First Flexity Tram Arrives at Victoria Square

[AG]

The first tram was unloaded at Victoria Square just after midnight this morning.

Pics:
















EDIT: Second arrival:
http://www.railpage.org.au/aetmsa/PN...2/PNV-7087.JPG

http://www.railpage.org.au/aetmsa/PN...2/PNV-7095.JPG

[AG]

Arrival of tram 101:

[BRISBANE]

will they paint that shopping~melbourne~friends~melbourne~crap~melbourne on the side.

[Perth4life3]

its in Adelaide

[AG]

AFAIK, these are the first new trams to Adelaide in 50 years, seeing that the majority of the network closed in the later 50s, and are also the first non-Australian built trams in Adelaide.

Some images by baytram366 of Australian Transport Discussion Board:




Look at those bogies!

[kota16]

I like these trams.

[theperthvan]

Cool.
Why new trams though if the "majority of the network closed in the later 50s"?
Is the network expanding?

[kota16]

Originally Posted by theperthvan

Cool.
Why new trams though if the "majority of the network closed in the later 50s"?
Is the network expanding?

The trams are updating a broken system in the central city area and will become another attraction for visitors to Adelaide and making it less boring.

[AG]

Originally Posted by theperthvan

Cool.
Why new trams though if the "majority of the network closed in the later 50s"?
Is the network expanding?

The network is beginning to expand again, but the first expansion is only a small one. The Premier has made it pretty clear he wants to extend the light rail network to the city and beyond, in several directions. Some of the new trams provided will serve the capacity for the extension, but most of them are replacing the oldest public transport vehicles still in revenue service in Australia, the H class.

[williampitt]

cool.
Go Adelaide ! (our mini Melbourne).

[Nick]

Go Adelaide!!!!! This is wonderful news!!!

[Mants]

whats happening to the old brown ones?

[MelbourneCity]

Theyre kinda ugly, thought overall good news Adelaide.
Welcome to the 21st Century TransAdelaide.
Now do something about your train system before it becomes irrelevant.

[Wilko]

Only if all out cities somehow started bringing back light rail/trams even to the outer suburbs to link suburban hubs, it will reduce the demand for peterol, ease traffic congestion and people would be more relaxed travelling to work not stressing about freeway gridlock which is becoming very bad on most of Melbourne's freeways. The media say it's reaching crisis point and yet they are still building more freeways in the west and greater east/south east burbs. So many enviornmental benefits too with lightrail. As they advertise here in Melbourne, Just 1 tram takes 300'000 cars off the road a year. A tram carries 140 commuters in peak, imagine 140 cars at an intersection?

Adelaide is ideally laid out to establish a vast tram/light rail network. It's great to see. I loved catching the tram from the City to Glenelg each time I visited.

[AG]

Originally Posted by Mants

whats happening to the old brown ones?

The majority of the H class have been sold off to private owners. One of the trams apparently sold for just $1 (tram 379 I think)! A few will continue to run special services once all the new Flexities are in revenue service.

[smeghead]

Originally Posted by Wilko

As they advertise here in Melbourne, Just 1 tram takes 300'000 cars off the road a year. A tram carries 140 commuters in peak, imagine 140 cars at an intersection?

Smeg's oft recycled transport modal capacity table - 26/11/05 Edition



Vehicle capacities
Tram = Melbourne Z-class http://www.railpage.org.au/tram/z.html
Light Rail = Yarra Trams/Alstom Citadis http://www.transport.alstom.com/hom...s/&docLink=7630
Bus = Sydney Buses Low Floor Median-ish, with Hornetfig's input http://www.sydneybuses.info/busfleet/
Articulated Bus = Sydney Buses Mercedes Artics (the old non-low-floor ones) http://www.sydneybuses.info/busfleet/
CityRail = Sydney CityRail Double Decker 8 car set - estimate - cant find official source.From James (also an SSC forumer).
Connex Melbourne = 2 coupled Siemens single decker sets - 3 cars each, 6 all up. http://www.vicsig.net/index.php?pag...aintype=Siemens
Freeway/Arterial = Adapted and Weighted based upon Transport and Population Data Centre's / DIPNR's Household Travel Survey 2002.

