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Sent: Monday, 10 June 2019, 20:17
Subject: Sun.26.5.19 daily digest

 
Roderick

190526Su Melbourne 'Age':- post- election infrastructure.
Missed yesterday: <citycollection.melbourne.vic.gov.au/billo-the-bunyip-float>
Sun.26.5.19 Metro Twitter.
Werribee line: All trains will run direct to/from Flinders St (tunnel work)..
Sunbury line: Buses replace trains North Melbourne - Sunshine until the last train tonight (tunnel work).
Buses replace trains Mordialloc - Frankston until the last train tonight (level-crossing removal work).
Buses replace trains South Yarra/Caulfield - Sandringham until last service tonight (tunnel work).
11.31 Epping: No lift access until further notice (an equipment fault).  Passengers requiring lift access alight at Thomastown and speak to station staff for alternative transport.
- 13.05 Lift access has been restored.
12.12 Frankston line: Minor delays clearing after an external power supply interruption. [premature promise].
- Oh no! Another delay.  I'm beginning to lose my trust in Metro reliability.
- 12.24 Minor delays (an external power supply interruption affecting signalling equipment).  Trains will depart from altered platforms Caulfield - Moorabbin.
- 12.48 Trains may terminate/originate from intermediate stations to alleviate congestion. [ie we can't cope].
- 13.23 Trains are still departing from altered platforms.
13.13 Altona: Minor delays (police attending to a trespasser near Seaholme).. Trains may run direct Newport - Laverton.
- 13.22 Clearing.
21.31 Buses to replace Altona trains Newport - Laverton (equipment faults). Buses have been ordered but may take over 60 minutes arrive.  Consider alternative transport [if you can find any]. Trains continue Newport - Laverton direct.
- 21.37 One bus has been dispatched to Laverton and another to Newport, but may take over 60 min to arrive.
- 22.29 One bus is in operation with one more enroute. Extended journey time of ~30 minutes.
- 23.00 Two buses are in operation.
- 23.59 Anticipate bustitution until the last train tonight.
- Just what we wanted to hear on a cold wet Sunday night. What a shocking service!  Out come the buses again.
23.02 Sunbury/Craigieburn/Upfield/Werribee lines: Minor delays (a trespasser near North Melbourne).
- 23.19: Now major, but clearing.
Thousands pour through gates to ride Sydney's first driverless trains May 26, 2019. 112 comments
Sydneysiders have turned out in the tens of thousands to ride the city's first metro train line, leading to huge crowds at stations and longer than expected trips for some on a historic day.
NEWS: opening of Sydney's first metro line - Northwest Metro. Daniel Sarina, 7 and father Tod from Windsor Downs in Sydney's northwest. This is Daniel's first train ride. 26th May 2019. Photo: Edwina Pickles.
In the first six hours after gates opened, 90,000 people rode on the new 36-kilometre Metro Northwest line from Chatswood to Rouse Hill in the north west on Sunday. On the opening day, the driverless trains were running to a weekend timetable of a service every 10 minutes.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Transport Minister Andrew Constance cut the ribbon on Sydney's Metro Northwest line with the help of children. Credit: Edwina Pickles
While the new line was under pressure from a sea of people, the significance of the day was not lost on many – young and old. The moment was perhaps best summed up by 10-year-old Ryan Gates, who queued with his mum Sonya for several hours to ride on the driverless trains.
"It’s super cool," said the young train spotter from Como in Sydney’s south.
More than an hour earlier, Premier Gladys Berejiklian officially opened the line at Tallawong Station at Rouse Hill in Sydney's north west, describing it as a "taste of things to come".
"I am incredibly proud that we denied all of the cynics the opportunity to say it would never happen,” Ms Berejiklian said. "I don’t blame people for being cynical in those early days because this project had been promised for decades."
Passengers board the metro train at Tallawong Station on Sunday.  Credit: Edwina Pickles
While signalling a change to the way Sydneysiders travel on public transport, the journeys proved to be unexpectedly long for some in the early afternoon. A train stopped at Macquarie Park for up to 20 minutes after a door failed to align correctly. The train was taken out of service but not before it caused flow on delays to other trains for a period.
The single-deck metro trains will run every five minutes on weekdays for the first six weeks, and then every four minutes thereafter. But Ms Berejiklian said it could eventually be increased to a service every two minutes if the demand required.
"The potential for this service to grow into the future is what I love about it. We are really building this for the next century," she said.
Transport secretary Rodd Staples said the metro line would be an "absolute game changer" for the city. “You have to go back to the 1920s and 1930s to find as big a change; as big an injection into public transport in this city," he said.
Hundreds of people line up at Chatswood to ride on the first driverless trains.Credit:Edwina Pickles
The Northwest line is the first stage of the Berejiklian government's plans for multiple metro train lines in Sydney. The second stage under construction comprises a line from Chatswood, under Sydney Harbour to the CBD and onto Sydenham and Bankstown, which is scheduled to be opened by 2024.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the metro lines would help alleviate pressure on the existing rail system, which has been straining under record growth in patronage.
