A couple of things from PAEC’s (Public Accounts & Estimates Committee) Inquiry this week in State Parliament.
Trivial pursuits
The Opposition decided to make a big fuss about the new X’Trapolis 2.0 trains not being able to use the Metro tunnel, as if this was a huge problem due to poor planning.
It’s not. As I wrote back in June, Melbourne (like a lot of big city rail systems) has been moving for a while towards dedicated fleets on specific lines.
This includes the Metro Tunnel lines, which will run the new Evolution HCMT (High Capacity Metro Train) fleet. (It won’t run with “old trains” as Steve Price wrote in an ill-informed opinion piece in the Herald Sun last week.)
Two reasons for using specific trains using the Metro tunnel are the high-capacity (in-cab) signalling systems which are not fitted to other trains, and the Platform Screen Doors in the new stations, which need to align to train doors.
Could other trains be designed to be compatible with the PSDs? Perhaps, but it may not be straightforward. The HCMTs were deliberately designed as a 7 car set, with cars of slightly different lengths, to provide as much capacity as possible in a 160 metre long train. This was so they could fit in the City Loop ahead of the tunnel opening.
Designing trains for other lines to match that length would trigger lots of other changes such as platform extensions and signalling changes to make them fit.
It would likely be a lot of cost for not much benefit.
Longer term in a few decades when the HCMTs eventually need to be replaced, they’ll figure out a solution.
3AW interviewed the Opposition, and also got someone from the Metro Tunnel project to explain it. Cool.
But it didn’t stop a Sky “News” opinion/rant from noted rail expert conservative warrior Peta Credlin which managed to twist the Opposition’s claim further, implying that none of the trains are compatible – which really would be a problem if true.
Amazingly the accompanying web article also mangled the Opposition’s claim by reversing it, reporting that the Department said “five out of six trains will be able to be used in the new Metro Tunnel”. (They’ve since fixed that typo.)
This aside, for the Opposition to use PAEC and the media to pursue unimportant trivia like this is letting the State Government off the hook on things that actually matter, for instance:
- How many stations on the Sunbury to Cranbourne/Pakenham line will get the much-vaunted turn-up-and-go services when the tunnel opens?
- And how much of that will only be in the (increasingly less important) commuter peak?
- If the Metro Tunnel frees up capacity around the rest of the network, how many other lines will get TUAG services?
- Will they at least fix the 30-40 minute waits between trains seen on many lines at some times of the week?
- Will they look at retrofitting Platform Screen Doors to other stations, particularly those only served by HCMTs?
- What’s the deal with the Anzac Station/Domain Road tram line with platform stop that has no trams running on it? Will it ever get used?
And that’s just some Metro Tunnel-related points. There’s plenty of other issues with the broader public transport network they could be pursuing.
(The government is usually no better on how they spend their PAEC time of course, with government MPs regularly pitching softball questions to ministers and officials.)
Maps
I also noticed these maps presented by the Department of Transport and Planning at the hearing.
This one shows the rail network and planned activity centres:
Note the Fishermans Bend precinct. No rail, no tram. They really need to commit to Metro 2 to make this work.
I still think no stops and no development precincts between Cheltenham (Southland) and Clayton (7km as the crow flies) on SRL is a wasted opportunity.
And of course not all rail lines are equal, with service levels differing wildly. PTV had a plan to fix that a decade ago, but there’s been little action.
They also have a motorway version of the map!
It obviously excludes all the major non-freeway arterial roads, some of which carry huge amounts of traffic.
It also somewhat de-emphasises the enormous role of these roads for carrying single person cars. It’s not like they noticeably optimise any of the road network for freight. Too many cars get in the way.
But I should wait for the transcripts from the hearing; maybe they’re looking at ways of doing that.
Meeting our challenges
Bonus points for the inspirational heading, very similar to the 2006 plan “Meeting Our Transport Challenges” – which did deliver some worthwhile bus upgrades… but was also just before surging rail patronage and crowding and reliability failures completely overtook authorities, and probably led directly to Labor losing the 2010 election. (So that plan arguably didn’t meet transport challenges.)
In 2024, there’s plenty of important issues the Opposition could question the government on. It’s a shame instead they aim only for cheap headlines.
10 replies on “Wasting time in PAEC”
I suppose you can never preclude mis-routing from the pudding.
