Instead of Rowville heavy rail, a tram line instead?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/new-tram-line-planned-to-run-from-caulfield-to-rowville-via-chadstone-20180409-p4z8lo.html

Instead of Rowville heavy rail, a tram line instead?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/new-tram-line-planned-to-run-from-caulfield-to-rowville-via-chadstone-20180409-p4z8lo.html

We just don't get it here in Victoria.  A tram is not going to replace the convenience and speed of a heavy rail service.  More let's do the bare minimum to keep the punters happy, well maybe.

Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.

Let's start acting like an international city and get the heavy rail project delivered.

Didn't they plan to do this in the 80s or something?
According to google maps the median on Dandy road doesn't look possible either, most of the middle is very narrow and it disappears when the road passes through a major intersection with the right turn lanes and all that.
Wellington road and Stud road do look like they can handle trams for most of the way the route I assume would go.
Still, I don't light rail is the answer, a suburb as big and far away as Rowville probably needs a train line, I can't see trams handling this very well.

Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.

I don't think that plan is stupid, Their Airport is pretty close (IIRC someone said that they could easily walk to the Airport from the CBD in an hour) and would be able to provide coverage in the cbd for that city.
Rowville on the other hand is IMO way too far away to be reliable.

The issue for any light rail connection to an airport is baggage and the number of people required to move.

I think it's funny that Waverley Park is finally going to get the public transport connection it desperately needed 50 years ago...

Personally I think that as long as the stops are set at a reasonable distance to keep the average speed equal to or higher than the average car speed, a light rail would be fine.

I wonder if they could squeeze the budget a bit more and finish the Route 75 extension to Knox City...

Rick

Didn't they plan to do this in the 80s or something?
According to google maps the median on Dandy road doesn't look possible either, most of the middle is very narrow and it disappears when the road passes through a major intersection with the right turn lanes and all that.
Wellington road and Stud road do look like they can handle trams for most of the way the route I assume would go.
Still, I don't light rail is the answer, a suburb as big and far away as Rowville probably needs a train line, I can't see trams handling this very well.

It'll crawl to and from Monash Clayton; should connect with the heavy rail service at Huntingdale so that people have the transfer option. Otherwise it will easily take two hours from one end to the other.

Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.

I don't think that plan is stupid, Their Airport is pretty close (IIRC someone said that they could easily walk to the Airport from the CBD in an hour) and would be able to provide coverage in the cbd for that city.
Rowville on the other hand is IMO way too far away to be reliable.

It's an excellent idea, the airport by bus is less than 20 minutes. I guess the taxi industry is dead against it though.

If this is done, then it needs to be done right.

It needs a properly intergrated interchange at Caulfield Railway Station, perhaps involving an entire rebuild of the station*.

It needs a proper dedicated reservation with no street running and grade seperation of at least the major intersections such as Warrigal Rd, Clayton Rd, Springvale Rd etc.

It should have its own dedicated depot, prefferebly at the Rowville end and its own specific rollingstock, my uneducated suggestion would be a longer version of the E class. But it still needs to connect with the existing network.

On top of all of that, and perhaps the most important thing, it should have proper traffic light priority at all at grade intersections. Something that has eluded trams in Melbourne so far.

- - - - -

* My preference here is to use this oppurtunity to completely rethink the track & signalling layout between Caulfield and South Yarra. Build 2 flyovers, the first near Richmond, and the 2nd near Caulfield. Rearrange the signalling so that we have 2 Down tracks next to each other, then 2 up tracks next to each other. Completely demolish Caulfield station, and re-build it with 2 double sided island platforms a la Burnley.

This would turn Caulfield into a proper Interchange station, which it will need to be. A passenger coming from the Frankston line wanting to get to say Parkville can get off a train at Caulfield and simply cross the platform and board a train from Dandenong that will go through the Metro Tunnel. Similarly a passenger from Dandenong wanting to get to either Richmond (MCG) or Southern Cross would have an equally simple cross platform connection.

