Saw soil samples being taken a couple of weeks ago & site surveys today.
Might be something happening this decade.

Probably some expensive consultants working out whether to plant gums or pines.

Should be for the grade seperation of Rooks Road and Mitcham Road.

it was noted as the highest priority by the new government and there was significant funding provided for project development.

I'd be very surprised if project delivery wasn't funded in the May budget with delivery scheduled before the next election.  (cue 'delivering on our promises' adds)

Looking at around 2014 for both Rooks and Mitcham Rds.

Oddly enough, Mitcham Rd level crossing has a long history of collisions between cars and trains, almost as much as the Douglas Pde intersection onj the former Newport Power Station line.

Oddly enough, Mitcham Rd level crossing has a long history of collisions between cars and trains, almost as much as the Douglas Pde intersection on the former Newport Power Station line.

Hmm.

I wonder if that's reduced partly now that Springvale Road, Nunawading, has been grade separated and whether that means some north/south traffic has moved to that road, reducing the risk at Mitcham Rd?

both Mitcham and Rooks have had fatalities at htem in the last 5 years I think... and I mean fatalty accidents not fatality suicides.  

These are both, if looking at recent history, probably top 5 most dangerous level crossigns in melbourne.

As you say though Springvale Road grade sep and opening of Eastlink should have significantly lowered traffic on both crossings and reduced the priority for them to be copmleted.

hopefully this grade separation will finally see the abandonment of third track to Ringwood too.   allowance was made at Springvale Road (and Middlebrough Road) for a third track but 2 tracks beyond Box Hill is all thats needed with money better spent on getting 4 tracks up of Box Hill rather than extending the third further out.

I live not far from these Crossing and drive over Mitcham Road quite often and in the case of Mitcham Road I would say that Traffic levels have not changed a great deal since Springvale Road was done.

One thing that creates more hold ups on Mitcham Road is that all down trains activate the level crossing early. Basically All down trains set the booms off as if they are an express.

I do hope they take the time to create alot more parking at Mitcham as in the past 6 to 12 months there has been a very large increase in people using the station.

There is a very large number of car parks at Mitcham however both fill up very early and I have noticed alot more cars parked along Mitcham Road heading back towards Vermont than 12 months ago.

I would rather see improved feeder bus services than more car parking.

Having said that, Mitcham station is already well served by buses ...

Oddly enough, Mitcham Rd level crossing has a long history of collisions between cars and trains, almost as much as the Douglas Pde intersection on the former Newport Power Station line.

Hmm.

I wonder if that's reduced partly now that Springvale Road, Nunawading, has been grade separated and whether that means some north/south traffic has moved to that road, reducing the risk at Mitcham Rd?

You would also wonder if Eastlink has reduced the traffic a bit as well but from what Sammy D has posted sounds like traffic has not reduced.

Steve

These are both, if looking at recent history, probably top 5 most dangerous level crossigns in melbourne.

Mitcham Road, using the 2008 figures, is now the second most dangerous after Springvale Road, Springvale. But Rooks Road is about the 120th.

Hopefully this grade separation will finally see the abandonment of third track to Ringwood too. Allowance was made at Springvale Road (and Middlebrough Road) for a third track but 2 tracks beyond Box Hill is all thats needed with money better spent on getting 4 tracks up of Box Hill rather than extending the third further out.

But in the future we may need four tracks from Burnley right through to Ringwood.

My preference would be two tracks, with land allocated for a further two running express.

One thing that creates more hold ups on Mitcham Road is that all down trains activate the level crossing early. Basically all down trains set the booms off as if they are an express.

That's interesting.

I know that when the Nunawading project was completed, the moving of the platform required a respacing of signals, and that increased the minimum headways by about ten seconds. Is that about how much earlier the boom barriers are activated at Mitcham?

Sammy D
I do hope they take the time to create alot more parking at Mitcham as in the past 6 to 12 months there has been a very large increase in people using the station.

