woodford
There has been a lot of work to develop and protect an alignment for a take off of the SG near Beveridge (flyovers etc similar to Manor) t enable a rail link to the Outer Ring Corridor that then plugs into WIFT etc on the Altona side of the City. That takes some pressure of the current SG that is then taken up again by port rail Shuttles from the proposed Wallan/Beveridge Modal Hub and the Somerton Intermodal site. Hence the need to still get SG passenger services off the network at Somerton as per the Masterplan that you referred to. Returning to Nightfire's point that suggestion doesn't address the saturation of train traffic through the tunnel and across the river and Sims Street is part of that complexity of freight lines you really want to get passenger trains well away from.What about thinking laterally about inner-city SG/DG capacity... instead of putting in DG on the Upfield line or building another SG Maribyrnong crossing, how about moving non-port related freight movements out of the Port Of Melbourne precinct?
Sounds to me like there needs to be a proper review done of non metro use rail infrastructure within the Melbourne Metro area.Such a review was done a couple of years ago where trip trains from the Port would run to satellite intermodal terminals in the Dandenong, Somerton and Werribee general areas. These trains were to be high performance trains capable of mixing it with sparks on proper schedules. (Schedules = Melbourne ha bloody ha).
And for reducing the number of movements over the flyover, how about getting V/Line to start using the brand new Southern Cross Platforms 15/16 they got built specifically to alleviate RRL congestion?
ARTC have just awarded John Holland more work to fix the North East Line.
https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/john-holland-wins-north-east-rail-line-upgrade-main-works-contract
Now for the new SG Vlocities?
The lack of benefit to freight services was one reason that Infrastructure Australia turned down the project, along with the lack of new rail services, new rolling stock, or faster travel times.My god, I'd be amazed if the people involved in writing the business case and reviewing it over at Infrastructure Australia knew how to tie their shoelaces. You can't commit to new services and rolling stock until you fix the line, and apparently getting rid of TSRs and increasing ride quality so that it doesn't shake trains to bits don't reduce travel times because only timetabled travel times count.
"Infrastructure Australia knocks back North East Rail line upgrade""We know compared to other regional Victorian passenger lines, there is relatively poor punctuality, and reliability on the North East Rail Line. However, based on the current evidence available, the cost of the project would significantly outweigh its benefits.”
https://www.railexpress.com.au/infrastructure-australia-north-east-railThe lack of benefit to freight services was one reason that Infrastructure Australia turned down the project, along with the lack of new rail services, new rolling stock, or faster travel times.My god, I'd be amazed if the people involved in writing the business case and reviewing it over at Infrastructure Australia knew how to tie their shoelaces. You can't commit to new services and rolling stock until you fix the line, and apparently getting rid of TSRs and increasing ride quality so that it doesn't shake trains to bits don't reduce travel times because only timetabled travel times count.
"Infrastructure Australia knocks back North East Rail line upgrade""We know compared to other regional Victorian passenger lines, there is relatively poor punctuality, and reliability on the North East Rail Line. However, based on the current evidence available, the cost of the project would significantly outweigh its benefits.”
https://www.railexpress.com.au/infrastructure-australia-north-east-railThe lack of benefit to freight services was one reason that Infrastructure Australia turned down the project, along with the lack of new rail services, new rolling stock, or faster travel times.My god, I'd be amazed if the people involved in writing the business case and reviewing it over at Infrastructure Australia knew how to tie their shoelaces. You can't commit to new services and rolling stock until you fix the line, and apparently getting rid of TSRs and increasing ride quality so that it doesn't shake trains to bits don't reduce travel times because only timetabled travel times count.
This was funny to me, which regional Victorian passenger line doesn't have poor punctuality, or poor reliability? What was the benchmark for this assessment?
Full report for anyone interested: https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-01/north_east_rail_link_evaluation_summary_0.pdf
"Infrastructure Australia knocks back North East Rail line upgrade"Its pretty damning that the business case shows that it is not worth doing though. Ill caveat that by saying that its unclear what benefits it included, and that benefits identification (let alone quantification) for regional benefits is very much embryonic (eg the value of connectivity of Albury to Melbourne in this case).
https://www.railexpress.com.au/infrastructure-australia-north-east-railThe lack of benefit to freight services was one reason that Infrastructure Australia turned down the project, along with the lack of new rail services, new rolling stock, or faster travel times.My god, I'd be amazed if the people involved in writing the business case and reviewing it over at Infrastructure Australia knew how to tie their shoelaces. You can't commit to new services and rolling stock until you fix the line, and apparently getting rid of TSRs and increasing ride quality so that it doesn't shake trains to bits don't reduce travel times because only timetabled travel times count.
