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Perth Metronet: FAL, TCL, MEL, Line Extensions & Grade Separations

627K views 4K replies 270 participants last post by  DresdenLine6 
#1 ·
There's been a bit of discussion in the Perth forums lately about making a thread here regarding Perth's urban transit. Alas, most of us are lazy, so I thought I'd give it a go. Transperth oversees the runnings of the public transit system, and unlike a lot of other capital cities, the entire system is publicly owned. Perth's ticketing is largely based around the SmartRider, which works on all forms of public transport. 170,500 people ride the train system alone every day.



At the moment, the rail system currently has 5 lines, all named after their respective destinations (Fremantle, Thornlie, Armadale, Clarkson and Midland). When the Mandurah line is finished, there will be 6 lines and the entire size of the network will have been doubled. Plans are also in the works to create a new line to the International Airport in the East of the city. Our Planning and Infrastructure minister wants the domestic and international terminals to merge (as the domestic terminal can't currently handle the amount of traffic it takes) and for the line to be constructed within 5 to 10 years. The options are to either build the line under the airport, have the line follow the airport boundaries before entering to the south, or connect it to a possible light rail system.





Construction of the Mandurah line involved:
* 81.5 route kilometres and 163 track kilometres of narrow gauge railway
* 2.8 million cubic metres of earthworks
* 252,000 concrete sleepers
* 15,200 tonnes of 50kg rail track
* 650 tonnes of 60kg rail track
* 22 kilometres of slab track
* 145,000 cubic metres of ballast
* 1,690 precast concrete masts
* 163,000 cubic metres of concrete with 22,300 tonnes of reinforcement
* 20 bridges and structures
* 15 stations
* 5,400 car bays
* 40 lifts
* 40 escalators
* 3 electrical feeder stations (25KV a.c power)

Needless to say, the MetroRail is a massive piece of infrastructure.
Here's a few pictures/spiel about it. Addition information can be found at
http://www.newmetrorail.wa.gov.au
A video regarding the entire project can be found at:
http://www.newmetrorail.wa.gov.au/NMR/video/Video_NMR_web.wmv (7min 42sec)

The new william st platforms:




The platforms are under this building, which has just started construction:
one40william.


There'll also be a connection to this building that's going up
Raine Sq.


With the completion of the underground station, new developments will begin on the train yards beside Perth Central.


It's all got to do with the whole TOD mindset, which the WA government has become a big fan of. They want to make the city easily accessible, and hide the rail lines with new, eco friendly, dynamic developments.

Esplanade Station is also underground, when it's completed, it will provide transport to the proposed foreshore development as well as the PCEC.


Renders of the Western Foreshore:








Latest Article:

Next step to Perth’s foreshore development


12/5/07

The State Government has committed $2million to advance the Mounts Bay development which will transform the Swan River foreshore into an entertainment and tourist hub.

Over the past three years, urban designers from the Department for Planning and Infrastructure have done extensive traffic modelling and urban planning to develop the proposal.

Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan announced the seed funding that would allow LandCorp to proceed with the next stages of the proposal including:

detailed geo-technical study on ground conditions;
developing the final plan through community consultation;
obtaining planning approvals; and
developing the business case for stages of the development.

“Mounts Bay has the potential to become one of the most significant tourism projects ever undertaken in Western Australia,” Ms MacTiernan said.

“This is a unique opportunity to work towards creating a vibrant new precinct on the under-utilised river foreshore and enhancing Perth’s image as a world-class capital city.

“We want to include a mixture of public spaces, hotels, apartments, offices, restaurants, cafes, bars and shops that would ensure Mounts Bay is a living, breathing place beyond city office hours and peak tourism periods.”

The Minister said the studies undertaken by LandCorp would include a detailed assessment of the site conditions to firm-up costs of the proposal prior to the 2008 State Budget discussions.

The first stage of the project would focus on the William Street corridor from Mounts Bay Road to the river and the waterfront between William Street and Barrack Square.

Perth Lord Mayor Dr Peter Nattrass said Mounts Bay had the potential to reconnect Perth with the Swan River foreshore.

“The importance of this site demands that the right balance is reached in developing along the river, while maintaining its natural beauty,” Dr Nattrass said.

Ms MacTiernan said broad community engagement on the design would commence during the planning process.

“The Government is delighted with the support already shown for this project by the City of Perth, business community, the tourism industry and the wider community since initial concepts were made public recently,” she said.
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/media/media.nsf
The government's also planning a light rail system for Perth, as it's desperately needed. The proposal's gaining momentum as it all fits in nicely with the government's 'Network City' plan, so I think we might just get it. At the moment our Mayor is in Canberra asking for the money to do it (along with all the other lord mayors who are also asking for money) -considering that Perth holds a lot of marginal seats, he really should cough up the cash.

