[rev]

I think they'd be crazy not to do two new lines to the north.
One through the salt pans up to Virginia and Riverlea/Two Wells, include the freight line through there too. Maybe run along the edge of Port Wakefield road.
And then spur off at Salisbury past the base and head back up to MacDonald Park and Angle Vale.
Build a second station in the southern part of the CBD and an underground loop through the cbd.
Would it be possible to extend from Flinders down to the Woodcroft area?

Might seem crazy to do that today, but when those areas in the north are full of houses and there's a few hundred thousand new residents and tens of thousands more cars on the road, we'll be wishing something like that was done when the opportunity was there.

[Spotto]

And then spur off at Salisbury past the base and head back up to MacDonald Park and Angle Vale.
Build a second station in the southern part of the CBD and an underground loop through the cbd.
Would it be possible to extend from Flinders down to the Woodcroft area?

In the medium term, Angle Vale could be well-served by frequent buses running between Smithfield and Virginia stations. Not sure if a branch line will see the light of day, it’s too close to existing rail corridors.

100% yes to a city rail tunnel connecting north-south lines, could be used exclusively by Gawler and Seaford, or could be linked up for Two Wells and Mount Barker as well (depending on track gauge used to Mount Barker). Capacity would then be freed at Adelaide station for more services.

I doubt the Flinders line will ever extend further. The extremely not-flat Sturt Gorge is in the way.