The RER also has single and double deck trains and not all RER lines do 30 trains an hour. The RER c which most resembles Sydney is hamstrung the same as Sydney's system is. The RER A and B operate at 30tph mainly due to it's simple design.

All new R.E.R train types have been double decked since 1988, the single decker trains are the older ones. The R.E.R started with single-decker trains but had tunnels large enough for double deckers right from the beginning.
It's a bit like the Sydney suburban. When the underground portions were built, the technology for a double-decker multiple-unit did not yet exist. Double-decker trains were first introduced in the 1960s with the last single deckers withdrawn in 1993, I think.
Paris introduced them in 1988 and hasn't yet withdrawn its last single deckers. This is the transition that is still taking place on all the other of the busiest passenger heavy rail networks that can accommodate double-decker trains with little or no civil engineering work.

Ok so are we done?

The Paris RER has little on common with the under construction Sydney Metro corridor and hence not a reference point for what could have been done.

The direction most cities are going for corridors like the Sydney Metro is

- Single decker
- automated Cat4
- sustainable/reliable 2min frequencies or better.
- dedicated corridors with minimal junctions or shared corridors with at most two branches at each end
- change of lines for commuters is by foot not by points
- mostly standing for peak hour
- dedicated latest available techbology rolling stock with little or minimal interconnectivity with other lines or if so more conincedence than design

Seeing that this thread has been derailed.....

I am in Taipei at present, where the Metro (MRT) runs headways of around 2 mins on peak times and 3-4 outside peak (haven't timed it precisely, but as one train departs the indicators show 1m30s to the next). Dwell times are usually about 30 seconds all being 3 door cars.

People have brains too, they line up at either side and wait for those getting off.

The Paris RER has little on common with the under construction Sydney Metro corridor and hence not a reference point for what could have been done.

What about station spacing?

The direction most cities are going for corridors like the Sydney Metro is

- Single decker
- automated Cat4
- sustainable/reliable 2min frequencies or better.
- dedicated corridors with minimal junctions or shared corridors with at most two branches at each end
- change of lines for commuters is by foot not by points
- mostly standing for peak hour
- dedicated latest available technology rolling stock with little or minimal interconnectivity with other lines or if so more conincedence than design

I'm sorry but Sydney's Northwest is not in metro territory. Metro rolling stock, like Alstom's metropolis, is meant for short-haul stop-start runs, but on the Northwest will be running suburban distances with suburban station spacings. This is unlike most metro style rail elsewhere. Dubai is an exception as is metro line 14 in Paris, which is a deep tunnel filler line.
Even Singapore's Northeast line is shorter than the Sydney metro under construction, not all of the stations built are yet open because residential developments accompanying them haven't yet happened.
And having passengers change trains instead of switching trains between lines forces more interchanges, and this can put people off. As does making most peak period passengers stand on a long commute.
I don't understand "more coincidence than design".

I am in Taipei at present, where the Metro (MRT) runs headways of around 2 mins on peak times and 3-4 outside peak (haven't timed it precisely, but as one train departs the indicators show 1m30s to the next). Dwell times are usually about 30 seconds all being 3 door cars.

Is this one of those short haul metros with close station spacing?

At the moment, Sydney is very different for Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei and attempts to make it like those cities are being questioned.

The Line that I mentioned is known as the Blue Line and is 26km with 23 stations, all underground, SG Heavy Rail standard. 15 trains per hour (4 min headways) in Off-peak and about 2 min headways in peak. A one-way trip from end to end costs about AUD2.50 !!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bannan_line

The population of the Taipei Metropolitan Area is over 7M with a density of around 2600 per SqKm, the closer in the more dense it gets and thus stations are closer together, though some of that is because of the lay of the land and for interchanges of which there are presently 7. Total ridership on all  5 lines (all independent of each other, though crossovers do exist for empty movements from one line to another etc) is over 2M per day. More are under construction.

Yes, its different to anything in Australia and more similar to Hong Kong in terms of population density and interchanges with other lines.

The Paris RER has little on common with the under construction Sydney Metro corridor and hence not a reference point for what could have been done.

What about station spacing?

The direction most cities are going for corridors like the Sydney Metro is

- Single decker
- automated Cat4
- sustainable/reliable 2min frequencies or better.
- dedicated corridors with minimal junctions or shared corridors with at most two branches at each end
- change of lines for commuters is by foot not by points
- mostly standing for peak hour
- dedicated latest available technology rolling stock with little or minimal interconnectivity with other lines or if so more conincedence than design

I'm sorry but Sydney's Northwest is not in metro territory. Metro rolling stock, like Alstom's metropolis, is meant for short-haul stop-start runs, but on the Northwest will be running suburban distances with suburban station spacings. This is unlike most metro style rail elsewhere. Dubai is an exception as is metro line 14 in Paris, which is a deep tunnel filler line.
Even Singapore's Northeast line is shorter than the Sydney metro under construction, not all of the stations built are yet open because residential developments accompanying them haven't yet happened.
And having passengers change trains instead of switching trains between lines forces more interchanges, and this can put people off. As does making most peak period passengers stand on a long commute.
I don't understand "more coincidence than design".

I am in Taipei at present, where the Metro (MRT) runs headways of around 2 mins on peak times and 3-4 outside peak (haven't timed it precisely, but as one train departs the indicators show 1m30s to the next). Dwell times are usually about 30 seconds all being 3 door cars.

Is this one of those short haul metros with close station spacing?

At the moment, Sydney is very different for Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei and attempts to make it like those cities are being questioned.

Station spacing? Whats that got to do with anything? Older smaller systems had very tight spacing, these days the gaps are much larger, especially for underground as the govt focuses catchment points and reducing operating and construction costs.

I looked at a number of systems using the ALstom train and didn't see any major differences between Sydney and others. Some have tighter spacing, some have more. Depending on the customer and location. As you said yourself, at least two systems are different that you noticed. There is no design norm and the train is perfectly capable of anything offered.

