Tasmania Passenger services

RTT_Rules · Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:41 pm

benscaro · Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:09 pm

Oh, I am sure there are occasional letters and minor articles to The Mercury on this topic. This has been the case since at least 1979, when I first started paying attention to the issue as a ten year old boy.

It's usually a transport union representative (or someone else who wouldn't have to spend time or money dealing with the consequences of such a proposal) mouthing some well meaning blather along these lines.

It's just a bit of puffery for annual union conferences, with no serious expectation of action.

Arguments for the return of passenger trains in Tasmania tend to fall flat on their faces once the opening 'It would be nice if . . .' flourish is made. As I've opined before, they are of about the calibre of saying 'It would be nice if we had world peace and poo didn't smell . . .' and once the inevitable answer of 'Well, we don't. And it does.' comes back, with accompanying evidence of *why* that is, there isn't anything much for the pro- side to say. And the issue dies down until next year.

The evidence was prohibitively against any return of service in 1978, and it remains so in 2008.

Tasmania would have to undergo a dramatic rise in population, and fuel costs spiral out of the reach of most, for any other answer to be worth consideration.

If you want to be brutal about it, the fact that any rail passenger service survived in Tasmania within living memory (for most of us) was surprising. If you read the various government reports, this is clear.

Tasmania's passenger services were under threat once the state climbed out of the Great Depression, when car ownership started to rise and decent bus services (often state-run) spread through the state. It was only WW2 and the accompanying fuel shortages that gave rail a temporary reprieve. It was this that made wartime DP services on the DV line viable, for example.

However, as postwar restrictions evaporated in the late 40s and early 50s, the disastrous nature of the situation became apparent.

TGR cut a swathe of services through the early 1950s, including the aforementioned DV services.

In 1957, the basis of the TGR's last timetable, ie, a limited Hobart suburban service built around workers trains to a few large factories and a bare minimum of local trains to towns on the Derwent estuary, a couple of survivors from the massive cuts - the D'port - Burnie workers and evening mainline services, and a once a day flagship train from the south to the main towns in the north /northwest, was set in stone.

Even this minor outlay, retained largely for political reasons, was found extravagant by the 1970s. New carriages, the OPEC oil price hikes of 1973, none of it mattered a wit. The withdrawl of suburban trains - little more than a year after the start of the OPEC crisis ! - showed that whatever the transport challenges facing Tasmanians were, heavy rail wasn't the answer to any of them.

Ben

President, Bring Back Rail to Yinkanie Committee

Hmmm . . . why isn't there an emoticon for schadenfreude ?

1447: The Year China Put a Knight Templar on Mars.

RTT_Rules · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:57 pm

Hi Ben/all,
The issue was probably more linked to % car ownership, quality of roads and the sectional running times of the various pax trains which barely changed. Even in the late 60's and 70's I'm sure it took little more than 3hr Hobart to L'ton by road, rail >5hr. Despite all the other factors rail is not going to stand a chance when road is < half the time. Certainly the people I knew in Tassie who often travelled from nth to NW coast by train in the 70's strongest memories are about how slow and long the train trip was. Not cost, frequency or any other reason.

The 60's and 70's was not favourable for rail, both heavy and tram just about anywhere in the world. Car was king, the people wanted it and so did the govt. Road transport also had the advantage of being less unionistic and more reliable during thsi period.

Ignoring the suburban network, should or could have the Tas Ltd survived into the 21st century. Yes and there are plenty of examples of similar populations and distances doing so. But there are also plenty of like slow services over simply distances and populations (even better) also failing. ie Toowoomba - Brisbane, Brisbane - Gold Coast, Sydney - Canberra hangs by a tread.

But like the above and the Gold Coast line and the recent surge in regional use in Victoria and lower NCL in Qld, the speed of the services needs to be cut, drastically. In the early 80's at the height of the car boom NSw introduced the faster XPT services and got a 10year boost in ridership only to be really cut back by cheap airfares in the early to mid 90's.

Hobart - L'ton - Devonport (ferry connection) is probably suitable for fast multi railcar type services provided frequency was sufficent. But the running times using recent examples interstate need to be similar to that of road, which makes it hard due to L'ton being nearly a 60min detour off the mainline. Compared to Qld, this would now be a bus connection. Or if using railcars and willing to do quick shunting, you could say have a two car service from D'port, front car Hobart, rear car L'ton. Front car attaches to a service leaving L'ton and meeting at W'jtcn, rear car goes into L'ton and reverse on return service (or something like that).

Regards
Shane

benscaro · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:20 pm

The % of car (or in rural cases, truck) ownership started rising in Tasmania as early as the 1920s and adversely impacted on rail as early as 1926. eg the Bellerive – Sorell closure.

I think an underlying issue was low population. Even a minor shift to road in thinly populated areas made passenger trains vulnerable.

