Further GREL work evident today.  Masts were being erected around Ovingham Stn.  More cable ducting work under ARTC track at N end of Ovingham.  Masts erected N and S of Cormack Rd.  Mast foundations being constructed around Dry Creek Stn.  An auger drilling rig was being used W of platform loop and BG goods lines, suggesting wide gantries across entire BG layout at station.

In the SW corner of the Kilburn SA Power Networks site, several concrete pads have been laid.  This could be for the rail 25kV feed.

I noticed that there's a mast been erected directly opposite Ovingham station - my theory that they weren't doing the masts near Torrens Road until the overpass had been done is obviously wrong? Here's a render of the overpass anyway:

Further GREL work evident today.  Masts were being erected around Ovingham Stn.  More cable ducting work under ARTC track at N end of Ovingham.  Masts erected N and S of Cormack Rd.  Mast foundations being constructed around Dry Creek Stn.  An auger drilling rig was being used W of platform loop and BG goods lines, suggesting wide gantries across entire BG layout at station.

In the SW corner of the Kilburn SA Power Networks site, several concrete pads have been laid.  This could be for the rail 25kV feed.

I noticed that there's a mast been erected directly opposite Ovingham station - my theory that they weren't doing the masts near Torrens Road until the overpass had been done is obviously wrong?

The mast foundations around Ovingham have been in place in July.  However at that stage extensive cable ducting work was under way at that location, and I wondered if that was delaying the erection of the masts there.  The overpass construction is due to start until next year whereas the Adelaide - Mawson Lakes electification work would have been substantially complete.

A few photos from yesterday and today

Train leaving Flinders Station:


https://youtu.be/QtKZAkvE3nM

Tonsley Station












Flinders Line Opening & Flinders Station

I was at Blackwood today so it was a good chance to take a little detour to check it out on my way home this evening - arriving at Tonsley after coming down Shepherds Hill Road, catching the train up to Flinders, riding back down to Tonsley and catching the train returning towards the city.

The pics above are great (thanks @normangerman) and the sun was fairly low so I didn't bother getting any more.

A few thoughts about various aspects of it:

All areas

• Wayfinding signage is very much a work in progress.

Tonsley Station

• Quite a bit of work still to be done on the surrounds of the station, some of which might overlap with the Flinders Greenway project being overseen by the City of Marion with DIT funding support.
• I'm staggered by the design with stairs on the back of the platform being parallel to the platform with no turn necessary to access them. It should be ramps on the back and stairs at the platform ends, like an above ground version of the platform layout at Oaklands.
• Good design for the shelter with its central 'spine' and seating on both sides. Keeps it open for good visibility while still allowing people to sit on the side away from the weather if they need it.
• The platform and ramps need a good going over with an industrial vacuum and a pressure cleaner. My bike tyres and the soles of my shoes were so heavily covered with light grey cement dust that I left footprints on the floor of the train.
• No timetables

Train trip up the hill

• It's granted that the speed is quite low, but the rails mounted to the bridge deck give a nice smooth ride. Hopefully DIT have acquired the necessary knowledge on how to look after this sort of track so it continues to
• The driver almost stopped completely before the station and then crawled into the platform at walking pace (and I do mean walking pace - there was a person walking alongside at the same speed!) which I hope was only a symptom of this driver encountering the line in those lighting conditions (low afternoon sun casting long shadows) for the first time.
• I hope that the signalling has been set up to allow a late running train to terminate early at Tonsley if needed for the purpose of getting the timetable back on track.
• It's quite obvious looking over the eastern part of Laffer Triangle that there would be great opportunity for development there. 25000m² of just ground level parking is a massive waste of space. Consolidate the FMC/FPH staff parking into a multi-storey car park, build another one alongside for casual parking and commuters, then open up bids for the remainder of the land.

