Clearest explanation of what's going on at Central which I have heard. My grandfather used to catch a steam tank engine pulling 'end platform' "Yankee" cars out to the end of the line at Bankstown in the 1920s. He must have used the 'Bankstown Yard' tracks. Makes sense.
A solid, well-argued proposal. Yours is a logical and achievable re-formatting of the tracks through Redfern, doubling the size of the throat into Central and taking full advantage of the relocation of Bankstown services out of the city circle.
Very well constructed video mate. Your changes are definitely achievable, and considering the south coast is about to be moved to Sydney terminal, there will only be more congestion incoming if the track layouts aren't improved. I've seen this happen a lot particularly when the Indian pacific runs, essentially 'blocking' platform 1 and forcing all intercity trains to use platform 3, with south coast line trains stuck in the tunnels. There are several stalemates like this that need to be addressed
A good tactical (short term) proposal. A few issues you could propose solutions for: --- The flying junctions are way too slow --- Terminal stations have low capacity --- The Sydney CBD is displaced about 20 km from the population centroid of the metropolitan area, causing the radial structure of the Sydney railway network to be very inefficient - with most trains only reaching seat capacity near the Sydney CBD in the peak. --- Both USyd and UNSW getting railway stations. The proposals below are not a lot for a NSW of 8.5 million people when a NSW with a far smaller population built about 10,000 km of railway between 1855 and 1933. In my view, we need a grid structure for the Sydney network which I have advocated through letters published in the SMH and DT. The initial grid would be made, in part, from existing lines and be 3x3: --- In a North-South direction we would have: The Western Sydney Airport Line extended north and south; The 'South' line from Macarthur to Merrylands getting a tunnel to Parramatta, Epping and Hornsby (for their interconnections) with a few inbetween stations with alignment improvements to Newcastle and Goulburn-Canberra; The Illawarra Line diverting at Town Hall to link with the Northern Beaches Line tunnels at Wynyard and the Northern Beaches Line on a revised alignment north of the Harbour Bridge. --- In an East-West direction we have the Airport-South West Line; The Western/Inner West Line; and Sydney Metro. The Sydney Metro should connect to the Airport Line between Green Square and Waterloo - at Waterloo, the horizontal alignment difference is around 160 metres - this will allow the Sydney Metro to become an orbital railway with both airports along it, and the orbital railway will be the outer part of the 3x3 Grid. The Airport Line into Central Station would remain to allow services during Sydney Metro maintenance, but come off the flying cross-overs to use platforms 22 and 23 as terminal platforms. The Metro would retain the Sydenham siding. As the West Metro is mostly dug, it should get a branch from Pyrmont into the esisting ES line Martin Place station, and ES line extended in two branches to Bondi Beach, POWH/UNSW, Maroubra Junction, Botany, Sydney Airport and Sydenham and some inbetween stations. The Hunter St branch would connect to the ES line near the viaduct. Half the West Metro trains could go to Hunter St and half to Martin Place - which will give more dwell time in the CBD. The Inner West Line should be diverted east of Liberty St Newtown to a new underground Station at Newtown, then in tunnel to City Rd/Eastern Ave (USyd), then emerge in the Sydney Rail Yard for the CBD platforms - about 3.5 km. Newtown would get platforms on the Western Line. Macdonaldtown station would close with improved pedestrian access provided to Erskinville and Newtown stations. The Western Line-North Shore Line should go underground just south of the Carriageworks to a new underground platforms at Redfern, then underground platforms under Central platforms 1 to 4, then linking to the existing North Shore Line platforms at Town Hall (platforms side-by-side on the upper level - 3 km tunnels. On the North Shore, the Waverton and Wollstonecraft stations would be replaced by a station just north of the Waverton tunnel and a new tunnel built to St Leonards that cuts out the Wollsontecraft curves. These two measures will cut 10 minutes off journeys between St Leonards and Redfern, and reduce the train requirement by six trains due to the time saving. The fifth and sixth intercity commuter tracks from Granville to Homebush are missing - they will fit in the corridor with some minor take of industrial land and a street. This enables more intercity services from the west. Burwood should replace Strathfield at the major regional stop on the Western, Innercity and InnerWest lines. The fifth and sixth tracks from Erskineville to Sydenham with the recovery of the Metro platforms at Sydenham (2.6 km). We should build medium speed (200 kmh) intercity lines: --- the 21 km Waterfall-Thirroul tunnel for Wollongong-Central in under