But I think the big issue, and the fatal flaw for rail in Tasmania, has always been track.

The only way any passenger service could have survived until now was if the TGR had done massive postwar track rebuilding, eg, presumably by reforming operations in the 1950s along the lines of what ANR would do in the 1980s (I think a report from that time recommended it!) and spending the savings on track. It’s an interesting ‘what-if’ but TGR track was so bad whole sections would have had to be re-routed; but the cost would have been astronomical, the politics poisonous, the pay-off far from clear.

AN had a policy during its stewardship of fixing one difficult working section a year; did TGR even do that in its last years ?

But the impetus for rebuilding in Tasmania didn't occur till woodchips started in the early 70s; by then it was all over for passenger trains. Even then, track rebuilding was less strategic and more playing catch up with derailments; as the 'elegantly wasted' state of way, used to an X and ten four wheelers a day, collapsed under the weight of the new Zs and FEs.

Whether shabby looking but faster running passenger trains would have maintained ridership I don’t know. But comparable NZR and CR initiatives to introduce modern looking railcars – the Drewry/Fiat and Gloucester cars - like the TGR Comengs, futuristic above the bogies, hamstrung by prehistoric track below - were abject failures as well.

After initial spikes in ridership, people quickly realised that all the ‘airliner’ ambience of reclining seats, rounded windows, hostesses, iced water dispensers, external aerodynamics and additional foibles like unnecessary articulation didn’t mean zip when track condition limited speeds to 35mph.

There's something jarring and depressing about sitting in an ACS car in surroundings that suggest 70mph, and waddling along at 20 round the backyards of Parattah and Brighton getting a rather too intimate view of Mrs Delaney's washing day, collections of rusty Holdens, and the odd local doing something Biblical with a chicken.

Personally I think Tasmanian rail was doomed the moment TMLR decided on 3’6” and routing around hills, instead of through them, creating a century-long bad habit that lasted until the Bell Bay line was built.

Had the state insisted on 5’3” and decent engineering standards ie, Launceston-Deloraine, things might have been different. It's likely fewer lines would have been built, but those not built would have been no loss.

But it isn’t just gauge. As the two rail systems that can be abbreviated to ‘SAR’ show, it is quite possible to build high standard 3’6”, and depressingly easy to build 5’3” engineering failures, ie the Mallee lines.

Ben

President, Bring Back Rail to Yinkanie Committee

Hmmm . . . why isn't there an emoticon for schadenfreude ?

1447: The Year China Put a Knight Templar on Mars.

RTT_Rules · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 5:39 am

I suppose you had to forgive TGR/TG for not rebuilding the track in the 50's as what other state did this? Hell the NSW govt has probably spent less money on realignment than the Qld sugar industries, ever! Gauge is probably worth about 30-40km/hr back then, I think today it would be less than 20km/hr.

One thing that interests me is that ARTC has increased track speeds on curves through "track strengthing" using heavy rail and concrete sleepers, how would this benefit the existing route? Also doing the quick fixes along the way.

Regards
Shane

benscaro · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:10 am

Whatever benefit it would have, lineside residents wouldn't appreciate it much . . . concrete sleepers and welded track on sharp curves are a recipe for ear splitting wheel screech- as concrete doesn't have the 'give' that wood does.

Ben

President, Bring Back Rail to Yinkanie Committee

Hmmm . . . why isn't there an emoticon for schadenfreude ?

1447: The Year China Put a Knight Templar on Mars.

RTT_Rules · Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 5:43 am

I suppose one final comment to think about.

To date the Qld govt has probably been the most proactive state govt in upgrading and realigning regional lines, with the NCL my example. (the recent work in Vic was only on a select high speed communter services).

The NCL between the 200km section between Bundy and GLadstone (ignoring the coal route between Gladstone and Rocky) was mostly realigned in the early 90's (after electricfication). Alot of this work was not cheap either and flying over head south of Gladstone looks like a dollar sign. there was also additional work South of Bundy to Brisbane, but I'm not as familure with this area. More recently the line to T'ville was rebuilt on concrete sleepers with some realignment (not as agreessive as south of Rocky and rebuilt the line to Carins on 100% steel and heavier rail.

The South Rocky section today carry's about 6-8 freight trains which are limited to ~650m with some not reaching this.

So on a nt/km basis the line from D'port to Hobart or even L'ton - hobart probably may not be alot different until PNT distroyed the customer base and the question would be what could it have been if the locos and track were half decent. From a fright point of view, Hobart is an inland city with what should be a good land rail bridge. The cost of the Bundy to GLadstone upgrade, not sure but I have $400m in the mid 90's dollars in my head but I think this also included duplication of the line to Rocky and O/H.

And to stay OT, the RTT train and even the old ICE before that ran on the NCL had/has good numbers for a much longer route to a population base similar to that of Hobart.

Regards
Shane