Yes, well never let a good pandemic go to waste — As the saying goes!
In relation to the future of the Alamein line, I think a heavy rail line is not on the books.
For one, if you wanted to link up all the areas you’re describing you’d be building through some very expensive suburbs. So you’ll either have to tunnel the majority of the route, or expend a great deal of political capital convincing people in the well to-do suburbs that a skyrail option is feasible. Considering the median house price in that area of Melbourne, I suspect a tunnel would be the only option a left leaning state government could realistically propose without being absolutely eviscerated in those seats. You’d also have to duplicate the remaining single sections of the line (if you wanted to run the service at any better frequency than you have now — which is the whole point you went about extending and linking the line to Chaddy, East Malvern, and Rowville of course. You’d have to grade separate the tram square at Riversdale too. Then to support that increase in service levels, at a minimum you’d need to quad all the way from Burnley to Camberwell. Or run shuttles from Camberwell to Chaddy/Rowville/East Malvern, or where ever it was you imagined the service linking into the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines would be.
So, for those reasons alone, heavy rail is very unlikely. You also have to ask questions of equity “should we be spending multi-billion dollars on a project to enhance the already highly accessible public transport oriented suburbs of Melbourne’s East, when Geelong line passengers have to fight with pax commuters for space on the trains at Wyndhamvale and Tarneit?”
Doesn’t seem to be particularly equitable to me.
Now on the other hand, a DLR system might be more palatable because it is a smaller system able to negotiate tighter curves, and the space for a depot of some sort would be smaller but you’d still need to grade separate the tram square in Riversdale, and all of the intersections with roads (I’m not aware of DLR-style) systems that do at ground running with traffic light intersections. would all of these intersections need to be grade separate the vehicles? It would seem so... how will you do this? Tunnels? Bridges? How many people in Ashburton will want their local streets with Skyrail bridges? Then you have the problem of introducing an orphan system into the Eastern suburbs... I wonder about the potential capacity to expand this system... where would it be expanded to? To make scale economies you’d probably want to be able to expand this system.
So one begins to wonder why not just use a proven technology, which people already interact with (like a conversion to light rail?). As far as I am aware, the Rowville tram proposal was for an extension of the Route 3/3A to Rowville with an intermediate stop at Chaddy? It would be a surprise to me if this extension was to be built as a DLR style system as you suggest... only because it would require an intermodal transfer, or it would require sections of the Route 3/3A being partially converted to DLR style too. That seems unlikely to me. I was under the impression (happy to be corrected) that it would be an extension of the tram service which currently terminated at Caulfield station.
So we now ask the question: if the route 3/3A extension was likely to be a tram extension, built more closely to a light rail standard, how would the DLR system from Alamein link in? I’m not aware of any places in the world in which DLR vehicles and trams share the same tracks?
Furthermore, if you do have an LRV conversion of the Alamein line, and then extension to interchange with East Malvern and the Monash/Rowville team extension, it makes wayyyyyyyy more sense to use the same compatible vehicles and signalling system (I believe DLR is automatic?). It also means part of the reason the Riversdale tram square needed to be eliminated can be ignored — Alamein line and tram lines would run at the same voltage.
You would also have an interface with the tram network at this square, which means you get wider tram network compatibility.
If the tram depot were to be somewhere near Rowville then no need to worry about a new depot in Camberwell.
I imagine, you could probably get away with keeping the remaining level crossings on the Alamein line, which also saves you a great deal of cash! For sure, you would need to more than likely elevate over Gardiners Creek and the Monash Freeway. You’d also want to rebuild East Malvern to be a true interchange station, and more than likely think about how you’re going to deal with the HVDC power lines running alongside the Monash (could cause a bit of a mess if not dealt with properly).
But once the light rail returned to grade, you could easily run it through East Malvern station Car Park, and then continue along the Urban Forest reserve before coming onto the Princess Highway. From here you would have to grade separate and have the LRV’s run down the median, or you could run the line down the Princess Highway Service road. The latter will be less popular than the former. Once you’re on here, you’ve integrated with the Rowville/Monash light rail.
Now warning, this is even more tin-hat foamy than usual... so be warned that this is just an idea, and not in any way a kind of serious proposal.
We could also try merging our proposals and have all Alamein-East Malvern/Chaddy/Monash/Rowville services run by LRV’s (with passing loops at stations so the LRV’s can be overtaken as necessary) but keep your heavy rail idea and link this line up at around Huntingdale, you could potentially divert V/Line services on this route. Would still require quadding and grade separation, would be a nightmarish mix of gauges, and probably very unpopular with the locals. So really, not a viable option... always good to put ideas out on the table though.
Anyway apologies for the long post, and apologies for the many spelling and grammatical mistakes that are undoubtedly dotted throughout my response. Just had words in my head and needed to get them out onto the web!
