Any train that uses the network must be taken into account for pathing purposes. I can't find the Cockatoo Run on the Tripview app though.

Each Sunday

Each Sunday

Thanks. I was looking at Central-Robertson on my app.

So we have just spent millions of dollars building Platform 7 at Homebush, with no trains stopping there. The terminators will use the existing Platform 6.

And we have spent $140 million extending the four tracks from Kingsgrove to Revesby and only a few services a day (including the Melbourne XPT and Canberra Xplorers) will be using the new Mains?

I'm glad the designers of these white elephants didn't design the Harbour Bridge.

Maybe Gladys needs to clean out these planners and save further waste.

Your supposed "example" about designing the harbour bridge actually ERODES your argument, not supporting it. Do you mean to tell me that when the bridge was built, there was enough road traffic to justify every lane?

As Watson374 has correctly pointed out, these projects are to enable future growth and flexibility. The N/W rail link is lambasted for being "too late", whilst the S/W link is "too early". Can't win - build it and they will come, they say, so they're building the S/W Rail Link. BEFORE the houses and other infrastructure is built. It's the same with the quad tracks - build it now, so that when more network capacity is required, they can just bung on more trains.

As for Homebush and the "redundant" platform, just because it is not used daily doesn't mean it is not a redundancy. There are many reasons for the platform to remain during times of network degradation, such as points failures, signal failures, defective trains, trackwork, etc. Just because it's not obvious to a layman doesn't mean that the paid experts in Timetables, Train Planning and Infrastructure do not have uses for it.

Em, actually Inner West Line local trains do terminate at Homebush due to trackwork (majorly on Granville Junction I think) starting from the past few months.

There will be quite a few trains in peak hour using the quad. In off peak, the Southern Highlands direct and about 1 suburban train an hour will be express from Holsworthy to Wolli Creek, which I'm almost certain will use the new mains.

The draft timetable obtained by fairfax only appears to have about 2 morning peak services going express between Hols and WC. I would certainly love 1 express train per hour, but frankly, there's no demand for it during offpeak hours.

As for Homebush and the "redundant" platform, just because it is not used daily doesn't mean it is not a redundancy. There are many reasons for the platform to remain during times of network degradation, such as points failures, signal failures, defective trains, trackwork, etc. Just because it's not obvious to a layman doesn't mean that the paid experts in Timetables, Train Planning and Infrastructure do not have uses for it.

So platform 7 has been built waiting for trains to use it. This will usually happen when a new timetable is produced.

And in the new timetable the trains on the Down Local will stop at Strathfield, pass through the new platform built using your taxpayers millions without stopping, but then stop at Flemington. How can they justify this waste of money?

Terminating train on the Down Local use platform 6 that already existed.

Don't worry the fun and games will start when they start pulling most of the Ashfield crossovers out in June. There will be no way around breakdowns etc then. Just sit in your train and wait for things to get moving again.

The draft timetable obtained by fairfax only appears to have about 2 morning peak services going express between Hols and WC. I would certainly love 1 express train per hour, but frankly, there's no demand for it during offpeak hours.

There is 1 train per hour in off-peak from Campbelltown that stops all stations to Holsworthy then Wolli Creek via the Airport to the city. They depart not long after the Southern Highlands train arrives Campbelltown. Since Gladys and co. have made the effort to complete the quad, they probably think they should make use of it, hence the off-peak expresses. There is demand for a faster service from Campbelltown to the city but I would operate it a bit differently, as discussed here.

Oh noes. Not the Ashfield Xovers!

Has a 'rational' reason been given for their booking out and now removal? Did the speed restrictions have something to do with it?

Oh god not this old chestnut. Can anyone provide a rational reason why you'd keep those crossovers for the twice a year they are genuinely required? I'm generally against the anti-points crusade that Maintenance have been on lately, but I find it very hard to justify keeping the Ashfield lot.

So platform 7 has been built waiting for trains to use it. This will usually happen when a new timetable is produced.

And in the new timetable the trains on the Down Local will stop at Strathfield, pass through the new platform built using your taxpayers millions without stopping, but then stop at Flemington. How can they justify this waste of money?

Terminating train on the Down Local use platform 6 that already existed.

Don't worry the fun and games will start when they start pulling most of the Ashfield crossovers out in June. There will be no way around breakdowns etc then. Just sit in your train and wait
for things to get moving again.

