Sydney and Melbourne trains.
  Richard Youl

Daniel’s interesting paper has prompted me to edit a video taken last February in Parliament station for comparing with Wynyard Dwell and Headways during PM peak hours.

In the past there has been lots of postulations, theories, and all sorts of other comments about how double-decker trains are so uselessly slow with their boarding but this pair of videos shows that there is practically nothing in it.

Note also that nearly all the Melbourne trains have three doors per carriage per side which doesn’t seem to help much speed the loading. Apart from the problems caused by the late Wynyard train, there’s not much difference in the headways either.

So the bigger trains with more seats must be clearing a greater number of people from the stations, generally without adding much to the dwell times or headways at all and providing a seated ride for a much higher percentage of the riders.

I left Parliament about 5:30 pm and it seemed by this time the peak hour had just about fizzled out while in Sydney at that hour things were still reasonably busy.

I chose this platform at Parliament as the final underground stop before heading to Richmond, not unlike Wynyard heading for the North Shore.

The Parliament Dwell and Headway times are below, starting about 5:05pm.

43 secs. -
50 secs. 3:00
44 secs. 3:00
38 secs. 3:05
30 secs. 2:30
48 secs. 3:48
36 secs. 3:00
31 secs. 2:33

Averages. 40 secs. 3:00

Wynyard. Dwell. Headway Starting from 8 minutes into the video.

37 secs
45 secs
45 secs
39 secs. 3:13

65 secs
After a gap in the service of about 8 minutes, right at the busiest time of the peak,
1’ 45 secs. 3:55
63 secs 2:48
46 secs. 2:20
46 secs. 2:32

So you can see that many of the Wynyard trains dwell for 45 seconds, which is quite comparable with the 40 seconds average in Melbourne. It’s a pity that the late train disrupted the dwell times for the next few trains behind it.

Parliament Station
https://youtu.be/mg6CDzbPQYE

Wynyard Signals & Headways
https://youtu.be/-9p_izlNrTs

Regards,