The northern car park is full around 8am, but I think more parking would just  attract more users and you would end up chasing your tail. I don't know what effect the new flats will have when they're finished.

Car parks ALWAYS fill up "easily", because it is very difficult to provide very very large car parks, and very expensive if you do.

If people who drove to the station had to pay for their parking, fares for everybody would be cheaper (considering you would have to provide less).
I agree with the comment on bus services to Mitcham and hope that the grade separation will result in a better interchange, as well as better frequencies.

Not much room to expand parking out there.
Working on a 'no net loss' principle at the moment.

These are both, if looking at recent history, probably top 5 most dangerous level crossigns in melbourne.

Mitcham Road, using the 2008 figures, is now the second most dangerous after Springvale Road, Springvale. But Rooks Road is about the 120th.

ALCAM ratings are essentially a generic probability risk rating based on number of trains, number of cars, type of existing traffic/train controls, etc.    They are only useful in determining railway crossing priority by effectively giving an indication of the number of trains and vehicles that pass that crossing (so a proxy for 'usage' of the intersection compared to existing control levels - you'll note that some sites rise up the tree despite low usage (such as some Stony Point crossing) because they don't (didn't in 2008) have boom gates).

I was referring historic actual crash data at the site.  Given both Mitcham and Rooks have had fatality accidents in the last 5 years they have an actual proven 'un-safety'.   Generally past performance is the best indicator of future performance.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/one-dead-in-level-crossing-crash/story-e6frf7kx-1111115758499

Hopefully this grade separation will finally see the abandonment of third track to Ringwood too. Allowance was made at Springvale Road (and Middlebrough Road) for a third track but 2 tracks beyond Box Hill is all thats needed with money better spent on getting 4 tracks up of Box Hill rather than extending the third further out.

But in the future we may need four tracks from Burnley right through to Ringwood.

My preference would be two tracks, with land allocated for a further two running express.

Yep I'm pretty sure there is a future where we'll need more than 24 trains in an hour out to Ringwood!   (insert internationally approved symbol for sarcasm here)

Even if there was ever a need for that many trains to Ringwood there is no point allowing for 2 extra tracks on the existing at Mitcham and Rooks because there is only allowacne for 3 tracks from Box Hill to there.    

Better option (and probably cheaper) would be to just extend any future doncaster service to Ringwood.

You would also wonder if Eastlink has reduced the traffic a bit as well but from what Sammy D has posted sounds like traffic has not reduced.

Eastlink did reduce traffic by 10-20% on Mitcham Road... but even though VicRoads doesn't believe it exists induced traffic has now filled that spare capacity again.

I would rather see improved feeder bus services than more car parking.

Having said that, Mitcham station is already well served by buses ...

Mitcham has one of the biggest carparks on the Metropolitan network which was expanded about 2-3 years ago.

They should be removing carparking and building high density development abutting the station.

Most of hte cathcment for hte station has good local bus coverage (I've caught a few of them as I used to work near there)... not overly high frequency (although there is a DART smartbus on Mitcham Road now) but enough to get you to the station if you know the timetable.

I was referring historic actual crash data at the site. Given both Mitcham and Rooks have had fatality accidents in the last 5 years they have an actual proven 'un-safety'. Generally past performance is the best indicator of future performance.

No, because that could just be bad luck. If the ALCAM system isn't a good check for safety, then we need a better check, but real-world experience can't be used as the measuring stick - for all we know, a given level crossing (say, Rooks Rd) might've had all ten of it's expected crashes in the first year of a given century, then it could be fine after that.

Luck, or lack thereof, is too big a factor.

If the crossing is unsafe, there has to be a reason.

Hopefully this grade separation will finally see the abandonment of third track to Ringwood too. Allowance was made at Springvale Road (and Middlebrough Road) for a third track but 2 tracks beyond Box Hill is all thats needed with money better spent on getting 4 tracks up of Box Hill rather than extending the third further out.

But in the future we may need four tracks from Burnley right through to Ringwood.

My preference would be two tracks, with land allocated for a further two running express.

