After TfNSW had offered 2107 to us, there was rumblings that some other
'tourist' operation was after one too. I suspect when they got the quote
for moving it by road they rather changed their minds.
Even if a 620 class DMU had to be road freighted, the two cars can
separated be put on a 'standard' length trailer.
The Variotrams had to be shipped whole (if you wanted it to work again)
as they were not designed for easy disassembly. It cost just short of
$60k to ship 2107 , the 2 containers of spares and the loose parts from
Penrith to Loftus.
It could have easily made $100k to ship one nearly the 800km to Byron Bay.
That would have blown quite a hole in their budget.
The Solar train is an accounting fiddle - it gets most of it's charge by
off peak power at night. They are net producer of electricity via export
to the grid during the day, so claim to be 100% solar powered. My boat
is 100% solar powered by that measure.
Pull the grid connection and they wouldn't so cocky. Although with the
price plummeting on grid scale batteries, it's probably almost viable to
pull that off - charge batteries, from batteries charged by solar..
On 24/4/19 9:20 pm, 'Richard Youl' via TramsDownUnder wrote:
> Here is a response to my Byron Bay solar train video.
>
> I had never heard that they were after one of Sydney’s Varios but I guess it must be true. I’ll see if I can find out more down at Byron before long. I have to get there soon for more video.
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
>