Interesting the Ryiadh network which is being built now from pretty much scratch with 6 lines, has  three different train suppliers.

Your data on Singapore NE line is out dated.

Having passengers change trains is normal and increasingly becoming more normal as older systems capacity gets pushed and untangling is required to push greater efficiencies. Sydney has already spent a cool billion or two trying to move to simplified line operation and more will follow. Even if the Metro line was a DD line, it would have still been the similar.

Yes Sydney is different to Asian cities, but thats the direction its actually headed. Who says the current station spacing on the Metro line will remain constant forever. In future of population grows, gaps maybe filled it and the design of the tunnels may already induce this future option, ie in certain locations the track was made flat and straight.


Station spacing is also an irrelevant measure for what train technology to use its average travel distance. The average operating speed of T1 is 43km/h, but on north side its likely to be slower due to the terrain and when it was built.

- 13km ECRL average speed is roughly 60km/h,
- NSL from Chatswood to City (12km) is roughly 30km/h, the new Metro will I believe be closer to 60km/h from Chatswood to city thus saving 12min.  
- Epping to City via Straithfield is 38min for 25km, roughly 40km/h average speed.

Its very much likely at
- Chatswood we will see people get off the NSL and switch to the Metro for a faster ride into the city as waiting time will only be a a few minutes.
- Epping station same will also occur, its even faster if you back track from Eastwood.

Additionally the ECRL corridor is an area that is different to most as there are far more off's than on, so the Metro on departure from Epping will have more people than on arrival to Chatswood, so average travel time for most commuters from NW is likely less than 20min once on the train.

Question, if you had option to save 20min a day in commuting time by standing over sitting, would you do it? Answer is most likely yes if you value your home time.


I know you like to put train systems in individual pigeon hole boxes, but it doesn't exist the way you think. The 176km long Ryiadh system on 6 lines built over 10 years which is a pace few in western countries could even contemplate and makes the Sydney Metro project look small.

For Me the Metro project as visioned by govt for 2030 and if extended as I mentioned above previously and including the Western Metro project is going to be like a higher speed commuter system through the greater suburban area in a reverse "E" shape connecting up to more than dozen existing stations. More hub and spoke arrangement.

Station spacing? Whats that got to do with anything? Older smaller systems had very tight spacing, these days the gaps are much larger, especially for underground as the govt focuses catchment points and reducing operating and construction costs.

It has to do with how far the train goes between stopping. It affects them impact of dwell time on capacity and affects the amount of acceleration and deceleration.
Most metro systems do have stations every kilometre or so.

I looked at a number of systems using the ALstom train and didn't see any major differences between Sydney and others. Some have tighter spacing, some have more. Depending on the customer and location. As you said yourself, at least two systems are different that you noticed. There is no design norm and the train is perfectly capable of anything offered.

The Northwest rail link has the Alstom metropolis, which is a metro set. It is indeed designed for short-haul stop start runs, even though it may strictly be capable of others.

Having passengers change trains is normal and increasingly becoming more normal as older systems capacity gets pushed and untangling is required to push greater efficiencies. Sydney has already spent a cool billion or two trying to move to simplified line operation and more will follow. Even if the Metro line was a DD line, it would have still been the similar.

Forcing more interchanges than before is not normal. In fact the trend is towards using the same type of heavy rail for more trips. For example, outer suburban commuters in older cities like Paris used to have to change trains on the edge of the old parts of those cites. In the case of Paris, the underground links under the part inside the peripherique ring, integrated into the R.E.R network, allowed outer suburban commuters take the larger trains all the way into the centre.

Yes Sydney is different to Asian cities, but thats the direction its actually headed. Who says the current station spacing on the Metro line will remain constant forever. In future of population grows, gaps maybe filled it and the design of the tunnels may already induce this future option, ie in certain locations the track was made flat and straight.

There is protest against this. Many of those living in the Northwest moved there to get out of the dense city centre and aren't going to like 20 story buildings appearing in their suburbs.

Also, once again, there's the off-the-shelf trains belief. This belief is based mainly on comparisons between newbuild and legacy systems.
Rail vehicles are always built to order and so every order will be somewhat customised. Though technical components do come off-the-shelf. These are things like control equipment, door mechanisms, wheel sets and even bogies.
Fact is that all double-decker trains in the world were built for legacy systems that previously only ran single-decker trains, and so need to be engineered to fit existing systems, which is also the case for single-decker trains also built for legacy systems.

Another comparison is comparing Sydney double deckers with European designed single-decker trains built for Melbourne. But that doesn't mean a European multiple unit train, built for a European system, could run here. In fact, a Melbourne suburban train, fitted with standard gauge bogies could still not run in Sydney.

If a European double decker train could not run in Sydney, then maybe a single decker train also selected from a European region could also not run in Sydney.

Station spacing? Whats that got to do with anything? Older smaller systems had very tight spacing, these days the gaps are much larger, especially for underground as the govt focuses catchment points and reducing operating and construction costs.

It has to do with how far the train goes between stopping. It affects them impact of dwell time on capacity and affects the amount of acceleration and deceleration.
Most metro systems do have stations every kilometre or so.

I looked at a number of systems using the ALstom train and didn't see any major differences between Sydney and others. Some have tighter spacing, some have more. Depending on the customer and location. As you said yourself, at least two systems are different that you noticed. There is no design norm and the train is perfectly capable of anything offered.

The Northwest rail link has the Alstom metropolis, which is a metro set. It is indeed designed for short-haul stop start runs, even though it may strictly be capable of others.

Having passengers change trains is normal and increasingly becoming more normal as older systems capacity gets pushed and untangling is required to push greater efficiencies. Sydney has already spent a cool billion or two trying to move to simplified line operation and more will follow. Even if the Metro line was a DD line, it would have still been the similar.