Unless you've been living under a rock, Platform 7 has been in use since it was constructed. The new timetable will have it used less. Big whoopdiedoo. It's calling having a built in redundancy to aid network recovery. One example would be a defective South Line train, identified as needing to return to a maintenance centre. Bring it in on Platform 7. Terminate it. Passengers transfer over the footbridge to a new train waiting on Platform 6. Empty train continues on to FMC. New train continues the service. This is preferable to... say, a train breaking down at Granville because a set change was not done, blocking the west and south lines.

As for your complaining about the Ashfield Xovers being removed, would you rather millions of dollars be spent keeping them going for the once-in-a-year event that they can actually be used, or just rip them out, speed up that section of track, and tighten the timetable for trains using the suburban lines?

Oh noes. Not the Ashfield Xovers! Has a 'rational' reason been given for their booking out and now removal? Did the speed restrictions have something to do with it?

They're built on a slight curve on poor ground, so they seem to cop it a bit from lateral movement of trains. I believe the ground under them is unstable, so it's very expensive to keep them operational. Better to save the money and straightrail it. Heck, put in higher-speed crossovers somewhere else instead.

Perhaps I've missed something but what is happening with the Ashfield crossovers?

In respect to the Ashfield Crossovers, they were going to keep the points in place for the movements: Down Main to Down Sub and Up Sub to Up Main.

This would then give them some flexibility in case of a problem between Ashfield and Strathfield on the Mains.


- Scott.

That's not going to help speed up the suburban lines then At least it'll give the local lines a boost hopefully...

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in here before, but I've noticed that some 8 car interurban train runs have been reduced to 4 car interurbans, on trains that already can get crowded.

The K Sets Newcastle Suburban runs have been replaced with the extension of the Wyong - Central trains (mostly Oscars), but on the weekends, still gives the intermediate stations Wyong to Broadmeadow only a 2 hour frequency, with the same on weekdays an hour service (with some exceptions). It looks like that changing from a Hunter to Sydney bound trains may involve a 40 to 50 minute wait at Hamilton on a quite a lot of services. Got to check that more thoroughly first though.

With that 17:15 Central - Newcastle (what is meant to be the Flyer), not stopping at Hornsby won't work, especially with all the passengers getting on. I can see Hornsby being re-instated on that run.

One or two trains at night/early in the morning have been cut on the Newcastle -Central line. In it's place, a train does a passenger run as far as Fassifern, and then continues as a non-passenger Empty run to Central, but near the same time, another train does a full Newcastle to Central run.

One of the Hunter Line trains have been cut as a passenger from Newcastle to Maitland/Telarah, and instead this service goes as a non-passenger run from Broadmeadow to Maitland or Telarah.

With that 17:15 Central - Newcastle (what is meant to be the Flyer), not stopping at Hornsby won't work, especially with all the passengers getting on. I can see Hornsby being re-instated on that run.

From my reading of the patronage stats, IIRC roughly 2000 PAX per peak use the Central Coast interurbans to travel between Hornsby and the City.

The new timetable is clearly designed to encourage City Bound PAX from Hornsby to board a North Shore service (which gets extra trains, curiously another ~2000 seats an hour).  They get a pretty evenly spaced 5min service.

As for the 17:15 ext Central, there is a limited stops ex North Shore service that departs Hornsby at 17:45 (5min before the 17:15 passes through) which it connects with at Gosford (3min wait).

The issue you raise has clearly been considered and dealt with wile allowing the flyer to skip Hornsby.  Presumably this is to ensure Newcastle V set seats are available for Newcastle bound PAX, not PAX bound for Hornsby.

Didn't realise how much of an improvement to CBD and inner city frequencies this new timetable represents until I was looking at it again today.

Big chunks of the Western and Northern Line get (or regain) all day 15 minute frequencies, but closer into and within the CBD you really want trains coming a bit more frequently than every 15 minutes. The Eastern Suburbs Line has that, with a train every 10 minutes between Sydenham and Bondi Junction until 9:00PM each night. But for trains on Sector 3 that cross the Harbour Bridge, headways are as long as 15 minutes, even though it also has 6 trains per hour. Meanwhile, the City Circle has 10 trains per hour in both directions during the off-peak, yet still suffers from headways as long as 12 minutes.

