News & Discussion: Regional Transport

[Wayno]

i would not be surprised if 2-3 of the larger mining companies bought a stake in this railway.

[Wilfy 2007]

Hi,
Just thought I would update on events in Parliament about the Barossa Railway line.

Dennis Hood has put the SA Government under intense pressure regarding the return of a Passenger service to the Barossa.

Page 2 of the Advertiser yesterday carried a story about what happened in Parliament. Apparently they had a screaming match.

A Trans Adelaide proposal/Report was produced by dennis but SA Government denied that the report existed.

Regards,

Wilfy 2007.

[Cruise]

I'm unsure what you mean, you want Tran Adelaide to run services out there? maybe if you build a new line from Tanunda to Angaston.

anyway, why stop there? lets take services to Truro

[bs]

It seems unclear what will happen to the line beyond Gawler, which is used for a daily stone train to Penrice, once the Gawler line is standardized.

I would like to see the Gawler line resleapering and standardization extended to Tanunda so that the stone train can continue to run. With an upgraded line it may be viable to run passenger trains again.

I would like to see the line run in a similar way to the Stony Point line in Melbourne with Diesel railcars connecting with the suburban trains at Gawler. Perhaps the 2000 class railcars could be refurbished for this purpose once the new electric trains arrive.

[Wilfy 2007]

I'm unsure what you mean, you want Tran Adelaide to run services out there? maybe if you build a new line from Tanunda to Angaston.

anyway, why stop there? lets take services to Truro

Cruise,
Trans Adelaide put up a proposal of a Metro Ticket service to Tanunda in 2006, BUT,
Fix it Pat and his team did not acknowledge it and claimed in Parliament last week he had never seen the proposal in his office.

Regards,

[monotonehell]

I'm unsure what you mean, you want Tran Adelaide to run services out there? maybe if you build a new line from Tanunda to Angaston.

anyway, why stop there? lets take services to Truro

Cruise,
Trans Adelaide put up a proposal of a Metro Ticket service to Tanunda in 2006, BUT,
Fix it Pat and his team did not acknowledge it and claimed in Parliament last week he had never seen the proposal in his office.

Regards,

That's 100% correct - they saw it out of his office.

When I was catching the train from Salisbury to Adelaide way back when, a lot of people used to drive from the Barossa to Gawler and commute to work/school on the train. But bear in mind that's a lot of people coming from disparate locations in the Valley not from one centre.

[Somebody]

Trans Adelaide put up a proposal of a Metro Ticket service to Tanunda in 2006, BUT,
Fix it Pat and his team did not acknowledge it and claimed in Parliament last week he had never seen the proposal in his office.

Glad that wasn't implemented - a few poxboxes trundling down the line to Tanunda carrying pensioners with overly cheap fares ($2 one way to adelaide for concession) would have been a stupid waste of money.

[Wilfy 2007]

Trans Adelaide put up a proposal of a Metro Ticket service to Tanunda in 2006, BUT,
Fix it Pat and his team did not acknowledge it and claimed in Parliament last week he had never seen the proposal in his office.

Glad that wasn't implemented - a few poxboxes trundling down the line to Tanunda carrying pensioners with overly cheap fares ($2 one way to adelaide for concession) would have been a stupid waste of money.

Somebody,
You are obviously not aware of the results so far of the current survey which is being conducted in the Gawler East/Barossa areas.
Pensioners are NOT the only possible passengers.

Regards,

[Somebody]

Somebody,
You are obviously not aware of the results so far of the current survey which is being conducted in the Gawler East/Barossa areas.
Pensioners are NOT the only possible passengers.

Regards,

What are those results then, Wilfy?

Who is conducting the survey? It can't be you unless you are doing it from a long distance away!

[Will409]

When I was catching the train from Salisbury to Adelaide way back when, a lot of people used to drive from the Barossa to Gawler and commute to work/school on the train. But bear in mind that's a lot of people coming from disparate locations in the Valley not from one centre.

While that is true, atleast having a rail service through the valley means that people wouldn't have to drive all the way to Gawler to take the train onwards. They could just drive to Tanunda, Nuriootpa or wherever and catch the train from there, easy.

[Somebody]

Or you could try running a proper bus to Gawler for the time being

I personally would like to see a train service to the Barossa Valley (hear that Wilfy? ), but now is not the time. Once the redevelopment of the TransAdelaide network is mostly complete, services like this should be the next priority, but this doesn't need to be done ahead of everything else. Some rushed-in passenger service to the Barossa which would have to close in a couple of years for gauge conversion anyway would not be a viable proposition.

[Norman]

I would favour a bus option for the Barossa for now. Make it Route 901 - Gawler to Angaston via Tanunda, and then make a new route, 460, Smithfield to Gawler Central via Evanston.

That's all they need to do for now IMO.

[Wilfy 2007]

Somebody,
You are obviously not aware of the results so far of the current survey which is being conducted in the Gawler East/Barossa areas.
Pensioners are NOT the only possible passengers.

Regards,

What are those results then, Wilfy?

Who is conducting the survey? It can't be you unless you are doing it from a long distance away!

Somebody,
Yes I am involved in the survey, have posted many survey forms out.
Have had many Phone calls, emails, text messages and letters sent to either myself or to Regional Rail Watch at Angle vale in SA.
In fact had another survey form sent last night by emails
A couple of weeks ago the number of forms we have had returned is approximately 150 out of about 400 distributed. But the forms are still coming in with letters telling us why people in the barossa want a service.
A resident in Tanunda has been busy with a Postbox drop of survey forms.
The Barossa Visitors Information centre have forms available for people to collect and fill out.
On the 4th of June, the forms that had been collected up until then were presented to Dennis hood from the Family First party.

Regards,
Wilfy 2007.

[Wilfy 2007]

When I was catching the train from Salisbury to Adelaide way back when, a lot of people used to drive from the Barossa to Gawler and commute to work/school on the train. But bear in mind that's a lot of people coming from disparate locations in the Valley not from one centre.

While that is true, atleast having a rail service through the valley means that people wouldn't have to drive all the way to Gawler to take the train onwards. They could just drive to Tanunda, Nuriootpa or wherever and catch the train from there, easy.

Will409,
Today I was able to read some letters from Ivan Venning which are dated back as far as June 2004.
This man has been campaigning for a Barossa service for a long time, has done presentations in Parliament, written letters to Pat Conlon and Trish White, was involved with the Bluebird Preservation Society Petition and also the Petition run by Trevor Langridge in 2006, which was presented by Ivan Venning to the then opposition Transport Minister Martin Hamilton Smith on the platform of the Tanunda Railway Station in September 2006.

The need is greater now more than ever, with residential areas expanding at a rapid rate.

The service could be joined into a current service so that it runs from Gawler at the timetable time which is already in progress.

I feel the best way to approach the service is to run a Trial service for 6 or 12 months at a time that would correspond with work start times closer in to the CBD.

In the next week I will be writing another letter to the Government and opposition MP's about the Barossa Service resumption.

Regards,

[Somebody]

Why should it be designed for CBD workers? Encouraging people to commute long distances is not a good thing, local employment should be provided.

One train a day would be useless. Should run numerous trips over the day, have one trip arriving Adelaide before 8am, but have them running IN BOTH DIRECTIONS during the day, off-peak included, and so you can market it to people from Adelaide who would like to do day trips to the Barossa Valley.