Forcing more interchanges than before is not normal. In fact the trend is towards using the same type of heavy rail for more trips. For example, outer suburban commuters in older cities like Paris used to have to change trains on the edge of the old parts of those cites. In the case of Paris, the underground links under the part inside the peripherique ring, integrated into the R.E.R network, allowed outer suburban commuters take the larger trains all the way into the centre.

Yes Sydney is different to Asian cities, but thats the direction its actually headed. Who says the current station spacing on the Metro line will remain constant forever. In future of population grows, gaps maybe filled it and the design of the tunnels may already induce this future option, ie in certain locations the track was made flat and straight.

There is protest against this. Many of those living in the Northwest moved there to get out of the dense city centre and aren't going to like 20 story buildings appearing in their suburbs.

Also, once again, there's the off-the-shelf trains belief. This belief is based mainly on comparisons between newbuild and legacy systems.
Rail vehicles are always built to order and so every order will be somewhat customised. Though technical components do come off-the-shelf. These are things like control equipment, door mechanisms, wheel sets and even bogies.
Fact is that all double-decker trains in the world were built for legacy systems that previously only ran single-decker trains, and so need to be engineered to fit existing systems, which is also the case for single-decker trains also built for legacy systems.

Another comparison is comparing Sydney double deckers with European designed single-decker trains built for Melbourne. But that doesn't mean a European multiple unit train, built for a European system, could run here. In fact, a Melbourne suburban train, fitted with standard gauge bogies could still not run in Sydney.

If a European double decker train could not run in Sydney, then maybe a single decker train also selected from a European region could also not run in Sydney.

And hence the Metro train is the right train as its faster and and has smaller dwell time and hence will move people on the Metro line faster.

The Alstom train has been used on at least 20 different lines, some similar to Sydney, its capable of the task. It could run to Newcastle equally as well if they wanted it too.

In modern large cities greater than 5m people its irrational to think that your nearest rail station is the same line that will take you to your destination. Modern railways have one line that does A-B-A, another that does C-D-C etc and thats it. Sydney has moved in this direction. Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Singapore, Dubai, London, Paris and every other place you can think of does similar. The key part is frequency, if trains are 2-3min intervals, then time to change trains is minimal as is the waiting time at your local station. Its Normal!!!

Many people who previously moved to the lower north shore in a normal house and other parts of Sydney that are now skyscrapper row have had to deal with the growth and most have financially prospered significantly. The NW will not be immune. from such growth with a flash and fast rail line direct to the city and through the key employment areas of the EC corridor.

Oh Bulls__t there are no off the shelf trains.  When the state "off_the_shelf" they refer to the tried and proven design, manufacturing process and infrastructure technology to support the train, especially for automated trains. Typically this trains are delivered on time, with few supplier issues and commissioned fairly quickly with few problems. Sydney and Brisbane's recent orders of custom made is a classic case of "non-off_the_shelf". Yes trains come with different options, like a car and can be tailored to some degree. The Alstom train could be fitted with beds and only one door if you so choose. The ones in Dubai have three classes. I believe you live in Melbourne, you should know better rather than to make such a silly comment as a result!

The RER type DD cannot be used in Sydney for numerous reasons, size being the start. Ironically to get the people density per length of train, it relies heavily on the centre doors for standing room to get the numbers. The 24m 3 door RER DD car has similar number of seats as the Sydney DD 20m 2 door car.

A railway line built for a specific SD has far less issues but to accommodate the centre door safely some existing stations on Bankstown line need to be changed. This is an overall improvement in safety and therefore not a retrograde step and likely similar projects in the future will apply to other stations as the years roll by even if not converted away from DD.

Back to basics Mytone

Govt had two options

1) DD line doing similar in track as now.

Starting from NW and running to Bankstown. However this would have included Hornsby via Epping and running to Liverpool and Lidcombe.

There would have been no mixing with other lines in the timetable, but trains could be swapped out of timetable

Operate as Manual 2 crew train, fixed 8 car sets.

Need for inflexible and slow to adjust timetabling and associated crewing.

Peak frequency on opening based on demand filling 8 car trains, ie they won't run them partly full so frequency is adjusted to match demand for cost control purposes.

Considering modern line, stations etc, it may have in future pushed if required in future 24-25 trains per hour. Unlikely practical to go beyond.

Off-peak and off shoulder frequency of say 15min to each branch due to costs of operating such high capacity crewed trains.

Reminder of recent train suppliers and design issues

Reminder that Sydney has never built a large railway tunnel project that hasn't turned into a disaster project for the incumbent govt with typical higher construction costs per km.

Operating subsidy above 60% like now

OR

2) SD Automated (You like to call it Metro, but that's just a tag from Paris, there is no such definition of what a Metro is)

Issue in that it won't (initially at least) run to Hornsby so this needs to be resolved and ironically the ECRL was built to solve this issue in the first place and additionally will terminate at Bankstown, not continue through to either Liverpool and Lidcombe. In all three cases causing problems that need to be resolved, ie money!

Stations built to standard 160m, but initial trains are shorter (6 cars?) to enable higher frequencies

Capable of 2min frequencies, likely slightly better.

Removal of timetabling and costs and issues in designing timetables, able to operate frequency to match live turnstile demand.

Trains have platform doors for safety and security, yes could have also been built for Option 1

No on board Operations train crew, replaced with increased number of customer service and revenue/asset protection

Shorter lower operating cost trains enables higher frequency at all hours of the day

More standard train design, faster more reliable delivery and lower cost. Less supplier risk! More suited to steeper grades and curves.

Tunnel design more standard, built previously used existing design, cheaper per km due to smaller bore, which after 60km of linear tunnel is not insignificant and future projects/extensions as well. Remember tunneling is the most expensive part of this whole project.

On going subsidy projected to be lower than Option 1



Now place yourself in govt position, which makes more financial sense but still gets the job done?

And hence the Metro train is the right train as its faster and and has smaller dwell time and hence will move people on the Metro line faster.