I digress, the point is, completely rebuilding Caulfield station with a better layout could easily provide a real 21st century multi-mode public transport hub.

With construction of the South Eastern Tunnel portal already resulting in significant delays on all Caulfield lines (at a future, as yet unspecified date) that would be the perfect time to shut down for construction of this re-modelling.

Just got to find a way to keep the NIMBYs distracted why we pull all of this off.

Just got to find a way to keep the NIMBYs distracted why we pull all of this off.

Start drilling for oil in their front gardens; that should do the trick.

…………….
* My preference here is to use this oppurtunity to completely rethink the track & signalling layout between Caulfield and South Yarra. Build 2 flyovers, the first near Richmond, and the 2nd near Caulfield. Rearrange the signalling so that we have 2 Down tracks next to each other, then 2 up tracks next to each other. Completely demolish Caulfield station, and re-build it with 2 double sided island platforms a la Burnley.

This would turn Caulfield into a proper Interchange station, which it will need to be. A passenger coming from the Frankston line wanting to get to say Parkville can get off a train at Caulfield and simply cross the platform and board a train from Dandenong that will go through the Metro Tunnel. Similarly a passenger from Dandenong wanting to get to either Richmond (MCG) or Southern Cross would have an equally simple cross platform connection.
……………

To create Caulfield island interchange platforms a la Burnley (or Richmond’s 7/8 and 9/10), the ‘crossover(s)’ needs to be done at or east of Caulfield, which, with the added complication of Skyrail, would probably mean a high-level down (flyover to Frankston) and a low-level up island platform at Caulfield. A grade crossing could be configured for the Long Island steel. Not that the idea doesn’t have merit.

Instead of Rowville heavy rail, a tram line instead?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/new-tram-line-planned-to-run-from-caulfield-to-rowville-via-chadstone-20180409-p4z8lo.html

We just don't get it here in Victoria.  A tram is not going to replace the convenience and speed of a heavy rail service.  More let's do the bare minimum to keep the punters happy, well maybe.

Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.

Let's start acting like an international city and get the heavy rail project delivered.

Excuse me. We don't have money just to waste.

Light rail in modern standards is actually work really well. And it makes alot of sense to connect both Chadstone and Rowville together.

Heavy rail is not viable, either a useless shuttle service, or require significant expansion on the rail corridor, adding extra tracks.

I would rather see a heavy rail link for the Airport and the second Metro Tunnel. As well as extending rail to Melton and Clyde. Thank you.

I digress, the point is, completely rebuilding Caulfield station with a better layout could easily provide a real 21st century multi-mode public transport hub.

I'm an alumni of Monash Clayton AND Caulfield. If there's light rail down Dandy Road then it should at least connect the two campuses but my concern is the end-to-end Rowville to the City is just stupidly long and tram journeys aren't suited to that. Eastern Melbourne is actually getting too large to consider trams crawling for many miles picking up and dropping off people every few blocks, stopping at traffic lights. Eastern Melb is simply getting to dense and full of traffic for that kind of route, heavy rail would have been the way to go.

My two cents as an ex-local.

I didn't say it would be easy. And I definitly didn't say it would be cheap. Just my idea of the best possible outcome.

With our current crop of politicians, who don't seem to have the slightest clue what is actually needed from a transport infrastructure point of view, I highly doubt it will happen.

Again, it is just my idea of the best possible outcome.

I'm an alumni

You are not; you are an alumnus - there's only one of you.

I'm an alumni

You are not; you are an alumnus - there's only one of you.

Oh yeah, plural.

Almost as stupid as a light rail service to Adelaide Airport.

I don't think that plan is stupid, Their Airport is pretty close (IIRC someone said that they could easily walk to the Airport from the CBD in an hour) and would be able to provide coverage in the cbd for that city.
Rowville on the other hand is IMO way too far away to be reliable.

It's an excellent idea, the airport by bus is less than 20 minutes. I guess the taxi industry is dead against it though.