Yep I'm pretty sure there is a future where we'll need more than 24 trains in an hour out to Ringwood! (insert internationally approved symbol for sarcasm here)

How are you defining future? I'm looking at 2050, when my grandchildren will have to live in the world I help to build.

And that 24tph has no allowance whatsoever for express trains of any sort.

Even if there was ever a need for that many trains to Ringwood there is no point allowing for 2 extra tracks on the existing at Mitcham and Rooks because there is only allowance for 3 tracks from Box Hill to there.

Middleborough Road and Laburnam made that mistake, yes.

But it's no reason to continue to make the same mistake. Two wrongs, etc.

Eventually, we'll have to go back and rebuild that section.

Better option (and probably cheaper) would be to just extend any future Doncaster service to Ringwood.

That depends on the type of service you intend to provide. Both the Doncaster (if it happens) and Box Hill routes would be 'metro' services, with stops every 1-3km and high capacity, low comfort vehicles. You wouldn't want to be on one of those for more than 20-25 minutes. Neither route provides an express service, and that's why you would need another two tracks over the entire length of the route - to segregate the two services.

even though VicRoads doesn't believe it exists induced traffic has now filled that spare capacity again.

Apparently they just admitted it, after three or four decades of denial.

I was referring historic actual crash data at the site. Given both Mitcham and Rooks have had fatality accidents in the last 5 years they have an actual proven 'un-safety'. Generally past performance is the best indicator of future performance.

No, because that could just be bad luck. If the ALCAM system isn't a good check for safety, then we need a better check, but real-world experience can't be used as the measuring stick - for all we know, a given level crossing (say, Rooks Rd) might've had all ten of it's expected crashes in the first year of a given century, then it could be fine after that.

Luck, or lack thereof, is too big a factor.

If the crossing is unsafe, there has to be a reason.

Hopefully this grade separation will finally see the abandonment of third track to Ringwood too. Allowance was made at Springvale Road (and Middlebrough Road) for a third track but 2 tracks beyond Box Hill is all thats needed with money better spent on getting 4 tracks up of Box Hill rather than extending the third further out.

But in the future we may need four tracks from Burnley right through to Ringwood.

My preference would be two tracks, with land allocated for a further two running express.

Yep I'm pretty sure there is a future where we'll need more than 24 trains in an hour out to Ringwood! (insert internationally approved symbol for sarcasm here)

How are you defining future? I'm looking at 2050, when my grandchildren will have to live in the world I help to build.

And that 24tph has no allowance whatsoever for express trains of any sort.

Even if there was ever a need for that many trains to Ringwood there is no point allowing for 2 extra tracks on the existing at Mitcham and Rooks because there is only allowance for 3 tracks from Box Hill to there.

Middleborough Road and Laburnam made that mistake, yes.

But it's no reason to continue to make the same mistake. Two wrongs, etc.

Eventually, we'll have to go back and rebuild that section.

Better option (and probably cheaper) would be to just extend any future Doncaster service to Ringwood.

That depends on the type of service you intend to provide. Both the Doncaster (if it happens) and Box Hill routes would be 'metro' services, with stops every 1-3km and high capacity, low comfort vehicles. You wouldn't want to be on one of those for more than 20-25 minutes. Neither route provides an express service, and that's why you would need another two tracks over the entire length of the route - to segregate the two services.

even though VicRoads doesn't believe it exists induced traffic has now filled that spare capacity again.

Apparently they just admitted it, after three or four decades of denial.

I can tell you that VicRoads uses past experience to justify their road saftey projects... heard of 'blackspot' projects?  These are based on past crashes where the past crashes are used as indicators of increased risk at a site.

Ringwood doesn't have any growth areas attached to it - these suburbs may increase in density but they will not carry the burden of Melbourne increasing to 5 million (2026) or 8 million (2050ish).  the corridors to Pakenham/Cranborune, South Morang, Craigieburn, Sunbury, Melton, Werribee will deal with most greenfields growth (1-2 million extra people) and the existing inner melbourne area will deal with most of the growth in density.    