The station spacing on the rail link is no less than the existing Sydney suburban, which uses double-decker trains.

The Alstom train has been used on at least 20 different lines, some similar to Sydney, its capable of the task. It could run to Newcastle equally as well if they wanted it too.

Which Alstom train?

Most systems using the Metropolis do have much closer station spacing.

In modern large cities greater than 5m people its irrational to think that your nearest rail station is the same line that will take you to your destination. Modern railways have one line that does A-B-A, another that does C-D-C etc and thats it. Sydney has moved in this direction. Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Singapore, Dubai, London, Paris and every other place you can think of does similar. The key part is frequency, if trains are 2-3min intervals, then time to change trains is minimal as is the waiting time at your local station. Its Normal!!!

Of course, the nearest railway station isn't always on the same line as one's destination, in any city. But forcing more interchanges than before isn't normal. In Melbourne, we don't have change trains any more often than we did when we first had suburban services.
As late as the early 1980s, commuters used to have to get off at Flinders Street or Spencer Steet station and maybe take a tram to other parts of the city centre. Since the City loop was opened, commuters from most suburbs served by off-street rail have been able to get a one-seat train ride all the way to Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne Central or the Parliment House.
It possible in Sydney to catch a train at Lidcombe station in the suburb of Liverpool and stay on that train all the way to Circular Quay. But the conversion of that line to metro will not only mean replacing large comfortable suburban trains with smaller ones but also mean a need to change trains in the city.

Many people who previously moved to the lower north shore in a normal house and other parts of Sydney that are now skyscrapper row have had to deal with the growth and most have financially prospered significantly. The NW will not be immune. from such growth with a flash and fast rail line direct to the city and through the key employment areas of the EC corridor.

Isn't this quite close to the city centre? The Northwest is much further out.

When the state "off_the_shelf" they refer to the tried and proven design, manufacturing process and infrastructure technology to support the train, especially for automated trains. Typically this trains are delivered on time, with few supplier issues and commissioned fairly quickly with few problems. Sydney and Brisbane's recent orders of custom made is a classic case of "non-off_the_shelf". Yes trains come with different options, like a car and can be tailored to some degree. The Alstom train could be fitted with beds and only one door if you so choose. The ones in Dubai have three classes. I believe you live in Melbourne, you should know better rather than to make such a silly comment as a result!

There are plenty of tried and proven rail vehicles designs, even some tried and proven double-decker trains. But no tram or train, single or double-decked, is ever as close to off-the-shelf as so many road vehicles are. All variants of any model, even on newbuild systems, are customised to some degree, but closer to off-the-shelf that trains built for legacy systems typically are.

The RER type DD cannot be used in Sydney for numerous reasons, size being the start. Ironically to get the people density per length of train, it relies heavily on the centre doors for standing room to get the numbers. The 24m 3 door RER DD car has similar number of seats as the Sydney DD 20m 2 door car.

And maybe the older R.E.R single deckers also could not run in Sydney. Sydney is limited to 20-metre train length whether the trains are single or double decked.
The newest types of train on the R.E.R are in fact, double-decked variants of the Alstom Xtrapolis. How about a 20-metre version of that for Sydney, with 2 doors per side of each carriage?

A railway line built for a specific SD has far fewer issues but to accommodate the centre door safely some existing stations on Bankstown line need to be changed. This is an overall improvement in safety and therefore not a retrograde step and likely similar projects in the future will apply to other stations as the years roll by even if not converted away from DD.

Also, the technology you advocate could apply to double decker trains. Some of the issues you mention with double-decker trains could be avoided on a newbuild system with them. If we are going to go single decked, then at least make platforms long enough for 12 car trains.

And hence the Metro train is the right train as its faster and and has smaller dwell time and hence will move people on the Metro line faster.

The station spacing on the rail link is no less than the existing Sydney suburban, which uses double-decker trains.

The Alstom train has been used on at least 20 different lines, some similar to Sydney, its capable of the task. It could run to Newcastle equally as well if they wanted it too.

Which Alstom train?

Most systems using the Metropolis do have much closer station spacing.

In modern large cities greater than 5m people its irrational to think that your nearest rail station is the same line that will take you to your destination. Modern railways have one line that does A-B-A, another that does C-D-C etc and thats it. Sydney has moved in this direction. Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Singapore, Dubai, London, Paris and every other place you can think of does similar. The key part is frequency, if trains are 2-3min intervals, then time to change trains is minimal as is the waiting time at your local station. Its Normal!!!

Of course, the nearest railway station isn't always on the same line as one's destination, in any city. But forcing more interchanges than before isn't normal. In Melbourne, we don't have change trains any more often than we did when we first had suburban services.
As late as the early 1980s, commuters used to have to get off at Flinders Street or Spencer Steet station and maybe take a tram to other parts of the city centre. Since the City loop was opened, commuters from most suburbs served by off-street rail have been able to get a one-seat train ride all the way to Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne Central or the Parliment House.
It possible in Sydney to catch a train at Lidcombe station in the suburb of Liverpool and stay on that train all the way to Circular Quay. But the conversion of that line to metro will not only mean replacing large comfortable suburban trains with smaller ones but also mean a need to change trains in the city.

Many people who previously moved to the lower north shore in a normal house and other parts of Sydney that are now skyscrapper row have had to deal with the growth and most have financially prospered significantly. The NW will not be immune. from such growth with a flash and fast rail line direct to the city and through the key employment areas of the EC corridor.

Isn't this quite close to the city centre? The Northwest is much further out.

When the state "off_the_shelf" they refer to the tried and proven design, manufacturing process and infrastructure technology to support the train, especially for automated trains. Typically this trains are delivered on time, with few supplier issues and commissioned fairly quickly with few problems. Sydney and Brisbane's recent orders of custom made is a classic case of "non-off_the_shelf". Yes trains come with different options, like a car and can be tailored to some degree. The Alstom train could be fitted with beds and only one door if you so choose. The ones in Dubai have three classes. I believe you live in Melbourne, you should know better rather than to make such a silly comment as a result!

