Re: Sydney Metro - Observations of an 80 year old.
Matthew Geier
Monday, August 26, 2024 11:27 PM
On 27/8/24 01:50, Michael Lewis wrote:
They had to spread out the speed code steps to cater for the higher top speed. This appears to have messed up the braking profile. Also I don't think their choice of vendor for load cells to measure train weight was good - the trains appear to have trouble adjusting to changing weight of their load. This is old mature tech, they shouldn't missing their braking targets at all.
Siemens got the O&M for Metro West and the airport. My experience riding other GoA4 lines is the Siemens/Invensys system has a much better auto-driver.
The trouble with the human drivers, is not all take pride in their train handling skills. A driver who cares about their craft will beat automation every time, but there are not enough of them to operate a network.
One of the public reason Singapore went to GoA4 wasn't to save money on train drivers, it was because they had trouble 'recruiting train operators of the calibre they expected'. The job offered just wasn't attracting the kind of people they wanted.
. One more note, the automatic trains stop with a jolt. The Tangara I caught at Martin Place, straight after - a nice connection - had a driver who made a perfectly smooth stop. --The ATO selected by TfNSW from Alstom is not the best example of the state of the art in GoA4 automation. I assume TfNSW specified 'tried and proven' system, so we got something older. Only they they then also specified 100km/hr top speed instead of the usual 80km/hr and messed up all the implied heuristics the system collected over the years in service on other railways.
They had to spread out the speed code steps to cater for the higher top speed. This appears to have messed up the braking profile. Also I don't think their choice of vendor for load cells to measure train weight was good - the trains appear to have trouble adjusting to changing weight of their load. This is old mature tech, they shouldn't missing their braking targets at all.
Siemens got the O&M for Metro West and the airport. My experience riding other GoA4 lines is the Siemens/Invensys system has a much better auto-driver.
The trouble with the human drivers, is not all take pride in their train handling skills. A driver who cares about their craft will beat automation every time, but there are not enough of them to operate a network.
One of the public reason Singapore went to GoA4 wasn't to save money on train drivers, it was because they had trouble 'recruiting train operators of the calibre they expected'. The job offered just wasn't attracting the kind of people they wanted.