EVEN if 4 tracks is ever required towards the city you'd potentially connect to Box Hill only bypass all the intermediate low scale activity centres and just do a deep bored tunnel for much cheaper than anything at grade in the existing corridor.  

Alternatively if Ringwood increases in scale both from retail/commercial/residential density it will become the destination increasing counter-peak travel rather and rather than requiring new lines to get people to the Melbourne CBD you'll need more capacity to get peopel to Ringwood.   This would be a benefit of the Doncaster connection and may require some connection into the southern Vermont South/Wantirna/Rowville area with an eastern ring line.   BUT NOT more capacity back to the CBD.

anyway your vice president of Smart Passengers so probably no more about these things than me...

I can tell you that VicRoads uses past experience to justify their road saftey projects... heard of 'blackspot' projects?  These are based on past crashes where the past crashes are used as indicators of increased risk at a site.

Which is a reactive strategy, not a proactive one. It doesn't prevent incidents before they happen. The only way to do that is to have a formula that can be applied to any situation, and define the priorities by that.

Ringwood doesn't have any growth areas attached to it - these suburbs may increase in density but they will not carry the burden of Melbourne increasing to 5 million (2026) or 8 million (2050ish).  the corridors to Pakenham/Cranborune, South Morang, Craigieburn, Sunbury, Melton, Werribee will deal with most greenfields growth (1-2 million extra people) and the existing inner melbourne area will deal with most of the growth in density.

Ringwood is a Transit City. It can, and should grow up, even if it can't grow out.

Even if 4 tracks is ever required towards the city you'd potentially connect to Box Hill only bypass all the intermediate low scale activity centres and just do a deep bored tunnel for much cheaper than anything at grade in the existing corridor.

I seriously doubt that tunnelling anything, especially over up to thirty kilometres, would be cheaper than making the existing alignment wide enough to handle the later capacity requirements.

And any time savings by such a tunnel would be negligible.

Alternatively if Ringwood increases in scale both from retail/commercial/residential density it will become the destination increasing counter-peak travel rather and rather than requiring new lines to get people to the Melbourne CBD you'll need more capacity to get people to Ringwood. ... BUT NOT more capacity back to the CBD.

Not for commuters.

But for travel between the CBDs (yes, plural), you would need a direct express link separate from the commuter service.

The reason I keep talking about multiple CBDs is, I believe that it is the only way to ensure that by 2050, 90% of the population of Melbourne has the potential for a commute time of 60 minutes, or less, from their front door to the front door of their place of work. There are only two ways to achieve that - first, we could build huge amounts of capacity for express services into the Hoddle Grid, at equally huge expense. Second, we could spread out the work geographically. The latter is a far more relaible strategy, easier and faster to put together and has far more capacity for growth beyond 2050.

Therefore, places like Dandenong, Ringwood, Broadmeadows, Sunshine, Frankston and so on are ideal, from a geographic perspective, as locations for future employment centres.

Anyway your vice president of Smart Passengers so probably know more about these things than me...

I'm not going to let you concede defeat that easily.

Either I convince you, or you convince me. Otherwise we'll end up in the exact same argument in a few months' time.

No, because that could just be bad luck.

Rather than hypothesising, why don't we just find the record? (Yes, I don't know where to look, but I'm sure you do) Large numbers of accidents can most definitely show a crossing that needs to be fixed - when there are large numbers of people that cross them, a bad crossing will be exposed as such over the years.

Currently, from the morning peak timetable, I count ~17-18 tph through Blackburn and ~13-14 tph through Ringwood. Looks like quadruplication to Blackburn won't be out of the question?

One thing that creates more hold ups on Mitcham Road is that all down trains activate the level crossing early. Basically all down trains set the booms off as if they are an express.

That's interesting.

I know that when the Nunawading project was completed, the moving of the platform required a respacing of signals, and that increased the minimum headways by about ten seconds. Is that about how much earlier the boom barriers are activated at Mitcham?