There are plenty of tried and proven rail vehicles designs, even some tried and proven double-decker trains. But no tram or train, single or double-decked, is ever as close to off-the-shelf as so many road vehicles are. All variants of any model, even on newbuild systems, are customised to some degree, but closer to off-the-shelf that trains built for legacy systems typically are.

The RER type DD cannot be used in Sydney for numerous reasons, size being the start. Ironically to get the people density per length of train, it relies heavily on the centre doors for standing room to get the numbers. The 24m 3 door RER DD car has similar number of seats as the Sydney DD 20m 2 door car.

And maybe the older R.E.R single deckers also could not run in Sydney. Sydney is limited to 20-metre train length whether the trains are single or double decked.
The newest types of train on the R.E.R are in fact, double-decked variants of the Alstom Xtrapolis. How about a 20-metre version of that for Sydney, with 2 doors per side of each carriage?

A railway line built for a specific SD has far fewer issues but to accommodate the centre door safely some existing stations on Bankstown line need to be changed. This is an overall improvement in safety and therefore not a retrograde step and likely similar projects in the future will apply to other stations as the years roll by even if not converted away from DD.

Also, the technology you advocate could apply to double decker trains. Some of the issues you mention with double-decker trains could be avoided on a newbuild system with them. If we are going to go single decked, then at least make platforms long enough for 12 car trains.

Only part of the new Metro line has the longer station spacing, rest is typical, for now! Things could change for both in future.

As you said, most but not all Metropolis systems comply to your definition, but I doubt few others actually care. At the end of the day the train doesn't care and nor do the operators or passengers. Passengers care about transit times, hence with the higher track speeds of the new Metro line the time gap between most of the stations will be similar to what exists now in Sydney, ie 3min.

The Melbourne City loop project made sense as it involved 100,000's per day. Doesn't mean this make sense further other and it doesn't and your reference to not being "Normal" is complete crap. Before typing another word, do some searching in Google of the top 20 largest city networks in the world.

Times change, what is further out today is inner tomorrow. My grandparents moved to East Killara in the 1950's, back then they were in outer suburbia. Today they have the only house in the street that hasn't been subdivided with high rises less than a few km away. When I started commuting from Gosford, the Over Head stopped 2km up the track, today considered the southern part of the Newcastle line.

You need to learn about heavy engineering before making such comments about what is and isn't off the shelf. And also while you are at it learn a bit more about car manufacturing as its not as simple as you seem to think.

The Alstom Metro is about as off the shelf as it gets with >90% or more commonality between different customers and even those differences are probably mostly options inbuilt into the original design flexibility. The huge advantage from running this train is that all customers benefits from upgrades and R&D done by one customer and they can compare reliability and performance as well as access to a much larger customer base for spare parts into the future.

Don't disagree on longer trains, but the option is constrained by the existing platform lengths on the underground ECRL which are very costly to extend. 160m is however more than a reasonable length for a suburban train and unlikely longer would be needed for at least 30 years and even then growth requirements can be accommodated by other means such as building new lines on other corridors, such as Victoria Road.

Only part of the new Metro line has the longer station spacing, rest is typical, for now! Things could change for both in future.

The whole of the Northwest metro as under construction does have suburban type station spacing.

As you said, most but not all Metropolis systems comply to your definition, but I doubt few others actually care. At the end of the day the train doesn't care and nor do the operators or passengers. Passengers care about transit times, hence with the higher track speeds of the new Metro line the time gap between most of the stations will be similar to what exists now in Sydney, ie 3min.

Examples are the Paris metro, which you admit has quite close station spacing. The Amsterdam metro, which is newer, also has quite close station spacing. The Istanbul metro, only 28 years old at the time of writing, also appears to have quite close station spacing.

Times change, what is further out today is inner tomorrow. My grandparents moved to East Killara in the 1950's, back then they were in outer suburbia. Today they have the only house in the street that hasn't been subdivided with high rises less than a few km away. When I started commuting from Gosford, the Over Head stopped 2km up the track, today considered the southern part of the Newcastle line.

How long did they move there before things changed like that? Do you have any idea how recently so many people moved into Northwest Sydney?

You need to learn about heavy engineering before making such comments about what is and isn't off the shelf. And also while you are at it learn a bit more about car manufacturing as its not as simple as you seem to think.

I didn't need to learn about heavy engineering to know things like the fact that London's deep tube lines need special custom-made trains due to tiny tunnels. Even their other tube lines still have specialised custom-built trains. I never said anything about the simplicity of car manufacturing, most cars are mass produced, they are not built to order, and therefore not customised. Also, most manually steered vehicles can go wherever there is a road and even right off it.
Rail vehicles cannot just go wherever there are tracks because of variations in track geometry, such as gauge and wheel-rail profile. While roads do technically have loading gauges, this is only an issue for larger road vehicles, clearances are always wider than each lane. Trains tend to be much larger than any road vehicle, so loading gauge is a real issue. And being limited to their tracks, clearence on curves also limits the train length.
But indeed certain parts do come off-the-shelf, like control equipment, door mechanisms, wheelsets and even bogies do come off-the-shelf. One doesn't have to know much about heavy engineering to realise that tighter than normal curves mean customised rolling stock, with shorter than normal carriages, though curve clearances also affect this, or especially that an uncommon track gauge means customised bogies, the customisation extending to wheelsets. What isn't so obvious is that other things like bolsters might be different if the bogie is a different gauge.
But as far as I know, standard gauge trains usually have standard bogies with standard wheelsets. If the loading gauge is not less than the carriage floor down to the rails, which it has to be for double-decker trains to fit, then any standard gauge bogie will fit that loading gauge. Sydney's newer double-decker trains even tend to have skirts over the bogies, they couldn't have this if the bogies were to stick out on any curves.

