COM: Glenelg Tramline Upgrade

[BillD]

It was 'more of the same' today at the South Rd overpass, the cranes place the 50+ ton beams with deceptive ease.
Today's deliveries were the last from the stockpile at the former Mitsubishi factory.

The first shot is around 11am (following a 6:30am start)


Shot two shows another beam being lifted. Note the earth-fill ramp to the right and the spans across South Rd in the left distance.

[BillD]

I forgot the finishing shot. Around 6pm the last beam was in place - perhaps everyone will have Sunday off !
This is taken from the city end of the overpass, looking towards Glenelg (the down track is on this side).

[fabricator]

There was also talk of making it so the platform can be extended to cope with longer trams in the future. Not sure if this is already done as the original station seems rather long, or are they going to add another station span later on.

http://www.parliament.sa.gov.au/San/pub ... ass_23.htm
The platform will incorporate passenger shelters, lighting, timetable and local information and stop identifiers as required. The platform
will be 40 metres in length, which is appropriate for the Flexity trams, and can cater for two coupled heritage (H-Class) trams. The
stop platforms will be a minimum of 7 metres wide to meet DDA requirements as well as Building Code requirements regarding
emergency evacuation provisions.

Flexity Classic tram, 30m long, 2.4m wide, 70 seats. This is what TA have now.
Flexity Classic XXL, 45m long, 2.4m wide, 153 seats. Same as the normal one, only two extra modules.

The new Citadis 302 trams currently being customised in Melbourne are 32m long

[Tonsley213]

Thank you BillD for your photos.

[Norman]

Thanks for the updates guys. Looking fantastic!

[danielphin]

From this afternoon, around 17 pictures:

The Flickr Album can be viewed here: South Rd Overpass (30th Oct)

Most visible work is being done on the eastern side of the overpass, the earth ramp wall construction etc.

[AtD]

^^ Thank you for posting.

[jk1237]

Is it my imagination, but looking at the first shot, almost looks like the bridge beams came included with the tram track rails. Anyone know

[fabricator]

Is it my imagination, but looking at the first shot, almost looks like the bridge beams came included with the tram track rails. Anyone know

Those are reobar loops, so that when the concrete surface is poured it has something to hold it down. Notice how the bike path span has these too.

[BillD]

Here's a shot of the temporary diversion on Glengyle Tce. A buckle had trams on the 'up' stopping, before proceeding at walking pace. The workers were monitoring the tram's progress across the buckle.

I'd imagine that a track gang will leap into action after the last tram in order to effect repairs before the morning. It only needs to hold out for another month until trams are on the overpass which is progressing nicely.

[Shuz]

Can someone just please explain to me something, if they can?

Why is it that every time an incident occurs - be it a pedestrian being hit, the line buckles, etc. that the entire tramline has to shutdown? I know that they have crossovers throughout various sections of the route, so why aren't they using them to continue operations until the "incident" is cleared?

[fabricator]

Can someone just please explain to me something, if they can?

Why is it that every time an incident occurs - be it a pedestrian being hit, the line buckles, etc. that the entire tramline has to shutdown? I know that they have crossovers throughout various sections of the route, so why aren't they using them to continue operations until the "incident" is cleared?

Service frequency, means that a section of single track would become a huge bottleneck. Besides which there is the safety of workers/emergency crews in that area, and trams tend to be really quiet.

[DM8]

Will be interesting to see how the temporary diversion track holds up throughout this week, with temperatures in the high 30's until Sunday. I would suspect this buckle won't be the only one.

[monotonehell]

This 1800's technology obviously needs to be replaced by updated technology.

Out with the metal rails and wheels and in with concrete and rubber!

Replace it with an OBahn already!





(No one look up when concrete was invented )

[drsmith]

(No one look up when concrete was invented )

It was invented by the Romans.

It's a pity they did not quiet make it to the internal combustion engine. If they did, well, who knows. We could have been discussing transport across the Milky Way instead of across town.

A sustained period of heat like this is very unusual for Adelaide in November and was perhaps not anticipated.