Re: Sydney's New "A" sets
  Jones, Richard


Hi Matthew

Spot on with the Millennium sets on Sector 1.

Campbelltown crews were sent by taxi to Waterfall.

This also happened with Flemington, as Liverpool crews had to go there by taxi.

With travelling time and preparation time, by the time the trains turned a wheel, the crews were due for crib and had to be relieved at Lidcombe.

The M sets continue to be based at Eveleigh and it is easiest to access Sector 2.

Mortdale was to become all Tangara last October until ITSR stepped in an demanded that more T sets were to be used on Sector 3. It beats me what that had to do with ITSR but it worked.

Sector 2 still has nine eight car Tangaras provided by Mortdale, so eventually, these will go back to Sector 1 operation, where ten S set rosters still exist. The deficit will be made up using Hornsby Tangaras transferred to Mortdale.

There was some thought given to transferring some K sets from Hornsby to Flemington to release Tangaras to go to Mortdale.

This will possibly happen in due course, unless the Tangaras on sector 2 are replaced by A sets. Anything can happen and often does.

Regards

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Geier [mailto:matthew@acfr.usyd.edu.au]
Sent: Thursday, 14 April 2011 10:18 AM
To:TramsDownUnder@...

Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder] Re: Sydney's New "A" sets

On 14/04/11 09:30, Jones, Richard wrote:
>

>

> Not all crews are qualified for Millennium sets, by the way, due to

> crewing sectorisation, which creates immense problems.


And has been the case since the beginning it appears. Sector 1 drivers were never trained on them, so when a Millennium set was rostered into Sector 1 to 'show off' apparently the crews to work it used to come over by taxi from Campbelltown.

> In case there is any suspicion of favouritism for Sector 2, because I

> live on that sector, there is a contractual obligation regarding the

> Airport line where CityRail is supposed to operate a large percentage

> of the newest trains on that line. The rosters earmarked for "A" sets

> are currently being operated with "S" sets, so we are probably only

> just meeting our obligation. The number of Tangara trains on Sector 2

> was reduced from 20 to 9 eight car sets when the Millennium trains

> were introduced and the 11 sets were dispersed to Sectors 1 and 3.


Sector 1 (Mortdale) seems to never get any new stuff any more. Payback for being the first double deck only line I suppose.

I seem to recall the official excuse for no M sets on Sector 1 was that the power supply on the Cronulla branch wasn't strong enough, but that excuse must be wearing a bit thin after all the $$$$ spent down in the Shire duplicating the branch line to Cronulla. One would hope the put appropriate extra power in while they were at it.

Soon Mortdale might get the distinction of being an all Tangara depot.

>

> The destination display on A1, as I recall, was "Have a nice visit to

> Sydney" but that was deleted when it was brought to the attention of

> senior RailCorp management.

>

Like typical 'management', no sense of humour :-)