No. The booms have activated on the down at Mitcham on this "express" timing for as long as I can remember. I've lived in Mitcham since 1978, and cannot recall any change in this behaviour.

No, because that could just be bad luck.

Rather than hypothesising, why don't we just find the record? (Yes, I don't know where to look, but I'm sure you do) Large numbers of accidents can most definitely show a crossing that needs to be fixed - when there are large numbers of people that cross them, a bad crossing will be exposed as such over the years.

Currently, from the morning peak timetable, I count ~17-18 tph through Blackburn and ~13-14 tph through Ringwood. Looks like quadruplication to Blackburn won't be out of the question?

thanks for those numbers...

the point STS is that if at the moment we run 13 trains out to Ringwood...  and Ringwood and its sub regions are not expected to grow significantly as a result of there being no growth areas out there (total growth expected by 2026 is 55,000 people from a total population of 500,000+ for the Manningham, Mroondah, Whitehorse, Knox, Yarra Ranges council areas from VIF 2008 http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/32137/Final_VIF08_Melbourne_booklet.pdf) why would we plan to allow 4 times more number of trains for 10% more people living on that line in the future?(even if you continue to extrapolate that number out to 2050 the growth isn't significant particularly if a Doncaster Line provides an alternative for manningham and a Rowville line provides an alternative for Knox)

If the Ringwood corridor were set up Belgrave/Lilydale stopping all statino to Box Hill and then Express to the City with 4 tracks up of Box Hill... you'd have the current timetabled travel time of 30-35 minutes.   Perfectly suitable commuting distance between the two and with allowance to double the number of services between Ringwood and the City.

Melbourne CBD recently ticked over 500,000 jobs and has 8 tracks into it.  Ringwood CBD has about 10,000 jobs (mainly retail in eastland) now and in a best case scenario might get to 50,000 jobs  (by way of comparison Parramatta has 90,000 jobs after decades of very serious government initiatives to get jobs there and Ringwood is likely to be at best 3rd cab off the rank behind Dandenong and Footscray in government incentivisation of decentralising jobs)...  
Ringwood CBD has 3 tracks into it (Lilydale, Belgrave and the outbound track from Box Hill).  
There is some very early planning that indicates people in power are thinking of making that 4 tracks with a connection through Doncaster this might happen by 2050??.  (Check slide 12 of the 'Robert Abboud' presentation in the link below http://www.mtf.org.au/Events-MTF/Rail-Development-Forum-Monday-15th-August.aspx)




Even if all of the above fails in terms of tunneling costs a little project scope alternative for you

1 twin bore tunnel from Ringwood to Box Hill of approximately 10km.  bored tunnel with no stations shoudl be deliverable for $100 million per kilometre = $1 billion.   (epping-chatswood, Melbourne Metro, Sydney Metro etc. have multiple stations that are the expensive part of Civil Construction)

Ringwood to Box Hill Surface has...
6 level crossings and/or existing underpass grade separations that do not allow for 4 tracks.  and a further 5 bridges that do not allow for 4 tracks (including eastlink) + 10km of corridor that isn't wide enoguh for 4 tracks... a lot of earthworks, land acquisition, service relocations, station reconstruction etc required.     I coudln't even give a ballpark cost to it but I'd suggest by the time you add in rail occupations, traffic management and public disturbane it'd cost more than $1 billion.

Thank you very much for those stats John Proctor. I also believe that quadruplication to Ringwood is unnecessary, and prohibitively expensivefor the very marginal benefit STS is attempting to achieve.

If you went for a 9 car solution, you increase capacity by 50%, much more than the 10% projected growth with minimal infrastructure required. Extrapolate this, and you have flexibility to reduce stopping all station services for express services if you wish.

I know that when the Nunawading project was completed, the moving of the platform required a respacing of signals, and that increased the minimum headways by about ten seconds. Is that about how much earlier the boom barriers are activated at Mitcham?

