On 23/5/24 09:20, Greg Sutherland wrote:
> ABC radio 702 is reporting no trams operating between Town Hall and

> Circular Quay due to power supply problems.

>

> Looks like another problem on the APS wireless electricity supply

> system.  We, the taxpayers, paid a lot of dollars for the APS which,

> just iike overseas is proving to be unreliable and high maintenance cost.

>

>

Apparently their last multi-day APS outage took so long to rectify as
they found a length had been installed incorrectly - the two track
feeders crossed at one point and things were interconnected that
shouldn't have been. As the techs were assuming it had been installed as
per the drawings the actual fault took ages to locate and rectify!

At any given time there is one or more dead APS segments with blown
power-boxes,  momentum and traction batteries tide them over these small
breaks, but if a fault causes the sub to trip taking out all segments!.

The APS is also only fed from a single substation. Alstom apparently did
want two for redundancy but the project couldn't find/afford a 2nd
substation location. On the rest of the line I've heard a story that the
Moore Park sub often trips, but the system reconfigures to feed from
either side when that happens. The line voltage sags, but there is still
enough power to continue service.