From Google Maps, the distance from the centre line of Flinders Street to the centre line of Latrobe Street is 929.58 m = 3049.80 ft. This distance includes half of Flinders and half of Latrobe, = one full street, and when you add in Collins, Bourke and Lonsdale Streets, you have included four full width streets. Now Hoddle laid the CBD out with one and a half chain streets - each 99 ft wide. Hence streets take up 396 ft. This leaves 2653.8 ft for the four blocks, thus each block is 663.45 ft. As there are 10 chains to 660 ft it is evident that within the limits of the measurement I was able to make, each block was designed by Hoddle as being exactly 10 chains.
It follows that the distance from main road to the centre of the 'Lane' is 330 ft, and taking out half the width of each lane (10 ft) there is a distance of 325 ft available. Out of this must be taken the width needed for the ramp up to the platform which I estimate at 20 ft (gradient 1:20 for 1 ft rise). This leaves 305 ft for any platform. 300 ft = 91.44 m. enough for TWO 45 m trams to be in the platform at the same time.
This still, unfortunately, means that traffic can cross the little streets to block the north south tram traffic, but it should be possible to adjust the traffic priority such that the little street traffic is held up whenever a tram needs to arrive or depart the tram stop.
I apologize for mixing up Surveyor's, Imperial and SI units, but that is what it is!
Regards
Dudley Horscrxoft
On 24/11/2020 6:33 pm, TP wrote:
> There are now very few quality new trams with swivelling bogies under 30 metres available from any manufacturers outside Czech Republic.
>
> Tony P
>
> On Tuesday, 24 November 2020 at 16:45:08 UTC+11 Mal Rowe wrote:
>
> On 24/11/2020 16:19, TP wrote:
> > Finally a breakthrough. They won't be accessible though unless they
> > have the platforms to go with them. The "another variety" of tram
> > worries me. As long as it's not less than 30 metres. 45 metres
> would
> > be good.
>
> There's another 50 E class available under the current contract
> options,
> so my guess is that will be taken up.
>
> The other 50 may well be more like a B in terms of capacity - the
> closely spaced route in the south east don't need big trams like the
> Es. Trams greater than 30m in length would be extremely
> problematic in
> the CBD - the blocks of the Hoddle grid are not big enough in the
> north-south streets to fit in the platform stops.
>
> The budget reports indicate that the trams will be built in
> Melbourne,
> so Dandenong (under its new Alston ownership) looks like being busy.
>
> I have attached part of a plan from a 1983 report by the (then new)
> Metropolitan Transit Authority which shows a new Airport West Depot.
>
> The plan was to sell off Essendon Depot and build anew. The biggest
> negative aspect of this proposal - identified in the proposal -
> was the
> amount of 'dead running' to serve the West Maribyrnong and Footscray
> routes. However, there's not really other options in the area.
>
> Kew, Malvern and Camberwell were also to be sold, however, those
> plans
> revolved around a new depot at Wantirna South and a greatly expanded
> South Melbourne depot (on the old site). Since that time, heritage
> issues have become much more prominent, so I doubt that these three
> depots will be closed.
>
> The only real heritage aspect of Essendon Depot is the 1906
> carbarn and
> that could be relatively easily re-purposed.
>
> Mal Rowe - close to the locus of change
>
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