The Alstom Metro is about as off the shelf as it gets with >90% or more commonality between different customers and even those differences are probably mostly options inbuilt into the original design flexibility. The huge advantage from running this train is that all customers benefits from upgrades and R&D done by one customer and they can compare reliability and performance as well as access to a much larger customer base for spare parts into the future.

Do you realise that most Metropolis trains were built for much newer systems? It's hardly surprising that they are that close to off-the-shelf, but once again, not quite as close to off-the-shelf as a mass produced road vehicle.

Don't disagree on longer trains, but the option is constrained by the existing platform lengths on the underground ECRL which are very costly to extend. 160m is however more than a reasonable length for a suburban train and unlikely longer would be needed for at least 30 years and even then growth requirements can be accommodated by other means such as building new lines on other corridors, such as Victoria Road.

When building a new system, lengths of existing platforms are not a consideration, platforms can be made as long as practical.

My parents moved to East Killara in the mid 50's, there house was built for them and they were last house on the street and had the power extended to their house. My Grandfather passed away 7 years ago but my 101 year old grandmother still lives there with a carer. Its prime realestate being on corner of National Park with direct view of de-burgs bridge. (Blaxland Rd if anyone is looking). It was the sticks then, still orchids or similar in the area was not uncommon. Obviously development has been ongoing since. We moved to Central Coast in 1979, there were still cows up the road and dairy farm at end of the road.  Again it ongoing development.

i used to occasionally work at Chatwood back in late 80's, the building I used to work in is opposite the Zenith Centre and apart from a few tall commercial buildings everything else was housing or low height high rise. Having been there last year, its 20-30 story buildings are the norm on Railway Pde as is the story following the railway all the way to the city. In the early 80's the development along the ECRL corridor was low density light commercial and industrial, now look at the patronage that use the train to access this area.

I have a friend who lives not far from new NW station, Kellyville. When he bought the house the 15 years ago the area was low density housing. Now visiting last year, you can see in some locations houses removed for townhouses and duplexes. Do you think the govt is spending $6B high cost underground railway to low density housing area as a long term plan? The area is ripe for increased housing density, the govt knows it as does the people who live there who in future will be selling their properties for a tidy profit to developers. Its very much a case of build it and they will come and the reason they are building it because this area was slow to develop due to lack of heavy rail transit. This area is changing as are all others along rail corridors including central west.

The Alstom Metro is considered off the shelf because its basically a common platform for which minor changes are made to suit each customer. By platform I'm not talking motors etc which better defines what Sydney has been doing to date, I'm talking car bodies, computer control system, traction system, bogies the whole lot. Most of the customising is likely limited to not much more than the power pickup, internal fit out, colour, number of cars per set, door arrangement etc. London's older tube has same issue as Sydney DD, specialised! Hence why they don't build them like that anymore and now use a more standard design.

Cars, do you think there is only one model Camry made in the world? Most mainstream cars have a basic design and then adapted based on the end market is going too. For example Camry's made in Australia exported to UAE are not the same cars sold in Australia and nothing to do with the side the steering wheel is on. You cannot register an Australian made Camry sold in UAE in Australia even if the steering wheel is changed, it doesn't comply with the Australian standards. Many high end German cars sold in the middle east cannot be back exported to Germany for same reason.

While most of the new Sydney Metro line is NEW, there are parts that are from the existing network and hence must be able to run on this. In some cases on Bankstown line, the infrastructure is being modified for the train.

The problem with legacy networks is like Microsoft. Everything new must be backwards compatible. The costs of major upgrades and modernisation is expensive, time consuming to implement, prone to issues when you do and limited on how much change you can do while keeping the network running. End result is change and modernisation is very very slow and in some cases you have brickwalls you cannot overcome practically, ie Town Hall station. Meanwhile the legacy network in Sydney keeps burning taxpayers dollars and at some point the govt has to have the balls and say enough, thats here no more!

The advantage of the Metro line for Sydney is that its mostly cleansheet, state of the art stand alone line. Out are most of the old out dated practices and myths, including DD's are the bee's knees of trains. Sooner or later Melbourne and Brisbane will follow and expand with stand alone lines to achieve similar as Brisbane is also very high operating cost/subsidy and the city core is nearly full. I suspect the two state govts are watching very closely.

Before replying, why don't you reply to my post at 14:31 and give an answer. I suspect you haven't because you know the answer.

Before replying, why don't you reply to my post at 14:31 and give an answer. I suspect you haven't because you know the answer.

I agree with the problems you point out on that post. Sydney Metro has its issues. These ones are most concerning in my opinion:

There would be a lot of trouble, physically speaking, of "untangling" or separating the Bankstown line from the rest of the network, considering they share tracks and infrastructure. Not only that, but if you put Bankstown services on the Metro, then what about the City Circle? Only T2 trains would be servicing it, which would cut frequency.

There's also the concern, of course, of not having a driver. Staff are important on trains and do very important jobs. Without the human element, the computers running the train have no morality or intelligence to rely upon incase something goes wrong. It's a good thing, at least, that there is a control panel which can be operated if circumstances require it. Perhaps there should be an emergency stop mechanism, which would alert the control centre which would then apply the brakes remotely (to prevent idiots stopping trains for no reason). The silver lining is that this would allow drivers (and rolling stock of course) to be reallocated to different lines, a definite win considering the shortage of drivers Sydney Trains has been seeing lately.

Before replying, why don't you reply to my post at 14:31 and give an answer. I suspect you haven't because you know the answer.

I agree with the problems you point out on that post. Sydney Metro has its issues. These ones are most concerning in my opinion:

There would be a lot of trouble, physically speaking, of "untangling" or separating the Bankstown line from the rest of the network, considering they share tracks and infrastructure. Not only that, but if you put Bankstown services on the Metro, then what about the City Circle? Only T2 trains would be servicing it, which would cut frequency.

