Sneering at Melbourne? To the contrary, it seems to be me who's defending
Melbourne and Roderick attacking them for not buying double deckers! No
amount of argument will change the directions now chosen in both cities and
I believe in the longer term they will prove to be the right directions.
Sydney will be using double deckers for many years on its suburban system
and once the Oscars are cascaded to suburban service, the older sets
withdrawn and signalling upgraded, the way will be open for better
performance from the double deck fleet. However, when the time comes for
further rolling stock replacement, I think that will progressively be
converted to single deck, but that will have to be done on a line by line
basis to avoid performance discrepancies in mixed fleets. Double decks will
remain in services where they perform best, on long-distance expresses. The
younger among you will be around to see if I'm right.

The Sydney metro NW line runs at an average speed of about 60 km/h, the
fastest of any all-stops services in Sydney (indeed faster than many
semi-express suburban services). Slightly faster than the Armadale line in
Perth, which is its nearest equivalent in station spacings, and not far
short of the Joondalup line (66 km/h) which has longer station spacings.
Sydneysiders appreciate the quicker journeys, they are fed up with long
hours spent travelling and, no, the trains don't come only 30 mins apart.

Tony P