Sensational-Adelaide.com

A member said in a forum the other day that the hills is serviced terribly by the metro, well plans have been released to improve the service, but an idea came to my mind, should the belair line be extended to have a station in Mt Barker, and also other Adelaide Hills Suburbs Bridgewater and Stirling, this would help Adelaide Hills Residents commute to the city easier

The Greens floated this idea a few months ago to get some headlines. I personally think the idea has merit, but it would have trouble competing with the SE Freeway. The problem is the Freeway has a very quick and direct path while the Belair line doubles back on itself as it climbs the hill. A new alignment for the Belair line would make this a better idea, but the money it'd take would be better spent improving the existing network IMO.

You might want to have a read at this thread on another forum:
http://www.railpage.com.au/f-t11320182.htm

The belair line has a terrible route and alignment and should be replaced. A hills line would be grossly inefficient because of the freeway.

It can't be done at the moment. The end of broad gauge and TransAdelaide owned and operated track is at Belair. Beyond that the standard gauge track is owned and operated by the ARTC.

i didnt know that the belair line was so bad, i hav never used it b4

As you probley know I live in Mount Barker, and If i had to choose the train or the bus, i would choose the bus.

Because the bus goes straight towards the Adelaide CBD along South Eastern Freeway. While the Trainline goes out towards Belair National Park then to Blackwood and beyond...

Though dont get me wrong i prefer trains over buses, but the bus would be alot quicker than a train. I agree with AtD i would prefer the money spent on fixing the suburban train network, than fixing the Hills line.

One thing i really like about the hills line, is the scenery.

bdm wrote:The belair line has a terrible route and alignment and should be replaced. A hills line would be grossly inefficient because of the freeway.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you think the Belair line should be rerouted? If so, where?

The route to Belair is indeed indirect, but to Blackwood it's not too bad. And some of the stations (such as Eden Hills) could not easily be served by buses.

Or are you talking about the main line to Melbourne? That is indeed indirect, but an alternative is either going to require a lot of tunnelling or be even more indirect! And even if they do reroute it (and do a bit of regauging) I think it would be more suited to Steamranger than TransAdelaide. Commuting between Mount Barker and Adelaide by rail would be much more interesting if the train were steam hauled

Shame we didn't have the forsight that Perth has and put the train line in the middle of the freeway.

The gradient of some sections of the freeway are still too steep for a rail line to parallel.

In my reading of the comments on the Belair - Mt Barker extension of the metro railway service - it is right that ownership of the line has now changed hands and also that the broad gauge of the metro lines ends at Belair. (goes to standard gauge then). A real pity, especially seeing that an electrified line was proposed to MURRAY BRIDGE in the early 1970's when all belonged to SA and all was one gauge, I believe double tracked to Bridgewater.

The way Mt Barker and Murray Bridhge are growing (relative to their respective sizes), an electrified line would have been justified if no expressway tunnel had taken place. This is evidenced by the GROWTH of these places AFTER the expresswat TUNNEL took place.

What has happened to Adelaides railways? Shrinkage from all directions seems to be the go except for Gawler and Noarlunga lines.

I prefer rail over road but there would be no competition with the expressway now.

Aidan wrote:

bdm wrote:The belair line has a terrible route and alignment and should be replaced. A hills line would be grossly inefficient because of the freeway.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you think the Belair line should be rerouted? If so, where?

The route to Belair is indeed indirect, but to Blackwood it's not too bad. And some of the stations (such as Eden Hills) could not easily be served by buses.

Or are you talking about the main line to Melbourne? That is indeed indirect, but an alternative is either going to require a lot of tunnelling or be even more indirect! And even if they do reroute it (and do a bit of regauging) I think it would be more suited to Steamranger than TransAdelaide. Commuting between Mount Barker and Adelaide by rail would be much more interesting if the train were steam hauled

Technically I'm talking about the main line - the small tunnels and sharp alignment prohibit larger numbers of freight being pushed over the hills by rail. (we have freight shipped to us by rail on the Darwin-Adelaide railway, its then put onto trucks and driven to Melbourne/Sydney... one of a few reasons why our road traffic has gone up significantly in recent years)

But the belair line is quite inefficient and single-track (with the other track having been replaced by the std. gauge line a few years back). It's a loss-making exercise for the government and I have no idea why it isn't simply scrapped.

skyliner wrote:In my reading of the comments on the Belair - Mt Barker extension of the metro railway service - it is right that ownership of the line has now changed hands and also that the broad gauge of the metro lines ends at Belair. (goes to standard gauge then). A real pity, especially seeing that an electrified line was proposed to MURRAY BRIDGE in the early 1970's when all belonged to SA and all was one gauge, I believe double tracked to Bridgewater.

The way Mt Barker and Murray Bridhge are growing (relative to their respective sizes), an electrified line would have been justified if no expressway tunnel had taken place. This is evidenced by the GROWTH of these places AFTER the expresswat TUNNEL took place.

What has happened to Adelaides railways? Shrinkage from all directions seems to be the go except for Gawler and Noarlunga lines.

I prefer rail over road but there would be no competition with the expressway now.

You're referring to a bizarre proposal for a massive rail tunnel under the hills... I think we can thank Frank Walsh (?) for that one. The cost estimates and passenger numbers were grossly off.

The freeway itself was built with the idea to connect to a new city (of 250 000) at Monarto near Murray Bridge(kudos to Dunstan for that brilliant one).

Pistol78 wrote:Shame we didn't have the forsight that Perth has and put the train line in the middle of the freeway.

Im glad they never did that with the SE Freeway.