No. The booms have activated on the down at Mitcham on this "express" timing for as long as I can remember. I've lived in Mitcham since 1978, and cannot recall any change in this behaviour.

Thanks for that.

No, because that could just be bad luck.

Rather than hypothesising, why don't we just find the record?

Because there's no guarantee that past events are a reliable indicator of future events.

(And no, I don't know where to look for records, other than general media searches. I'd probably go via Google.)

The point is that if at the moment we run 13 trains out to Ringwood, and Ringwood and its sub regions are not expected to grow significantly as a result of there being no growth areas out there

The problem is that as far as I can tell, a lot of those growth expectations assume out, not up. They make no allowance for thirty-storey residential apartments, or moving from our standard of about 12 residents per acre to a hundred or more residents per acre.

By the way, your VIF link doesn't work and I can't track down the source.

Still, let's assume that with a value of 55,000 people in 15 years and linear growth, by 2050 there will be about 650,000 residents in the Ringwood and surrounding areas. Deducting half for children and another few thousand for other reasons, but assuming that Ringwood becomes the major employment centre for the local area (and there's the main difference between my vision for the future, and extrapolating the existing patterns), it should be reasonable to expect 150,000 to 200,000 people commuting towards Ringwood on a daily basis. Perhaps half of those would be on 9-5 jobs, so allowing for commuters not using heavy rail we need to be able to handle a spike of at least 25,000 people from each railed direction - Box Hill, Lilydale and Belgrave - towards Ringwood in the peak hour. Each train carries around 1,000 people, or with proper Metro rollingstock, 2,000. That's a requirement of around 25 trains per hour from each direction; and because of the way I've obtained the numbers, having two tracks from Doncaster to Ringwood doesn't change that.

That's more than enough to prevent the running of a non-commuter express service, running Ringwood - Box Hill - Richmond - Flinders Street, from running on the same tracks in peak hour. And that's where the requirement for the extra two tracks comes from.

You say that Parramatta has taken decades to get to 90,000 jobs; I can only assume that either not enough investment was made (or it wasn't fast enough), or the promotion strategies weren't strong enough, or people in Sydney are more willing to accept a longer commute than I consider reasonable.

Even if all of the above fails in terms of tunneling costs a little project scope alternative for you.

A tunnel over such a huge length will be very expensive, there's no doubt about it, and you've admitted as such.

I believe that it would be cheaper to include provision for the third and fourth track as part of the grade separations between Surrey Hills and Ringwood that have to happen anyway, which comes at a low initial cost and a low construction cost when the demand for the extra tracks is finally present.

There is no doubt that Middleborough Road and Laburnam are/will be difficult, and I can see reason to consider a mixed approach - some tunnelling, some quadruplicated mainline.

If you went for a 9 car solution, you increase capacity by 50%, much more than the 10% proected growth with minimal infrastructure required. Extrapolate this, and you have flexibility to reduce stopping all station services for express services if you wish.

I've been told that in a recent (i.e. last decade or so) timetable, Cityrail replaced a four-carriage train every 7 or 8 minutes with an 8-carriage train every 15 minutes, and claimed that the service was the same so people had no right to complain. That seems to align with what you're suggesting, which I consider completely unreasonable.

You've always had a problem with understanding the effect a single express train has on the headways between two stopping trains (or viceversa). Remind me to show you my paper train graph for the Caulfield/Northern group sometime.

The other thing to consider is that while 4 tracks may no be needed today, when you close the line to put a brand new bridge in, why not make the bridge large enough for 4 tracks? That way whenever the extra tracks are needed, it will be an easier (and cheaper) job.

The other thing to consider is that while 4 tracks may no be needed today, when you close the line to put a brand new bridge in, why not make the bridge large enough for 4 tracks? That way whenever the extra tracks are needed, it will be an easier (and cheaper) job.

Space limitations.

When Springvale road grade separation (Nunawading) was Under construction, the railway was still In use up until the later stages of the project.

This grade separation could be expanded one day by boring under the road where the former railway tracks crossed the road.

No way this would be cheap at all.