They were against the establishment of the current Adelaide Metro bus service to the airport too, but didn't manage to stop it.

This Caulfield-Rowville tram line is an interesting proposal and there's no reason why it couldn't work. Obviously with money allocated to a study to work out specific route alignments they might find something sensible.  Building down the middle of Dandenong Rd is the easy part - building interchanges and hooking it up to the existing network will be the harder challenges - I can't really see E class trams negotiating the S bend under the Smith St bridge (for example). And there's also finding additional depot space - I doubt Malvern or Glenhuntly could handle any more trams especially trams the size of the E class so a depot will have to be built alongside the Wellington Rd corridor. Fortunately, most of the area out that way is semi industrial and land becomes available all the time so building a depot out that way shouldn't be a problem.

Hooking the new line up to the new network will be a challenge. At Caulfield the tram layout is full of turns. Pure speculation but you could build a three track layout in Derby St with a terminating track for the new line and have the Route 3 run around the outside of this. Derby street is reasonably wide but you might consider closing the whole street off to cars and just leave it as a mall of some kind with island level access tram stops. There's lots of eateries in Derby St so turning it into a mall might actually work as a kind of vibrant area and transport interchange.

Personally though, if they were wanting to link this new line to tracks that go to the city, I would extend it further up Dandenong Rd to that it links into the network at the Dandenong & Glenferrie Rd intersections. This would give it a through route to the city on an existing reservation.

I guess we will have to wait and see what is planned from this study into route options.

This Caulfield-Rowville tram line is an interesting proposal and there's no reason why it couldn't work. Obviously with money allocated to a study to work out specific route alignments they might find something sensible.  Building down the middle of Dandenong Rd is the easy part - building interchanges and hooking it up to the existing network will be the harder challenges - I can't really see E class trams negotiating the S bend under the Smith St bridge (for example). And there's also finding additional depot space - I doubt Malvern or Glenhuntly could handle any more trams especially trams the size of the E class so a depot will have to be built alongside the Wellington Rd corridor. Fortunately, most of the area out that way is semi industrial and land becomes available all the time so building a depot out that way shouldn't be a problem.

Hooking the new line up to the new network will be a challenge. At Caulfield the tram layout is full of turns. Pure speculation but you could build a three track layout in Derby St with a terminating track for the new line and have the Route 3 run around the outside of this. Derby street is reasonably wide but you might consider closing the whole street off to cars and just leave it as a mall of some kind with island level access tram stops. There's lots of eateries in Derby St so turning it into a mall might actually work as a kind of vibrant area and transport interchange.

Personally though, if they were wanting to link this new line to tracks that go to the city, I would extend it further up Dandenong Rd to that it links into the network at the Dandenong & Glenferrie Rd intersections. This would give it a through route to the city on an existing reservation.

I guess we will have to wait and see what is planned from this study into route options.

If the aim is to connect to the rail network with Monash and Rowville, wouldn't another option to build an extention down the napean highway after the 67 turns down Glenhuntly Rd, and then follow North Rd onto its continuation of Wellington Rd?

Stations served:
*Gardenvale
*Ormond
*Huntingdale

If the aim. Is to get people to Monash Uni quickly then a tram from huntingdale. Is the going to the most efficient for students.   How the tram gets there either by north road or Dandenong road would depend on which route generates the most inbetween traffic and I would chadstone would be the one.    The Monash Uni Clayton transport corridor has been a known problem for many years and this needs to resolved soon -  the previous coalition has already done a needs and route study - surely the huntingdale to Monash Uni can be started now.  The study only needs to be decides how the light rail connects with either Caulfield or gardenvale/east Brighton tram interchange

If the aim. Is to get people to Monash Uni quickly then a tram from huntingdale. Is the going to the most efficient for students.   How the tram gets there either by north road or Dandenong road would depend on which route generates the most inbetween traffic and I would chadstone would be the one.    The Monash Uni Clayton transport corridor has been a known problem for many years and this needs to resolved soon -  the previous coalition has already done a needs and route study - surely the huntingdale to Monash Uni can be started now.  The study only needs to be decides how the light rail connects with either Caulfield or gardenvale/east Brighton tram interchange