There's also the concern, of course, of not having a driver. Staff are important on trains and do very important jobs. Without the human element, the computers running the train have no morality or intelligence to rely upon incase something goes wrong. It's a good thing, at least, that there is a control panel which can be operated if circumstances require it. Perhaps there should be an emergency stop mechanism, which would alert the control centre which would then apply the brakes remotely (to prevent idiots stopping trains for no reason). The silver lining is that this would allow drivers (and rolling stock of course) to be reallocated to different lines, a definite win considering the shortage of drivers Sydney Trains has been seeing lately.

Hi, TL222, nice to see a more level headed discussion.

I think the problem, perceived or real with the Metro is that if the govt has a plan beyond the current project, its not spelling it out and hence in the rail fan community at least leaving a lot of questions on how are they going to deal with X, Y, Z???

Re: Bankstown line, I believe the reason they choose the Bankstown line is because its one of the easiest to surgically remove from the network. No freights, no expresses etc.

Re: City Circle, remember the Bankstown Line is a cause for nearly 50% of the traffic to the circle, however its removal  will enable other services to increase frequency. Which is the aim of the project. The Bankstown line will use the new route through the city which uses stations in similar locations or in the case of Pitt Street, half way between Museum and Town Hall, which are only a few blocks apart anyway.

Re: Driver, its an important job because its a manual train on a manual network. On a network and train that is designed for automation, its an superseded job. While some automated lines have no on board staff apart from roving security/revenue protection who are on and off, I tend to feel that there should be a person on every train doing the revenue/asset protection and there just in case. But what they don't need to do is drive a train or close doors.

Passengers should not have the ability to stop a train, like all things these days there is a emergency call button and they can talk to control/security if needed and action accordingly. You need this on manual trains and the person you speak too should not be the driver.

Driver numbers appears to be a big issue in all three east coast coast commuter networks, so yes it will help, but this issue needs resolution without the introduction. Ironically I read a few years back that Singapore converted its old lines to automated because it couldn't get enough drivers.

Re: connecting end of Bankstown. For me the Metro needs to continue on a direct alignment to Liverpool Station, this will provide a faster more direct route to the city on a corridor that is likely to have significant spare capacity. Additionally the line from Bankstown to Reagents Park converted to Metro, mostly single track for a 10min service. Meanwhile the former Liverpool to city via Bankstown can run via Reagents Park and Lidcombe to City on say a 15min service, with a other 15min service  via Granville.

To get back to the original thread subject, Page 36 of the British online magazine Railway Herald issue 589 includes a photo of a train at the Cunjegong Road depot provided by Transport for NSW. The photo was taken from near the fence but inside, since the fence is photo-proof.

It was indicated that three six car sets were at the depot.

Peter

The Bankstown line doesn't provide 50% of the traffic on the city circle. It takes 50% of T2 and T3 services and so when you include T8 airport / new main south line services the Bankstown line provides 33% of traffic on the City Circle. The Bankstown line however spreads it's traffic evenly between the inner and outer circle and so of that 33% of traffic only half of that is possible to add to airport line services and the other half will be to nowhere or Campbelltown via sydenham services.

Removing the T3 will not allow an increase of T2 services since those are tied to T1 capacity needs.

The Alstom Metro is considered off the shelf because its basically a common platform for which minor changes are made to suit each customer. By platform I'm not talking motors etc which better defines what Sydney has been doing to date, I'm talking car bodies, computer control system, traction system, bogies the whole lot. Most of the customising is likely limited to not much more than the power pickup, internal fit out, colour, number of cars per set, door arrangement etc. London's older tube has same issue as Sydney DD, specialised! Hence why they don't build them like that anymore and now use a more standard design.

Most variants of the Metropolis are built for newbuild, not legacy systems. Even on newbuild systems, customisation does extend to vehicle width. Also, different door arrangements mean the frame needs to be constructed differently.

Cars, do you think there is only one model Camry made in the world? Most mainstream cars have a basic design and then adapted based on the end market is going too. For example Camry's made in Australia exported to UAE are not the same cars sold in Australia and nothing to do with the side the steering wheel is on. You cannot register an Australian made Camry sold in UAE in Australia even if the steering wheel is changed, it doesn't comply with the Australian standards. Many high end German cars sold in the middle east cannot be back exported to Germany for same reason.

Car manufacturers do adapt car designs for different markets, but they are still mass produced and are therefore off-the-shelf. Also, cars sold in other countries can be taken to Australia and registered with little if any modification, such as used cars imported from Japan.

The problem with legacy networks is like Microsoft. Everything new must be backwards compatible. The costs of major upgrades and modernisation is expensive, time consuming to implement, prone to issues when you do and limited on how much change you can do while keeping the network running. End result is change and modernisation is very very slow and in some cases you have brickwalls you cannot overcome practically, ie Town Hall station. Meanwhile the legacy network in Sydney keeps burning taxpayers dollars and at some point the govt has to have the balls and say enough, thats here no more!

It's more like a legacy power grid actually.

The advantage of the Metro line for Sydney is that its mostly cleansheet, state of the art stand alone line. Out are most of the old out dated practices and myths, including DD's are the bee's knees of trains. Sooner or later Melbourne and Brisbane will follow and expand with stand alone lines to achieve similar as Brisbane is also very high operating cost/subsidy and the city core is nearly full. I suspect the two state govts are watching very closely.

Even on a newbuild system, great enough length and wide enough station spacing still mean there is added capacity with double decker trains.

Before replying, why don't you reply to my post at 14:31 and give an answer. I suspect you haven't because you know the answer.

That one got me stuck, not sure what to say on it.

There's also the concern, of course, of not having a driver. Staff are important on trains and do very important jobs. Without the human element, the computers running the train have no morality or intelligence to rely upon incase something goes wrong. It's a good thing, at least, that there is a control panel which can be operated if circumstances require it. Perhaps there should be an emergency stop mechanism, which would alert the control centre which would then apply the brakes remotely (to prevent idiots stopping trains for no reason). The silver lining is that this would allow drivers (and rolling stock of course) to be reallocated to different lines, a definite win considering the shortage of drivers Sydney Trains has been seeing lately.

