RE: Sydenham to Bankstown redevelopment study: developers could add 25,000 more homes
  Dudley

According to Wikipaedia, the Millennial or A class trains can accelerate at 1.0 metre per
sec squared. Given that most modern trams have a top acceleration of 1.3 m/s2, this is
not far off tramway practice. I think there are few trains that can accelerate as well as
this.

The unlamented Hitachi trains in Melbourne looked good when I looked over them being
built. The bloke showing us around thought he was doing well when he said they can
accelerate at 1.2. I said "Metres per second squared?" He looked at me as if I were daft
and said, "No, feet per sec squared". Sluggish by my estimates compared to the Lindenwold
Line trains I had ridden on, which were probably up to 1.3 m/s2. Wikipaedia states for
the Lindenwold Line trains: "The frequent use of such high acceleration and deceleration
rates makes for a quick ride, yet one that can occasionally be perilous for non-seated
passengers." but does not unfortunately state what the high accelerations and deceleration
rates are! The bloke showing us around these trains said that when they came into service
originally, passengers tended to end up in the other end of the car if they were not
hanging on - they had never met a train that could accelerate like a car. They soon
learnt!

Regards

Dudley

-----Original Message-----
From:TramsDownUnder@... [mailto:TramsDownUnder@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 10 October 2017 10:21 PM
To:TramsDownUnder@...
Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder] Sydenham to Bankstown redevelopment study: developers could
add 25,000 more homes

Following earlier discussion here, I got all those national comparative suburban and
interurban journey times (the ones that showed NSW trains to be the slowest in Australia)
together and sent them off in a letter to the Minister. Unlike previous attempts where I
got the usual platitudinous response from a PR type, this one must have had enough meat in
it to get an input from engineering people and signed off by the Parliamentary Secretary.
Possibly they were stung by the extreme comparison with Perth. If so, it's a good thing
they're aware of it if they weren't before.

To cut a long story short, we're not going to get faster double deck operations any time
soon because there are far too many infrastructure issues to resolve quickly. The
interesting one for the interurban services is the large number of unprotected rural level
crossings which apparently "heavily determine" line speeds in order to maintain good sight
lines. There were other issues mentioned but this one seems to have the strongest bearing
on operating speeds. I know some of these level crossings. They're scary to drive across.

The other very pertinent point (in view of the performance claims made by double deck
advocates) is that they said that it was impossible to match the performance of those
single deck trains in other states because double deckers are disadvantaged on
acceleration, deceleration, braking and dwell times. I'm normally sceptical of anything
I'm told, but this aligns with my own previous conclusions. Double deckers are not cut out
for urban commuter work but are an unavoidable necessity for longer distance, high-volume
work where higher seating capacity is needed.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes out of Turnbull's offer of funding for
interurban rail infrastructure to improve journey times. What concerns me, as one example,
is that within five years there will likely be motorway all the way between Bomaderry and
St Peters. It will take about 1 hr 30 mins to 1 hr 45 to drive that compared to 2 hours 45
on the train.

Tony P

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