On 11/5/22 08:26, David McLoughlin wrote:
> Alex Cowie wrote:

>

> > but when was the rail laid?  When did the Astholms start running? 

> What was the state of the before then?

>

> The line opened in August 1997. Since then it's had one generation of

> Variotrams, then a temporary generation of CAFs, then the latest

> generation of CAFS, and the Citadises for about two months. There are

> half a dozen or so new CAFs coming for the line as well.

>

There was a civil stuff up with the curve - the vertical and horizontal
curves are co-incident. They are supposed to be separated by 20-25m.
This is commented in the  book 'A History of Comeng' in the Variotram
chapter.

The articulation joints on the Variotram were altered to give more
'twist' than the original design as fixing the track at that point was
out of the question.

The original Sydney electric trams ran the other way through the loop at
central, but doing that now would have involved the tracks crossing each
other at Pitt and Hay.

Multi-artic trams with 'stock' articulations have to take up that twist
in their suspension as they round the curve. It's said that the Urbos 3
noticeably lifted their centre module as they negotiated the curve.

When the Adelaide extensions were being designed, I gather making the
King William / North Terrace could not be a full 'grand union' to allow
full flexibility of tram routing as the Citadis wouldn't be able to take
some of the resulting curves.

I can see CAF trying to argue it's not their fault the trams broke and
TfNSW has to pay to fix em, as they supplied what TfNSW asked for and
it's TfNSW's fault if the vehicals and the infrastructure are not
compatible. The counter is they knowing supplied trams not fit for the
infrastructure as the issues with the curves are public knowledge and
documented in a published work. I can see some lawyers doing quite well
out of this, while the NSW taxpayer hands over $$$$.