So in that case, how about installing a communications based train control with automatic operation before switching to one man operation. That way, there could be a reduction in crew and there would still be one crew besides the driver on each train.

You can import cars from very few countries into Australia without modification of some kind to make them street legal. Even the Jap 2nd hand imports had a restricted access via only WA for sometime. Not sure what the current status is.

You got stuck on that question because the answer conflicted with your misguided view.

Automation of trains especially in long tunnels involves complex equipment in both train and track, not just add on which is why they don't do add on.

My 5 cents


We used to have lift operators when I was young but I doubt there would be any now.


Melbourne is flat and a truck has trouble getting under most bridges now hence the single decker and perhaps even the diesel trains as against hilly Sydney that can have overhead wires plus DD.


With surface trains they had to be 3.4m wide to get past each other and through tunnels but now TBM tunnelling is as cheap as buying land in a city and they can use wider trains https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/331a49f3-7949-495b-b3d9-e675231588d6/5-metre-wide-carriage as long as they do not have very sharp corners.

My 5 cents


We used to have lift operators when I was young but I doubt there would be any now.


Melbourne is flat and a truck has trouble getting under most bridges now hence the single decker and perhaps even the diesel trains as against hilly Sydney that can have overhead wires plus DD.


With surface trains they had to be 3.4m wide to get past each other and through tunnels but now TBM tunnelling is as cheap as buying land in a city and they can use wider trains https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/331a49f3-7949-495b-b3d9-e675231588d6/5-metre-wide-carriage as long as the do not have very sharp corners.

Agree TBM's are cheap, but their operation is not and their technology is limited to drilling a round hole so if you want to go taller you also go wider. Hence adding say 0.5m to the height also does same for width and the material to be removed for an extra 0.5m is around 20% more and 10% more lining materials.

Now these days you have to have a full length emergency evacuation platform along the tunnel which fits in nicely on a SD train single bore tunnel, hence the whole thing is supplied as an "off the shelf" package, tunnel design and train designed together.

Hence to build a bespoke underground railway such as the ECRL, there is significant extra cost as everything is a one off, trains and tunnel. Hence the SD tunnel option is cheaper and pax per hour is offset through faster frequency and less seating and the standing time is reduced through less stations and faster alignment and for the NWRL also off-set by the fact that ECRL section is a huge destination and hence average travel time is far less than many other parts of the network for a similar distance from city.

My 5 cents


We used to have lift operators when I was young but I doubt there would be any now.


Melbourne is flat and a truck has trouble getting under most bridges now hence the single decker and perhaps even the diesel trains as against hilly Sydney that can have overhead wires plus DD.


With surface trains they had to be 3.4m wide to get past each other and through tunnels but now TBM tunnelling is as cheap as buying land in a city and they can use wider trains https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/331a49f3-7949-495b-b3d9-e675231588d6/5-metre-wide-carriage as long as the do not have very sharp corners.

Agree TBM's are cheap, but their operation is not and their technology is limited to drilling a round hole so if you want to go taller you also go wider. Hence adding say 0.5m to the height also does same for width and the material to be removed for an extra 0.5m is around 20% more and 10% more lining materials.

Now these days you have to have a full length emergency evacuation platform along the tunnel which fits in nicely on a SD train single bore tunnel, hence the whole thing is supplied as an "off the shelf" package, tunnel design and train designed together.

Hence to build a bespoke underground railway such as the ECRL, there is significant extra cost as everything is a one off, trains and tunnel. Hence the SD tunnel option is cheaper and pax per hour is offset through faster frequency and less seating and the standing time is reduced through less stations and faster alignment and for the NWRL also off-set by the fact that ECRL section is a huge destination and hence average travel time is far less than many other parts of the network for a similar distance from city.

It would be very scary to use an emergency platform once you get past the train, they should just use both ends like the London tube which then would allow a 5m wide train in a 6m diameter tunnel which is what the NWRL is.

But of coarse it could only be done in a stand alone all tunnel line like metro west

It would be very scary to use an emergency platform once you get past the train, they should just use both ends like the London tube which then would allow a 5m wide train in a 6m diameter tunnel which is what the NWRL is.

But of coarse it could only be done in a stand alone all tunnel line like metro west

I'm sure it would any emergency escape will have its own issues, but history has shown people need a way out if they are to survive and staying put is no longer an option. ie fire.

Not sure if they have mid station emergency exists, likely! The Dubai Metro as side platform its entire length above and below ground and frequency emergency access/exit locations along the track, you wouldn't have to walk more than 500m.

It would be very scary to use an emergency platform once you get past the train, they should just use both ends like the London tube which then would allow a 5m wide train in a 6m diameter tunnel which is what the NWRL is.

But of coarse it could only be done in a stand alone all tunnel line like metro west

I'm sure it would any emergency escape will have its own issues, but history has shown people need a way out if they are to survive and staying put is no longer an option. ie fire.

Not sure if they have mid station emergency exists, likely! The Dubai Metro as side platform its entire length above and below ground and frequency emergency access/exit locations along the track, you wouldn't have to walk more than 500m.

The NWRL trains have emergency exits both ends for the tunnels but also have the walkway for when they are elevated.

An engineer suggested it was so maintenance workers could walk along it to which another person responded saying it was so 19th century.

I just looked up the Dubai metro and it goes above ground too so the same problem as the NWRL

The NWRL trains have emergency exits both ends for the tunnels but also have the walkway for when they are elevated.

An engineer suggested it was so maintenance workers could walk along it to which another person responded saying it was so 19th century.

I just looked up the Dubai metro and it goes above ground too so the same problem as the NWRL

Hi
(in friendly tone) How is the platform "so 19th century"? You have the space in the tunnel, so why not?

Also remember that if the line has track based power supply then this keep people away from things that go zap! But yes Sydney is using O/head.