Flinders Station

• Seems pretty good all round.
• Facilities building is essentially a copy of the one at Oaklands with the bike lockup door relocated and a staff room added on the other end.
• There's a lot of wasted space on the southern side of the station. I wonder if there are long-term plans to replace the current FMC/FPH staff car park between the station and the hospitals with a larger multi-storey facility? Perhaps this could include the ground floor having a proper bus interchange?
• Seating on both sides of the shelter's 'spine' as at Tonsley, good move.
• No timetables

Pedestrian/cycle access

• Kudos to the Gateway South joint venture for getting the shared path over the bridge open at the same time as the railway, unlike their T2T Alliance counterparts across town who needed considerable pushing and prodding to open the path over South Road in the same year as the rail line alongside.
• The shared path on the viaduct does not have the rest points as required to meet current DDA standards. I'm not sure whether these would be required every 9m or some longer distance (because the gradient is shallower than the 1/14 maximum) but having none of them is not on.
• Good to see the pedestrian crossing lights at the Alawoona Ave level crossing finally activated. For a couple of years I was worried they were actually fake signals with hoods over them as a tribute to the power of the motoring industry in Australia.
• Good to see the underpass linking Lynton Ave and Birch Cr is open.
• I look forward to seeing how this is all improved on when the eastern entrance to Flinders Station is open and the Flinders Greenway works on the eastern side of the corridor between Tonsley Station and Sturt Road is built.

Mapping services:

• Google Maps has markers for the new station locations, Clovelly Park marker correctly removed, railway still shown to old Tonsley station location on both map view and satellite view. 2/5 stars.
• Bing Maps has markers for the station locations, Clovelly Park removed, railway still shown to old Tonsley station location on map and satellite. 2/5 stars.
• Apple Maps has markers for all stations on the public transport layer, Clovelly Park still present, new railway shown correctly on map, relatively recent satellite imagery showing the bridge complete and construction of both stations well underway. 4/5 stars.
• Location SA has markers for the new stations in the Adelaide Public Transport Stop Data, inaccurate representation of the railway route in the railway dataset, older satellite imagery showing only 4/10 bridge spans in place. Embarrassingly for the government to be showing on its own mapping platform, the current satellite imagery shows half of the M2 taken over by the remedial work for the collapsed shotcrete walls. 3/5 stars.

On mapping:
The SA Government has not had its own aerial mapping unit for around 15 years, relying instead on private contractors to do the necessary flying which I would hope would be at least every 2 or 3 years in urban areas and rapidly developing rural areas.

Commercial mapping applications generally rely on the PSMA (Public Sector Mapping Agency) in Australia for the base topographic and cadastral data.  PSMA is owned by the various state and commonwealth governments.

The mapping task in SA  is split between Environment, DIT, and Mines, the old Lands Department Mapping Branch passing to Environment, and bits subsequently being devolved to DIT who map their own roads, etc.

Like the government the commercial providers rely on contractors to do the aerial mapping work.     It is not as simple as taking an aerial photo and overlaying it on topographic mapping, a lot of corrections need to be made..

The area around Darlington obviously has not been flown for a long time and is obviously overdue now.

A new train trip to take in Adelaide - that doesn't happen every day!

Like the government the commercial providers rely on contractors to do the aerial mapping work.     It is not as simple as taking an aerial photo and overlaying it on topographic mapping, a lot of corrections need to be made..

The area around Darlington obviously has not been flown for a long time and is obviously overdue now.

No need for the government to organise a contract for aerial photography of the Darlington area, purchasing the rights to the existing commercial satellite imagery used by Apple should be sufficient.

Like the government the commercial providers rely on contractors to do the aerial mapping work.     It is not as simple as taking an aerial photo and overlaying it on topographic mapping, a lot of corrections need to be made..

The area around Darlington obviously has not been flown for a long time and is obviously overdue now.

No need for the government to organise a contract for aerial photography of the Darlington area, purchasing the rights to the existing commercial satellite imagery used by Apple should be sufficient.

