I’ve seen short working to Lewisham West, on one occasion when the terminus points at Dulwich Hill had failed, but for unknown reasons at other times.
With the standard of timekeeping and frequency discipline I don’t see how interference with through cars would make much of a difference at any of the potential short working points (John St Pyrmont, Wentworth Park, Lilyfield, Lewisham West), and at Lilyfield the stabling siding could be used to reverse cars clear of the Up line. With current loadings (the tram I caught home on Friday at 2.40 or thereabouts from Haymarket was packed tight, and still with standees when I got off at Taverners Hill) shortage of rolling stock is the big problem, and I think short workings to Lilyfield or Lewisham West would be a way of relieving overcrowding by separating short and long distance passengers.
When I grew up in Drummoyne a lot of peak hour bus services were first set downs at various points along Victoria Rd, with Westbourne St Drummoyne (the traffic lights just before the Gladesville bridge) the most common first set down point. That would possibly be hard to enforce without conductors though on the trams.
As for a balloon loop at Dulwich Hill, alienating any parkland to build it would raise a lot of ire in the community, which is feeling very under siege with the metro being imposed on the Bankstown line - a community group called the Corridor Alliance has been formed to oppose it and it is growing rapidly. Along with the Westconnex atrocity the metro proposal among those it impacts on is as popular as leprosy, despite the reams of propaganda and PR bullshit being pumped into the area by the state government.
Tony G
> On 26 Mar 2017, at 6:49 am,prescottt@... [TramsDownUnder] TramsDownUnder@...> wrote:
>
> A while ago I spoke to the author of the IWLR timetable, whom I know (and that person is not to blame for anything as it's under strict direction of TfNSW!). They told me that it was not possible to short-work some trams to Lilyfield because the time and conflict of shunting trams there means it would interfere with trams running further to Dulwich Hill.
>
>
> As for Watsons Bay line, I did post a Keenan photo some time ago of three trams banked up while another reversed at Double Bay! I think the shunted short-workings on the Watsons Bay line were not a matter of much choice due to land-space restrictions. At Kings Cross (for a while) and Rose Bay, the trams were able to reverse on a separate siding off the main line, but Double Bay was just a plain nuisance that couldn't be rectified.
>
> I prefer the double track on a single platform solution at Dulwich Hill over a balloon loop Dudley (at least as an immediate soluti on), because on the loop you need to get the trams to a point on the second half of the loop (as at Central) so that there's room to stack trams behind. The only way you can get really close to the railway station at Dulwich Hill and maximise passenger convenience is with a stub. If with the new metro they can do an entrance at the western end of the station, that would completely change the parameters of course.
>
> Tony P
>
> ---InTramsDownUnder@... mailto:TramsDownUnder@yahoogroups.com, <noelreed10@...> wrote :
>
> On Saturday, 25 March 2017 5:42 PM,
>
>
>
> Does everyone travelling by tram on the IWLR need to go all the way to Dulwich Hill ?
>
>
> The original Sydney tramways had many short workings so that only a proportion of the trams leaving the city went all the way to the end of the tram route. Are there regular short workings on the IWLR ?
>
>
> As an example, the Watsons Bay line had regular short workings to Kings Cross, Double Bay, Dover Road [Rose Bay] and Vaucluse with several others for occasional use.
>
> Noel Reed.
>
>
>