Headways/Vehicles per hour
Tram/LRV/Bus/Articulated bus, estimates - based on precedent.
Train - grapevine figure, with some precedent - Eastern Suburbs Railway is constantly quoted to be able to cater for 20 trains/hour once the BJ turnback is completed
Freeway = 'Ideal Saturated Flow Rate' Adapted (poorly some might argue) from Intersection Capacity Utilization 2000: A Procedure for Evaluating Signalized Intersections. David Husch. Trafficware Corporation.
Arterial = My own traffic simulations based on Trafficware's software.

[Jimmy James]

That's some good data - smeghead - oboviously Train is better than Tram and tram is better than road or bus.

I tend to think that trams/light rail would be perfect for cities like Canberra, Launceston, Hobart, Geelong, Gold Coast, Wollongong, Wagga, Albury - places that are small enough so that great distances aren't involved. For your big metropolises they need heavy rail because of the huge distances needed to travel.

[tayser]

Originally Posted by Jimmy James

That's some good data - smeghead - oboviously Train is better than Tram and tram is better than road or bus.

rephrase: train is better than all at long distance, bus and tram are better at feeding trains than cars.

[smeghead]

Based on my data alone (which is sketchy is just a guide) would suggest buses are the best. In theory are adaptable to any situation and have the highest theoretical capacity. Of course, thats before you consider operating costs, capital and construction, operation (maintenance and labour). Practically, you've got other considerations such as land availability, station design, dwell times, average speed, etc. Over a 30 year period, with all these costs worked out, cost per passenger per km tends to favour rail (light, metro and commuter rail all similar), and the worst is a bus on its own bus lanes with signal priority at 2-3 times the cost.

The motto, while the bus technically performs better, if you want to handle passengers in a practical manner and keep costs down in the longer term, its rail.

I agree with what Tayser's hierarchy seems to suggest - that Buses and Trams are on equal footing.

Buses feed into Heavy Rail - fine.

But On Street Trams are nothing more than a heavily patronised bus route - ie a tram is a bus on steel wheels. Light Rail isn't really worth the effort imo unless you make an effort at making it have similar properties to heavy rail. Ie, longer vehicles, fewer stops, higher speeds. Unfortunately, the lines between light and heavy rail tend to become very blurred. Alot of new metro systems in Asia (off the top of me noggin - Bangkok and Manila) are considered Light Rail, despite the subway-like construction and elevated railways. In LA, there's what's been termed 'medium rail' - a cross between light rail vehicle and full blown single-decker metro train, that runs on street as well as on dedicated right of ways.
Trams aren't what they're cracked up to be. That is, unless they're on steroids, otherwise they're just buses on rails.

PS. A substitute for the tram - trolleybuses?! They're still clean and the plus is they dont need rails!!

I'm getting way off topic - but to Adelaide - congratulations on your new trams. I may have a grudge against trams on an engineering level (if you'd call it that) but from a planning and environmental perspective, there's nothing like some new trams to stir people's interest in public transport. Its not about trams vs bus vs train - for the 1st half of this century its all modes of PT vs Cars.

[Jimmy James]

Originally Posted by tayser

rephrase: train is better than all at long distance, bus and tram are better at feeding trains than cars.

I'll actually debate you on that point with anecdotal evidence:

Currently I'm taking the old VLine rattler to work as I am for a short time back in the Melbourne CBD.

I have 3 choices for a station - North Geelong (20 mins drive High Price); Corio 8 minutes Drive, derelict station, not all trains stop there) or Lara (15 mins drive, well maintained, cheapest price - yep Geelong transport don't work on zones baby!)

I chose Lara because of it's amenity and the fact that more trains go there than Corio (so the chances of being stranded are lower) In order to do this (indeed in order to excersize any of those three choices) I have to drive to the station, there is no alternative. If there is a bus (I see one come thropugh occasionally) no effort has been made to advertise where the service runs to and from and even if an effort was made - my train journey - as it is - runs from 45 mins to an hour + an additional 15 minutes driving. that driving time would probably blow out to Half and hour on a bus and here's the kicker I would have to reconcile two schedules (which usually means leaving some dead time in between the two) at least with a car I can judge how long it's going to take to reach the train platform in time for the next service and allow myself sufficient time to make it. If I relied on a bus/train transfer too much of my day would be swallowed up with commuting.

I beleive that all outer suburban train stations should be equipped with ample parking to encourage as much patronage as possible. I also beleive that the parking lot should function as a defacto station entrance - meaning you pay for and validate your rail pass before going through - this would cut down a great many fare evasions.

If our state/city governments are serious about converting people to PT then they need to take steps like multistory parking to make it easier for people to use the system.

End of Rant!