And paying to massage the images so they overlay onto the base mapping projection if it is different to Apple's.   They must be geo-coded for the projection used and even adjacent images being colour corrected as well so the join is not so obvious.

It is nowhere near as simple as just dropping an aerial photo onto a base topographic map.   The amount of processing, and data, involved is enormous.    Fortunately a lot can be done on the fly.

Neither would just the Darlington area be flown; any aerial survey would be of the entire metropolitan area from Sellicks to Gawler.

There are companies that regularly fly aerial surveys, the frequency depending on the activity in the area being flown.   One such Australian company is Nearmap.   Metro Adelaide is covered six times a year.   Their coverage Australia wide is very patchy.

None of Google, Apple and Bing would guarantee either positional or temporal accuracy of the information they display, but they are interested in coverage, and, Google at least, obviously use different resolution base images depending on the scale at which the data is being viewed.

Which aerial imaging is used is, I suspect, highly influenced by cost.

My experience with DIT (well DTUP, DTEI and  DPTI at the time)was that they hired an aerial survey company to do the aerial surveys with the newer ones being 2cm resolution which was absolutely beautiful for doing planning studies. This imagery was then allowed to be used by Google and others who quite often would publish it in lower resolution than the original.

On Monday 4 January took a train arriving at Flinders 7:37 am, and there were 12 passengers, and another 8 passengers on the following train arriving 7:57. Many appeared to work at Flinders Medical Centre. Hopefully this increases as more people return to work after their Christmas-New Year holidays, and the teaching semester starts at Flinders University.

The rail bridge is striking architecturally, and now dominates the Laffers Triangle. The ride is very smooth and quiet.

https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/news/media-releases/news/flinders-line-in-high-demand-as-uni-students-return-to-campus

It is good to see that patronage on the New Flinders line is higher than on the old Tonsley Line.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/184824880@N03/50978868071/in/dateposted-public/

With Flinders University O-Week underway Flinders Station now looks like being one of the busiest metropolitan stations on the network. On a couple of morning trains about one third of passengers were going to Flinders Medical Centre and the remainder for the Sturt Campus.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/184824880@N03/50978982642/in/dateposted-public/
Students mainly went to the Sturt Campus which is closer than the main campus. The shortest route to the Sturt Campus was across the soccer field, saving 200m off the "proper" path. This can't do the playing surface any good.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/184824880@N03/50979077727/in/dateposted-public/
The University hasn't yet done anything to upgrade pedestrian links to the station. In one section that has the combined paths both the Sturt Campus and the Main Campus the footpath is steep and so narrow that pedestrians need to go in single file. A section of the path to the Main Campus (from the main entrance road to the footbridge) is still a dirt track. At over 800m the main campus is still a long way from the station.

The soccer pitches on the upper level of the playing fields are no longer in use, because most of that area was paved over for a car park a couple of years ago. The straight line route from the station to the Sturt Drive traffic lights takes you south of the main oval used for athletics, cricket and football, so the foot traffic shouldn't see any impact on the playing surface.

Walking routes are due to be addressed by the future Flinders Village development plans which will see the once expansive playing fields reduced to just the main oval and the soccer pitch on the lower level down by the road. The walking routes will surely lead straight past a plethora of retail outlets.

Timetables at stations are now a thing of the past our local station had them and suddenly they where gone only the filled in holes where they once stood were left to be seen.  Timtables have been removed from all bus stops as well so if you are a tourist or a visitor to Adelaide you can consult nothing at all really unless you have or get the Adelaide Metro app on your mobile phone or tablet. Even then the button to tell you about train arrivals etc at stations does not work at times either as they are vandalized, so timetables at any station now are a thing of the past really.  Some stations do have the screens that show next train and stops etc, but a lot have not got these yet, so it is guesswork as to where and when the next train goes at times. Printed timetables are also no longer available, it looks a lot like the passengers get in the way of running a train service so we will make it harder for passengers to know about train times to discourage them. It seems that way though to a lot.