The addition of 2 extra trains per hour on the Airport and Northern Lines, together with better spacing between trains has greatly improved this. Maximum headways are now as follows during the off-peak:

11 minutes - Redfern to Chatswood
9 minutes - Chatswood to Redfern
9 minutes - Central to Redfern via Museum
9 minutes - Wolli Creek to Central via Mascot
9 minutes - Central to Wolli Creek via Mascot
6 minutes - Redfern to Central via Town Hall


These frequencies continue until approximately 9:30PM (from Central). Meanwhile, the 10 minute frequencies on the Eastern Suburbs Line between Sydenham and Bondi Junction will now continue until approximately 11:00PM, 2 hours longer than was previously the case.

All up, this has effectively provided to the CBD and inner city areas (other than the Inner West) the main benefit that most people calling for metros provides - all day high frequency service. And about time, if you ask me!

On the Ashfield Xovers, the ones that Scott mentioned have been kept in use at Ashfield East (my terminology) Xovers. My assumption in my thinking after reading Piston's post last night was that these would remain while the rest of them across the remainder of Ashfield East and all of Ashfield West (which are booked out of use) would be the ones to be taken out.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but there are 2 interesting services in the AM peak on the Main North with run numbers 99AA and 99BA (interesting number choices).  These run :

Hornsby - Epping - Eastwood - West Ryde - Meadowbank - Rhodes - Strathfield - Redfern(e) - Sydney Terminal
leaving at 7:28 and 7:43.

They are each 4 car T sets ex-Hornsby Sheds that re-combine at Central: ie 2 half trains.  There does not appear to equivalent Down services in the PM peak.  So when you look at the those "winners and loosers" charts showing 6tph on the lower Main North - or reports they haven't run northern line trains into ST, think again!

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but there are 2 interesting services in the AM peak on the Main North with run numbers 99AA and 99BA (interesting number choices).  These run :

Hornsby - Epping - Eastwood - West Ryde - Meadowbank - Rhodes - Strathfield - Redfern(e) - Sydney Terminal
leaving at 7:28 and 7:43.

They are each 4 car T sets ex-Hornsby Sheds that re-combine at Central: ie 2 half trains.  There does not appear to equivalent Down services in the PM peak.  So when you look at the those "winners and loosers" charts showing 6tph on the lower Main North - or reports they haven't run northern line trains into ST, think again!

Look more closely.  It doesn't actually serve Hornsby even though it passes it.  It should serve Hornsby if you ask me, not that anyone did!

That run then runs empty from Sydney terminal at 09:07, arrives back at Hornsby C.S at 10:02.

Look more closely.  It doesn't actually serve Hornsby even though it passes it.  It should serve Hornsby if you ask me, not that anyone did!

You're right, I missed that it didn't stop at Hornsby.  And you're right, it probably should too.  (I'm assuming it passes through Platform 1 though).

You're right, I missed that it didn't stop at Hornsby.  And you're right, it probably should too.  (I'm assuming it passes through Platform 1 though).

Platform 3.

Platform 3.

I new I should have checked.  As it turns out I couldn't nut out/find the code meanings anyway.  

I think the point of the new timetable is to funnel all the city bound PAX onto the Shore Up platform in the AM peak with turn-up-and-go frequencies, and get them away from the interurbans.  So a suburban on platform 3 would be a mistake.  To use platform 1 you create an opposing movement against the Down Shore, so in that context I think it makes sense not to stop this train at Hornsby.

I do think this service is a bit of a cynical exercise as it's allowed the claim "frequency on the lower main north has gone from 4tph to 6tph", which is a technically true but still a rather thing claim

http://www.railpage.com.au/news/article-12671/
Not sure whether to put this here, or in the news section.

It says the government maintains the leaked version is not the final document and was invited to make comments towards the upcoming timetable due in October.

According to the draft, it is a final draft. Wonder how the first version differs?

Look more closely.  It doesn't actually serve Hornsby even though it passes it.  It should serve Hornsby if you ask me, not that anyone did!

If you did look more closely, you should see that it passes Hornsby ahead of the ex-Gosford service but make a lengthy stop at Thornleigh for the ex-Gosford service to pass by.

Would any rational passenger board this train in lieu of the ex-Central Coast service?

Although I disagree that it should serve Hornsby, I think it should pick up passengers when it stop at Thornleigh.