I'll leave it to the other Perf forumers to carry on from what I've started...
 
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#126 ·
i find it wierd how none of these stations have overhead bridges or electronic shutting gates at grade pedestrian rail crossings. theres also no DDA compliance from any of these shots as well.
Well it appears that most if not all stations have high level platforms, but I agree, the older stations don't appear to have much in the way of accessibility for disabled passengers. Brisbane and Sydney on the other hand has a program to install lifts and new overbridges at the vast majority of stations, but the former is pretty slack when it comes to raising platforms to meet the doors.

whats the top speeds that the trains run at through the suburbs. do they hit 100kmh?
^^ Up to 130 km/h on the freeway lines.

Perth definitely has the most modern rail system of the lot. But the system has the advantage of not having many stations (only 59 vs over 150 on each of the east coast systems), and those stations are spaced way further apart than they are on the east coast. This means it's cheaper to upgrade stations and it allows for faster running speeds which in turn means fewer trains are required to provide a high level of service across the entire network.
 
#131 ·
yeah they all have electronic gates, but people have died as they get stuck. The last being a lady in a wheelchair, her carer couldn't get her unstuck, very sad :(

I think the trains through the suburbs on the older lines only make it to 80 or 90 if I am not mistaken, the stations are close together so they don't reach top speeds unless its during peak hours and they are running the stopping patterns.

However the clarkson and soon the mandurah line will run at 110km/h and 130km/h respectively. But the new lines have no level crossings at all.
 
#133 ·
I think the trains through the suburbs on the older lines only make it to 80 or 90 if I am not mistaken, the stations are close together so they don't reach top speeds unless its during peak hours and they are running the stopping patterns.

However the clarkson and soon the mandurah line will run at 110km/h and 130km/h respectively. But the new lines have no level crossings at all.
Thanks for the info bullswool.

The setup in Perth is very similar to Brisbane by the sounds of it.

Stations here are about 1 km apart on average in the suburban area. All stops trains reach 60-90 km/h between stations while express trains follow different speed limits in many places (diamond speedboards instead of circular ones for all-stoppers) which allow up to 100 km/h running within the suburban area. Outside the suburban area on the the interurban network, stations are up to 10 km apart so higher speed running is common (140 km/h on the Gold Coast line and after the upgrade is finished, 160 km/h on the North Coast line).

As for level crossings, Brisbane has lots of them too, but nowhere near as many as Melbourne. Except for the Cleveland and Doomben lines, you won't encounter a level crossing on the Citytrain system within 10 km of the city. There is 1 pedestrian level crossing on the Ferny Grove line at Windsor (about 5 km out of the city), however. All new lines are fully grade separated as well.

Trent
 
#136 ·
yeah it seems QLD and WA governments are investing heavily in PT, great to see
In Queensland the government is investing heavily in rail infrastructure, but not in rail services (that we know of anyway, the transport minister here has said a quarter hourly frequency on all lines is the ultimate aim). Even after the first phase of the rail upgrades are complete, we will have the track capacity to run very frequent services on all lines. Services during peak are already very frequent (every 5-15 minutes on the suburban lines), but outside peak they suck (10-15 minutes inner city and 30 minutes in the suburbs). This isn't because the system lacks the necessary infrastructure, but rather because we run 6 car trains on all lines throughout the off-peak period. If they ran 3 car sets and hired more drivers we would be able to maintain high frequency running throughout the whole day.
 
#142 ·
This isn't because the system lacks the necessary infrastructure, but rather because we run 6 car trains on all lines throughout the off-peak period. If they ran 3 car sets and hired more drivers we would be able to maintain high frequency running throughout the whole day.
There is very limited benefits from running 3 car sets off-peak - they still take up the same path, they require the same amount of staff as a six-car set would and there is the additional time/cost of uncoupling/re-coupling.

What it seems to me is that the excuse for running 6 car trains at half the frequency is that it provides the same capacity as running 3 car trains at double the frequency yet requires less staff and paths to operate.

There really is no reason to go to the effort of running only 3 cars in offpeak periods - just run six car sets anyway.
 
#137 ·
^^I am fairly sure they are looking at that in the nearish future, but see the hard infrastructure as being more important for the time being. To double the frequencies would also require a massive increase in staff which I think they are finding hard to do at the moment.
 
#156 ·
I think the next lines will be the extension to the Clarkson line, and then possibly Byford (not as much demand as the northern line) -the Thornlie spur line will easily be connected to cockburn central soon enough.

Then the airport line!
 
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