...I'll caveat that by saying that its unclear what benefits it included, and that benefits identification (let alone quantification) for regional benefits is very much embryonic (e.g. the value of connectivity of Albury to Melbourne in this case).The main claim is that the NELU would induce a projected 40% increase in passenger traffic. There is suppressed demand on the corridor at the moment - the quote from Infrastructure Australia's assessment is:
Due to the poor condition of the track, passengers on the North East Rail Line experience issues with the ride quality, comfort and reliability of V/Line services, which has contributed to an 11.8% per annum decline in demand from 2013 to 2018.That's an >40% accumulated drop in demand over that period. Logic dictates that improving the ride quality and increasing service reliability would regain that market share to a similar degree. Infrastructure Australia challenged that reasonable assumption by saying that they wanted a modelling study to back it up - which is to say, they needed to dump $500K on some extra consultants to punch out the right stat tables to make IA happy. It's sheer madness.
I'll give IA a bit of credit here, their role is to evaluate and report on business cases so that the governments who want federal funding cant push rubbish through and get money where they shouldn't.That never seems to be an issue for the cavalcade of boondoggle road projects though, despite decades of real-world experience showing that increasing road capacity only ever increases congestion instead of the congestion reducing benefits they put in their business cases to Infrastructure Australia. Doesn't matter - "Look, this new bypass saves 20 seconds of travel time per person! If we assume everyone's value of time is $40/hour it adds up to millions of dollars in economic benefits!"
We all know passenger rail is politics in Victoria. And given these works are not going to benefit the freight traffic all that much, I get where they're coming from.Heaven help us if we want to move people with our interstate railways instead of freight. That's what we spent billions of dollars on highways for!
"Infrastructure Australia knocks back North East Rail line upgrade"So what is the point of this IA assessment then, haven't the upgrades to the NE corridor already been funded?
https://www.railexpress.com.au/infrastructure-australia-north-east-railThe lack of benefit to freight services was one reason that Infrastructure Australia turned down the project, along with the lack of new rail services, new rolling stock, or faster travel times.My god, I'd be amazed if the people involved in writing the business case and reviewing it over at Infrastructure Australia knew how to tie their shoelaces. You can't commit to new services and rolling stock until you fix the line, and apparently getting rid of TSRs and increasing ride quality so that it doesn't shake trains to bits don't reduce travel times because only timetabled travel times count.
From their latest publication they state;"Infrastructure Australia knocks back North East Rail line upgrade"So what is the point of this IA assessment then, haven't the upgrades to the NE corridor already been funded?
https://www.railexpress.com.au/infrastructure-australia-north-east-railThe lack of benefit to freight services was one reason that Infrastructure Australia turned down the project, along with the lack of new rail services, new rolling stock, or faster travel times.My god, I'd be amazed if the people involved in writing the business case and reviewing it over at Infrastructure Australia knew how to tie their shoelaces. You can't commit to new services and rolling stock until you fix the line, and apparently getting rid of TSRs and increasing ride quality so that it doesn't shake trains to bits don't reduce travel times because only timetabled travel times count.
https://regionalrailrevival.vic.gov.au/northeast
https://www.artc.com.au/projects/northeast/
The ARTC website says that the Federal Government has already allocated $235M to the project (which is more than the capital cost quoted in the IA report.
How about we save the Government some money and scrap IA (and IV for that matter)?
Ross
@LancedDendrite, I agree with you on many of those things, but IA isnt the problem here, theyre just doing an assessment against best practice project evaluation principles.
Also, an overall comment on why this isnt on the NATIONAL priority list. Quite simply its not a national piece of infrastructure. The line as is does the freight task which is a national effect, however upgrading for pax is only going to impact the NE community, not the national one.While I’m fired up James, at a quick calculation, nearly 10km of the line on the Victorian side is under TSRs of 60 or 80, and most have been sitting there for inordinate lengths of time. That hurts freights too. And if 10km of the Hume south of the river was similarly speed-restricted because of poor surface quality and no work was being done to fix it, there’d be calls for the Premier and Prime Minister’s head.
Per the IA report:Also, an overall comment on why this isnt on the NATIONAL priority list. Quite simply its not a national piece of infrastructure. The line as is does the freight task which is a national effect, however upgrading for pax is only going to impact the NE community, not the national one.While I’m fired up James, at a quick calculation, nearly 10km of the line on the Victorian side is under TSRs of 60 or 80, and most have been sitting there for inordinate lengths of time. That hurts freights too. And if 10km of the Hume south of the river was similarly speed-restricted because of poor surface quality and no work was being done to fix it, there’d be calls for the Premier and Prime Minister’s head.