“Life is about to change for so many,” he said.
Among those riding the first trains was Tod Sarina, from Windsor Downs. "It is desperately needed. The [road] congestion out this way is ridiculous and this should ease it a bit," he said.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance and Premier Gladys Berejiklian ride the first regular metro service on Sunday.Credit:Edwina Pickles
While travel on Sunday was free, fares from Monday are the same as those for the existing rail network, which are based on the distance travelled. The journey time for commuters travelling the 36km from one end to the other is about 37 minutes.
The first major test of the new rail line, and its integration into Sydney's broader train network, will occur during the morning peak on Monday.
Sydney Trains chief executive Howard Collins said the rail operator was ready for the integration of the metro services, especially at Chatswood station where the pressure would be greatest.
“We will have some early challenges but this is really exciting,” he said. “This is the future of technology and how we will move people around Sydney.”
Tod Sarina and son Daniel, 7, from Windsor Downs, on a metro train.Credit:Edwina Pickles
Operated by Hong Kong's MTR, the metro line comprises twin 15-kilometre tunnels, a 4.5km viaduct and a 270-metre cable bridge over busy Windsor Road at Rouse Hill.Outside peak periods, the metro trains will run at 10-minute intervals.
11 Images The first trips on Sydney's first metro line
<www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/thousands-pour-through-gates-to-ride-sydney-s-first-driverless-trains-20190522-p51q52.html>
Sydney commuters to hop aboard high-tech railway future May 26, 2019. 13 comments
Forty years after a ribbon was cut on Sydney's last major railway, thousands of passengers will flood through station gates today to ride on a new rail line set to change travel habits dramatically for people long starved of public transport options in the city's north-west.
While double-deck trains began running on the Eastern Suburbs line on June 23, 1979,  single-deck trains controlled by a giant computer, instead of people, will speed at up to 100km/h along the Metro North West line from Rouse Hill to Chatswood.
Metro trains operations manager Cory Roeton at the nerve centre of the Metro North West line at Rouse Hill.Credit:Wolter Peeters
The most striking feature of the trains is that they are driverless, allowing passengers to peer out of windows at the front and back onto the tracks. At stations, glass screen doors on platforms help prevent injury, while help points allow commuters to talk to staff via video screens.
In all, a journey from one end of the 36 kilometre line to the other takes about 37 minutes. Most of the stations are about two kilometres apart, except for the six kilometres between North Ryde and Chatswood.
The high-tech nature of the line represents a step change for the city's public transport.
As passengers pile aboard today, network manager Cory Roeton will keep close watch with controllers over the line from a nerve centre at an enormous stabling yard at Rouse Hill. An array of CCTV cameras cover the inside of trains and stations.
A single-deck metro train speeds along the line from Rouse Hill.Credit:Wolter Peeters
"The heartbeat of the the railway is the [operations control centre]. Everything that goes on outside comes through this control centre," he said.
In a room next to the control centre sits a giant computer that controls the line and the trains which, for the first six weeks, will run every five minutes during peak periods. A back-up computer at a nearby site is ready to take over in the event of the main computer failing.
Mr Roeton said the computer system operates off-line, removing the chance of a cyber attack.
"It's not connected to anything else so you cannot penetrate the network. You cannot sit there and hack in and take control of the trains," he said.
Norwest Station on the 36-kilometre metro line is ready to open to passengers.Credit:Wolter Peeters
"As the train runs, the [computer] is constantly working algorithms, calculations to define how the network is operating," he said. "It is just constant calculation."
The highly automated system contrasts with Sydney's existing suburban rail system, which requires drivers to carry out preparation work and checks before the trains begin services each day.
Transport Secretary Rodd Staples, the architect of Sydney's metro rail, said he understood some people's concerns about automation but cited the millions who travel on systems, such as the Metro North West, around the world "very, very safely today".
"It is absolutely safer than any railway we have ever had in Australia. There are so many fail-safe mechanisms within the computer system," he said.
Transport Secretary Rodd Staples in the operations control centre for the metro line at Rouse Hill.Credit:Wolter Peeters
"We are not the first to try this and, in fact, all of the statistics show these have the lowest amounts of safety incidents. Compared to everything else, this is absolutely the best."
The North West line is, from a technology perspective, most similar to Hong Kong's South Island line, albeit the next generation of the systems used on it.
"We have tended to look at proven technologies and have confidence in the safety because we want it to work really, really well. It gives us confidence that the operator has used the technology in Hong Kong themselves," Mr Staples said.
The line is Sydney's first privately operated line, run by Hong Kong's MTR.
Travel on the new line is free for the public today when the gates open about 11am. The last metro train will leave Chatswood at 10.05pm and, from the other end of the line, from Tallawong Station at Rouse Hill at 9.35pm.
<www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-commuters-to-hop-aboard-high-tech-railway-future-20190524-p51qpg.html>