How do Prague and Sydney compare to Taipei’s rubber-tired metro line? It has pretty fierce acceleration and braking!

David

> On 4 Jun 2022, at 11:29 am, TP historyworks@...> wrote:

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> Have you ridden the Prague Metro Matthew? Sydney metro is relatively sedate in its acceleration and deceleration by comparison. And by "braking" I presume you mean dynamic braking, that is deceleration, not hitting the disk brakes which should not be necessary until right at the end, if at all. What wears out? The union. Yes, once the first line is open through to Bankstown and the West metro lines are also, Sydney will have a good core coverage of rail transit even throughout industrial disruptions, thus the public won't be brought to a complete standstill as they are now. It started off as a little joke at a time when there was relative industrial peace, "at least we'll still have trains running when there are strikes". Now, it's become a major core benefit of the metro and a political clincher that all future new lines will be metro.

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> Comfort. The trains are almost identical to the Perth trains. Both my better half and I find the metro (and any other single deck train) a better ride than the double deckers because it doesn't have that sickening lurching from side to side, as well as the whole train being at level and easier to get around. The at level space allocation has been dwindling in Sydney trains from model to model, about to hit a new low in the new interurbans. Noise? There is none of any significance in the trains and the fully enclosed underground stations are fabulous. When you're travelling longer distances, you don't want longer journey times. Comfort is related to the length of time you have to spend in the train. In any case, the double deckers aren't more comfortable. The seats have become harder and less supportive with each subsequent model.

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> Greg, unfortunately I deleted my copy of the NSW Auditor's train performance report which included comment on the metro, but it's there somewhere in their publications. Yes, they do get held to account and fined if performance is short of the KPIs, as no doubt do the light rail operators. I'd say the CAF trams situation is a little more complex and I'm wondering if there's an argument with CAF running behind the scene that's holding it up - along the lines that they should be returned to CAF. There will always be a long term structural issue with these and the Alstoms until the penny drops and they buy swivelling bogie trams.

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> Tony P