However, the business case does not propose additional rail services, new rolling stock or faster timetabled travel times, and the project will not benefit freight services.and
V/Line has self-imposed speed restrictions of up to 35 km/h on some sections of the North East Rail Line, and 15 km/h restrictions along the entire 82 km section between Broadmeadows and Seymour due to poor track quality. These restrictions are due to mud holes and tight rail alignments, and apply to over 60% of the rail line. Together, these impact on travel times and ride quality. However, these issues do not impact on the performance of freight rail services.
I dont know what would you prefer, no check and assessment at all and a corrupt system existing across all infrastructure classes? Its not a perfect body, and it is intentionally made that way, but see through it and blame the real actors, the policticans who manipulate transport projects for their own ends, the departments that do the same* and the companies that go along with it all in their own self interest.@LancedDendrite, I agree with you on many of those things, but IA isnt the problem here, theyre just doing an assessment against best practice project evaluation principles.
“Best practice” developed in a market which privileges highways above pretty much everything else, perpetuated by governments, engineering firms and financiers hooked on road building, and still blithely pointed to as a “fair” method of determining which projects get the go ahead despite 50 years of the stuff resulting only in one of the most broken long-distance transport systems in the world (and that’s without even thinking about urban areas).
No, IA very much are part of the problem, because they continue to lend legitimacy to this ridiculous situation. Even the most hawkish road advocate’s dog would be hard pressed to say this project or the South Geelong duplication wouldn’t have significant benefits for the relevant corridor as a whole. Hell, the IA reports say as much. But put them through the mysterious black box of externalities and WEBs, chuck in a few stupid assertions that could only come from someone who doesn’t know one end of a train from the other (“duplication will have little impact on reliability” and “new trains are needed before the tracks can run them well enough”), and hey presto, it’s time to fire up the old trommel screen and tar truck.
That second quote in particular shows they're prepared to deploy flat-out BS to sink this project. Again, there are at least 10km of formal, ARTC-imposed TSRs of 60 or 80 km/h south of the border, which IA have conveniently failed to mention. Instead, they've decided to blame V/Line for not wanting their trains to fall apart. Not to mention "the entire 82 km section", which ridiculously suggests trains are taking 5 hours to traverse this section, only explainable by an incompetent report drafter or a further cynical attempt to paint this as V/Line's problem. Frankly, I don't know what's worse. There is a lot V/Line are to blame for, but this ain't it.Per the IA report:Also, an overall comment on why this isnt on the NATIONAL priority list. Quite simply its not a national piece of infrastructure. The line as is does the freight task which is a national effect, however upgrading for pax is only going to impact the NE community, not the national one.While I’m fired up James, at a quick calculation, nearly 10km of the line on the Victorian side is under TSRs of 60 or 80, and most have been sitting there for inordinate lengths of time. That hurts freights too. And if 10km of the Hume south of the river was similarly speed-restricted because of poor surface quality and no work was being done to fix it, there’d be calls for the Premier and Prime Minister’s head.However, the business case does not propose additional rail services, new rolling stock or faster timetabled travel times, and the project will not benefit freight services.andV/Line has self-imposed speed restrictions of up to 35 km/h on some sections of the North East Rail Line, and 15 km/h restrictions along the entire 82 km section between Broadmeadows and Seymour due to poor track quality. These restrictions are due to mud holes and tight rail alignments, and apply to over 60% of the rail line. Together, these impact on travel times and ride quality. However, these issues do not impact on the performance of freight rail services.
Now the business case is either shoddy, and forgot to include them, or is truthful. I dont know which, it could genuinely be either.
I dont know what would you prefer, no check and assessment at all and a corrupt system existing across all infrastructure classes? Its not a perfect body, and it is intentionally made that way, but see through it and blame the real actors, the policticans who manipulate transport projects for their own ends, the departments that do the same* and the companies that go along with it all in their own self interest.No need to engage in such bad faith. I said IA are part of the problem, not that the solution is a free-for-all. But at some point we have to admit the "models" are broken, fundamentally in service of the road industry, and their role needs to be radicallt reconsidered.
*im hoping that with RMS and VicRoads absorbed into the transport departments instead of being separate agencies that the fortress mentality/road primacy of the RMS is somewhat reduced.
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