Re: Re: New Manly ferry suffers catastrophic engine failure on Sydney Harbour
  Greg Sutherland

Responsible Minister :  Minister for Transport. This Minister(s).   As well as ferries this Minister is responsible for trams and electric trains as well as other bits and pieces.

Responsible Department:  Transport for NSW (TfNSW).  Enough said.

Responsible Operator:  Transdev, a favoured TfNSW provider of ferry services, trams and numerous bus services in Sydney.

There are plenty of erudite members of this group, not just in Australia, and a lot of lurkers who appreciate background information which they would not have available from their normal industry sources.

I have made no comment on the original article, rather I have posted it for general information.

I am sure Yarra Trams and PTV are following these developments closely.

Greg


On 7/02/2023 4:11 pm, TP wrote:
> Electric ferry then is it Greg?

>

> Before the inevitable comments - the engines are by Yanmar, a century-old and very experienced Japanese diesel engine manufacturer, as many satisfied boaties will confirm. Faults can occur on any product, but only if they're not manufactured in Australia do they provoke knee-jerk responses by NSW Labor politicians.

>

> Second, a general observation. The much-vaunted Australian-built Freshwaters were plagued by control system issues, resulting in failures, groundings and collisions, for some _twenty_ years before they were finally resolved. Just saying, because we're getting plenty of this "it wouldn't happen if they were built in Australia" at the moment. No matter where something complex is built, there's a likelihood of faults. A post from somebody on ATDB about a month ago:

>

> " There were a lot of control system issues that occurred for decades on the Freshwaters. /Collaroy /in particular is the problem child as it has a totally different control system design, which is the main reason it's being retired and /Queenscliff /was refit, because at least the latter is mostly identical to /Freshwater/. But they all had various issues with the integrated control systems.

>

> A couple of crashes happened in 2005 ( https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/fi ... -final.pdf https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/files/35617/IR-Collaroy%20March%202005-final.pdf , https://www.otsi.nsw.gov.au/sites/defau ... -final.pdf https://www.otsi.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/otsi_assets/documents/reports/IR-Narrabeen-final.pdf ) , which is perhaps what Collins was referring to in terms the 20-year timeframe from the mid-80's. I think Sydney Ferries and its suppliers at that time didn't have a full appreciation for the numerous failure modes the electronics could present, as well as the poor reliability of these compared to other marine components. Better training and procedures were needed as well, as indicated by the /Narrabeen /crash, which actually injured people (I don't think the Emeralds have caused any passenger injury?)

>

> I think the /Freshwater/-class are safe enough now, but as Collins said, it took way too long to sort this out. They were hardly perfect as a certain modern narrative seems to make out"

>

> This is without even mentioning the Australian-made Millenium trains or 86 class locos for example.

>

> Those new NGR trains to be built in Queensland will be costing some 100% more than if they were built overseas. They'd better be absolutely flawless, otherwise, no doubt, the SMH will be reporting every little hiccup for us [not].

>

> Tony P

>

> On Tuesday, 7 February 2023 at 15:27:45 UTC+11gregsut...@... wrote:

>

>

> https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/new-manly-ferry-suffers-catastrophic-engine-failure-on-sydney-harbour-20230207-p5cikt.html

>

>

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