When I go interstate, I don't need a physical copy of a timetable. All the information is now online in PDF form or available on Google Maps, complete with real-time arrival times. I can't remember the last time I've needed to look at a physical copy of a timetable in Adelaide either.

It would save taxpayers money not having to replace timetables at train stations and bus stops all over adelaide every six months when the timetables change. Not to mention the vandalism costs too.

It would save taxpayers money not having to replace timetables at train stations and bus stops all over adelaide every six months when the timetables change. Not to mention the vandalism costs too.

That is true but in this day age you could use a computer and printer to print out a timetable as required if asked by a customer for and charge say a dollar for it to cover costs.  The printing of thousands of time tables was never really the answer to getting a timetable actually as most ended up as either rubbish or blowing around the place.  But at railway stations at least till the next upgrade is done there to them then surely they could leave a printed timetable in place and when the time comes either put in a real time indicator or one of the newer screen types then remove the printed version on the posts.

Bus stops though are a whole different ballgame though as they could too easily be vandalised even the digital stops that were put in, in places got vandalised. So a different approach might be need to upgrade bus stops.

Regency to Pym section of South Road is flying along and shows signs of not being far off completion - they've been bitumenising the overpass and reorganising the traffic flows for when the project is open.

Has anyone got any images or maps of the proposed routes and entrances and exits for the South Road tunnel project? The Advertiser recently published pictures of these but I haven't been able to find them on the internet anywhere (you'd think DPTI would have them!).

Incidentally the Regency to Pym landscaping and road surfacing are now nearly all done so that's another part of the 'motorway' north-south we've managed to achieve in this city.

I've seen in my searches maps that suggest a tunnel diving just south of the Torrens River in Thebarton all the way to Anzac Highway interchange (with no interchanges in between) and the second much longer two-way tunnels no-interchange all the way from there to south of Daws Road where it will join with the new expressway extension.

Very long sections of road with no option of getting on or off (if true). Thoughts?

The Project Overview schematic maps show a full interchange between Cross Road and Anzac Highway, plus half-interchanges (northbound on ramp + southbound off ramp) on the northern side of both Richmond Road and Anzac Highway.

Seems about right given we are only talking about a total distance of 10km.

But if I were doing it, I'd dump the half-interchange on the northern side at Anzac Highway. The ramps at Richmond Road are only a kilometre away.



Passive provision for upgrading Richmond Road to a full interchange should be included, to allow for the possibility of Glen Osmond Road and Greenhill/Richmond Roads becoming the main link between the Adelaide-Crafers Highway and the NS Motorway.

I could be wrong but it looks to me that the Emerson overpass will stay, how cancerous is the concrete?

I could be wrong but it looks to me that the Emerson overpass will stay, how cancerous is the concrete?

I haven't seen anything else from a reputable source either way, so I wouldn't read too much into the project overview page on something which is not remotely close to being a core component of the project. We'll have to wait for the reference design to get any actual knowledge.

I agree about the problem of concrete cancer, that bridge is now of the age where its remaining service life is only ever its next inspection date.

I don't think there's any problem with the Emerson overpass as such, it's just that they want to remove the level crossing underneath it. Now that South Road will go under the whole thing (apparently) will go under it you'd have to imagine less traffic all round at that intersection and overpass.

South Road is not going underneath, that's the North-South Motorway.

What remains to be done with South Road, Cross Road and the railway is very much up for grabs. I can think of a few options:

1. Do nothing, let South Road keep the overpass while traffic using Cross Road or turning keeps crossing the railway at grade.

2. Remove the South Road overpass and put the railway over the intersection.

3. If Cross Road becomes the major link between the Adelaide-Crafers Highway and the North-South Motorway, remove the overpass and install grade separated ramps to prioritise that flow in both directions. Railway would stay at ground level.

4. Remove the overpass and do nothing else, definitely the worst option all round.


Obviously as a railfan I'd prefer to see version 2, but it would be folly to assume it will actually happen.