My prediction for the preferred alignment:
(1) Beginning from Caufield Station on John Monash Drive - interchange with route 3/3a
(2) Turns right into Dandenong Rd
Stops at:
(3) Grange Rd
(4) Wilmot St
(5) Darling Rd/Koornang Rd - Change for Carnegie Station
(6) Walnut St
(7) Belgrave Rd / Murrumbeena Rd
(8) Murrumbeena Primary School
(9) Chadstone Rd / Poath Rd
(10) Chadstone Shopping Centre
(11) Warrigal Rd
(12) Atkinson St
(13) Ferntree Gully Rd
(14) Cheel St/York Ave
Turn right into Huntingdale Rd
(15) Huntingdale Rd / Dandenong Rd
(16) Burlington St / Mortimer St
(17) Croft St
(18) Huntingdale Station
Turns left into North Rd
(19) Fenton St / Milgate St
(20) Lerina St
(21) Clayton Rd - Clayton North Primary School
(22) Princes Hwy
Enter Wellington Rd
(23) Monash University (Southern side)
(24) Blackburn Rd - Monash Synchotron
(25) Nantilla Rd
(26) Springvale Rd
(27) Wanda St - Freeway Reserve
Over the Monash Freeway
(28) Brandon Park Dr
(29) Jells Rd - Waverley Park
(30) Jacksons Rd
(31) Haverbrack Dr
Over Eastlink
(32) Corporate Ave / Jaydee Ct
Turn left into Stud Rd
(33) Stud Rd / Wellington Rd
(34) Turramurra Dr / Avalon Rd
(35) Possible Terminus: Rowville/Stud Park Shopping Centre

I was told that Huntingdale Rd has concrete down the middle from Dandenong Rd to the station, though considering that the section of Tooronga Rd which the tram was meant to be extended to, the concrete is visible, I'm considering that to be a tale.

Also I though the Monash Uni tram link idea had the 67 being extended to there & the 3 was to come with in walking distance of Chadstone while going to Holmesglen/Batesford Rd?

I would assume that the route taken would be the most obvious, Straight down Dandenong Rd (Princess Hwy) then a soft left into Wellington Rd, past Monash Uni, Waverley Pk, down the hill, over Eastlink, and left into Stud Rd with a Terminus at Stud Park Shopping Centre.

What would be even better, but highly unlikely, is if it were then extended further North to a terminus at Westfield Knox, where it could perhaps meet up with an extended Rt75.

And again, as I said earlier, do it properly. Grade seperation for the more significant crossroads, stops that aren't too close, longer version of the E class, traffic light priority for at grade crossings and high frequency.

Now that would be the ultimate.

I would assume that the route taken would be the most obvious, Straight down Dandenong Rd (Princess Hwy) then a soft left into Wellington Rd, past Monash Uni, Waverley Pk, down the hill, over Eastlink, and left into Stud Rd with a Terminus at Stud Park Shopping Centre.

What would be even better, but highly unlikely, is if it were then extended further North to a terminus at Westfield Knox, where it could perhaps meet up with an extended Rt75.

And again, as I said earlier, do it properly. Grade seperation for the more significant crossroads, stops that aren't too close, longer version of the E class, traffic light priority for at grade crossings and high frequency.

Now that would be the ultimate.

Dandenong Road (Princes Highway) between Burke Road and Wellington Road would most likely would need to be rebuilt, to match what Dandenong Road looks like between Chapel Street and Glenferrie Road, with a nice wide median strip (for the light rail tracks) the service roads on each side of the Highway would be consumed, no reduction of through traffic lanes (though If possible a 4th lane would be most welcome)  

Grade separation past Chadstone and Warrigal Road would be a must (one of Melbourne's major traffic red spots)