....The example of WCR highlighted the inefficiencies of V/Line and forced the vested interests to back down, allowing the state government to overhaul the whole passenger network. I think NSW might be advised to copy this idea and let out a passenger route that even the vested interests admit has no future to tender and see if the new operators can decrease costs and increase patronage too.

Yes I agree , hows about you suggest a few potentials in NSW that you think could do it . And where .

Ha ha Wurx, I meant tendering out passenger services on a line with track in moderately good condition that is still operating a passenger service, albeit only just.

The state government has replaced quite a few rural passenger trains with busses in recent decades, so which ones are next on the list?

The Moree service perhaps?

What failed Metro???

Dillema was pushing for a metro for the NWL, the then opposition was totally against it, but now in power what is being built???

I totally agree with you Peter. This thread has "gone off the rails" and no one seems to have noticed my earlier post asking how much faster a modern tilt train could travel the line when compared with the XPT!

Duncan

You could probably estimate it yourself.  There has been plenty of discussion of the historical trial of a tilting set in this thread.

I suspect on its own the saving would be nominal, as a picked-out-of-the-air notional figure something like half an hour for the Sydney - Melbourne leg.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the mere crossing of a state border is enough to knock 20 km/h off the top speed of the current set.  Tilting, on its own, doesn't change aspects like that.

Even that might be optimistic.  It obviously depends on the curvature of the line that you are travelling on and delays that are not related to the type of train itself, but if we use South East Queensland services as a template, the Rockhamptom Tilt Train takes 95 minutes from Roma Street to Nambour.  Along the way it stops two times.  The normal "interurban" service takes 112 minutes, stopping 20 or so times. If you assume one minute of additional time associated with slowing down, stopping at the station, speeding up again, the tilt train has bought you... negative one minute!

The standard diesel loco hauled service takes 130 minutes, stopping once.  The diesel tilt takes 101 minutes, stopping once.

NSW passenger trains are dysfunctional because they are overly bureaucratised / unionised / politicised / nimbyised / rent seekerised / stake holderised. (Pick any three of these that appeal to you).

But how do you tackle this inherent inefficiency? There are so many issues that it's easy to leave in the "Too Hard Basket".

Letting my mind wander south of the border, in the early 1990's the Mexican Railways were almost as bad. One especially absurd example is that any country train in Victoria with air con was required to carry a highly skilled, well paid, air con technician despite the odds of the air con failing being very low.

So what did the Victorian government of the time do? They picked a minor passenger route where closing it could be easily justified and put it out to tender. The successful tenderer to run the Warnambool line was the (gunzel owned) West Coast Railway and they ran the service successfully for a decade while reducing costs and massively increasing patronage. I suspect that a company owned by hard nosed businessmen would have reduced costs and increased patronage even more.

The example of WCR highlighted the inefficiencies of V/Line and forced the vested interests to back down, allowing the state government to overhaul the whole passenger network. I think NSW might be advised to copy this idea and let out a passenger route that even the vested interests admit has no future to tender and see if the new operators can decrease costs and increase patronage too.

I've made a triple-daily Canberra service work; one set runs SYD-CBR-SYD-CBR and the other CBR-SYD-CBR-SYD. Each set spends every other night in the depot in Sydney.

...the problem with the NTL-TMW-NTL idea is that if you use one of the Endeavours, you're going to end up paralleling the primary day service, which sort of defeats the point of it. I much prefer a SYD-TMW-SYD service in that context.

Therefore there is a future for these services and the future must be targetted at local travel or local to capital.
- Trains however need to have some level of frequency, 3 x per day each way as a min.
- Brisbane needs to be at least twice as the mid NSW coast is also popular with Qlders. Likewise, mid to Nth NSW people do travel to Brisbane often more than Sydney.
- 3 x to Wagga from Sydney with two trains running through to Melbourne. Albury is a bit too far for Syd return with one train in a day and Melbourne is closer.
- Bi-level of seating standards and buffet services is all that is required along with ISE which tends to keep people quiet and in their seats (why airlines spend so much money installing it)

1) Given it's a 14 hour run, what arrival and departure times do you anticipate for the 2 Bris Services?

2) I'm all for bi-level seating, but do we have enough loading gauge ??

... I am of the opinion that each car should have 2 bogies. Above the frames, your ideas are reasonable.

You have obviously never visited Europe or even Melbourne, where your rule doesn't apply to any of the 500 strong tram fleet built in the last 30 years (B, C and D class trams).

If trams are too slow for you, there are lots of foreign trains with similar setups, including most high speed trains like the 300 kmh Eurostar.

Below is a 5 carriage D class tram, only the front, middle and rear units have bogies, the other ones (with yellow doors) have none.

Djf01
Whilst that does seem like a good way to go, and well thought out, I will mention that Passenger trains, especially with such potential for PAX numbers to vary, Sharing a bogie is simply not a feasible way to do things. and it makes carriage interfaces far more complex. I am of the opinion that each car should have 2 bogies. Above the frames, your ideas are reasonable.

Excuse me if I am incorrect, as trams aren't my forte, but accordng to Yarra Trams, these D class Combino's pictured above are articulated, which in my eyes means that each section rests on a common bogie with the one next to it.
Link: http://www.yarratrams.com.au/about-us/who-we-are/our-fleet/