How would that be addressed I wonder?
@Graeme, misrouting is highly unlikely I would think.
From both directions (SE and west), no other tracks have connections into the Metro tunnel. There aren’t even any crossovers from other suburban lines to get onto the tracks that lead to the tunnel.
Oh Lord, I just discovered that the VLocity trains cannot run in the Metro Tunnel due to incompetence from Labor.
Seriously, I agree that we need to sectorise the network like many networks around the world, and that requires specific trains to run on specific lines (in the post-privatisation era, the Xtrapolis 100s ran on the Hillside Trains half while the Siemens Nexas ran on the Bayside Trains half) and that we will see the Xtrapolis 100 on the Clifton Hill and Burley Groups, the Siemens Nexas on the Cross-City lines, the Xtrapolis 2.0 on the Northern and Caulfield Groups and the High Capacity Metro Trains on the Metro Tunnel lines. This will be no different to what the Coalition planned for when they were in government last (sectorising the network and have different trains on different lines).
And in regards to Sky News as well as the Herald Sun (which, if you listen to “On the Blower” on 3RRR, Tony Biggs often refers to the Herald Sun as the “remedial paper”), I just take it with a grain of salt as everyone knows that the Murdoch press does not report the truth about anything, or blows everything out of proportion, especially in regards to projects from the Victorian Government (the Suburban Rail Loop is always under scrutiny from the Murdoch Press, but not the North East Link apparently, with the latter being more expensive than the former).
The idea of being able to quickly reconfigure the platform screen doors to work with different trains might sound appealing, until you consider:
1. Once you did it, you’d have to immediately change all the trains to the different ones, because the old ones would now have their doors in the wrong places for the new openings. In no universe is it possible to get 80 new trainsets delivered all at once overnight, and even if you could there’s nowhere on Melbourne’s network to store the old trains.
2. Trains last about 50 years. By that time the motors, runners and so on of the platform screen doors would probably be clapped out, possibly several times over. And maybe by then someone will have produced a more flexible platform screen door system (new stronger materials that can be slid in narrow panels come to mind).
It’s just good engineering to make this tradeoff that trains must match doors.
Sounds like the opposition won’t be doing much for PT when/if in power…. as usual
So many political agendas, as I noticed on a ridiculous uninformed ranter on a Twitter thread the week past.
I’ve seen plenty of workers ‘leaning on shovels’ during the construction of my local Metro station, just as I see on private building projects. The Metro tunnel has been a huge project but how many workers have been killed? None. That is a huge success for health and safety work place rules. Yes that costs, but what price a life?
Indeed there is plenty the Opposition could question the Government about, but I’ve yet to hear anything positive about public transport from the Opposition. It is strange how the the leader of the Opposition used to seem such a reasonable person when being a media guest before he was in that position, but now just carps on and on.
The state opposition has a dual policy on public transport. 1. Close it down or 2. Sell it off. Neither is in the best interests of the travelling public.
Of course a Vlocity could be misrouted.
From west that would start at the down end of Sunshine, so some serious explaination from inattentive driver there.
From SE maybe, being on wrong track for 1/2 km.
Either way, smoke in the tunnel is a nuisance that the screen doors can mitigate.
Running a Comeng “special” might confuse the fat controller, but just last week a Comeng test train was in the tunnel. So it is possible & planned for.
Matching screen doors to train was a long term planning decision. Variable position door systems do exist, but obviusly more expensive, and why bother?
Re Anzac station – no trains yet but the 604 and 605 buses are now apparently using it. See –
https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/footer/about-ptv/improvements-and-projects/bus-and-coach/anzac-station-bus-changes/
Having now read the full hearing transcript, I think those Opposition MPs present in the hearing and those talking about it afterwards are doing Opposition things – trying to get attention and score political points.
I still find it disappointing. Nick McGowan for instance latches onto the awful 40 minute train timetables on half the Metro network on Sunday mornings, but then completely fails to pursue it to try and get an actual answer.
I’d hope they’ll come up with some good policies approaching the 2026 election (and if they win government). Remember, the 2010-14 Baillieu/Napthine government was the one that introduced most of the 10 minute train frequencies, as well as the 601 bus. So it’s incorrect to say the Vic Coalition doesn’t care about PT or do anything for it when in power. Both sides can do good.