one-hour; --- a fast Blue Mountains line - a 4.2 km viaduct from the Penrith railyard to Emu Heights, then a 50 km tunnel under Springwood and Blackheath stations that exits the ground about 720 metres above sea level just east of Cox's River below its junction with the River Lett (1.38% grade), then bridges, tunnels, cuttings and embankments to the Sodwalls three-quarter circle (15 km) as the first stage of a new Western Line to Orange - total about 160 km. Springwood and Blackheath would get underground stations (respectively 253m and 577m deep) that would serve as interchange and emergency stations. --- A new south-west line from Campbelltown to the Southern Highlands, Goulburn, Gungahlin, Civic, Woden Valley, Tuggeranong and Royalla (250 km) as the first stage of a rail line to Cooma (plus 100km) and Jindabyne (plus 150km). --- Hornsby-Gosford tunnels with bridge across the Hawkesbury for a 30 second iconic view of the river (about 36 km). --- for the above we will need a Second City Circle Line devoted sole to intercity trains - with tunnel dives at macdonaldtown and stations at Central, Pyrmont, Bridge St Sydney and Kings Cross (10 km). After the above, we are left with the Inner West, Bankstown, Illawarra and Cronulla lines using the current City Circle which could be reduced to four platforms for normal services, with two platforms used during maintenance and special events. The flying junctions in the Sydney Railyard could then be rebuilt to faster simpler design.
Sounds like the full optimisation of the Sydney yard and higher utilisation of all tracks at Redfern station would be seen after the south west Metro is complete.
Sydney Trains doesn't really like high-speed crossovers which is a hurdle you would need to get past.....apparently their intial cost & lower reliability (by way of more mechanisms) is something the signal team won't accept........meanwhile the rest of the world is logically removing all uncessary slowing & re-accelerating of trains...
It's not really high-speed crossovers that he needs here. As his commentary makes clear he's really just slewing pairs of tracks to use different pairs of platforms at Redfern-once at the country end and back again at the city end. Since almost all movements would follow these new routings, the track geometry would be altered to favor them. They would become the "straight" paths. It makes sense to retain crossovers at the same points, for flexibility and occasional movements, but of course they won't need high-speed turnouts. It just means that all trackwork would be replaced at these points to achieve the needed new geometry.
Great, clear video. Hello from London. Used to commute daily from the south coast in the 80s and 90s and have seen many interesting moves here over the years. The smoothest times for south coast trains was actually in the Olympics when they terminated and started from platforms 9 and 10 at Redfern. Very efficient and no low speed dives or walking pace in Sydney yard. 7 & 8 could be used for this post the swap to the local from Hurstville in 2025 along with 9 and 10 as a bonus? Could this free up Sydney Terminal even more? South Coast commuters generally are heading to the City Circle/ESR or North Sydney. Stopping SC trains at Sydenham (Metro/ESR) and terminating at Redfern (shorter change to City Circle / ESR than ST) would not inconvenience many and speed up things for most. Haven't been through there for a decade and a half so probably missing something. Thanks for the mentions of the diagrams, will look them up.
Very informative. You are right, Redfern platform 7&8 will become obsolete in a year's time, like the Platform 9&10 which I presume died after the ESR connected to the Illawarra line. Also in the Sydney terminal are there any tracks that can turn a locomotive the opposite direction? eg when the Indian Pacific is pulled into platform 1, I presume the front engine need to disengage, reverse out from middle road, but it will still pointing the wrong direction. (Another life mystery waiting to be solved)
Not possible to turn in sydney yard but the middle roads were used to allow locos at the buffer ends to cut off then shunt forward clear of points then move back into the middle road and allow it run around its train
@@thetrainguy4 really the ccn line is the highest patronised line almost double of all the intercity lines the ccn line needs 3 tph between 5 am to 9 pm 7 days a week 2 0f those all station services 9pm to midnight needs 2 per hour all stations midnight till 5 am 1 per hour all stops both ways if its to hard to run all to sydney woy woy needs a terminating platform no weekend timetable and no dumb services terminating at wyong what other stations in sydney get 1 train per hour on a weekend timetable
@@LeroysTransportVlogs more services a general weekday off peak is insufficent if they want to keeep things the same ditch express most stations only get 1 service an hour why not some frequencies n the network are 15 minutes or better
im a bloody mexican but enjoyed the pesky northerners take on railways.. amazing to see how the dump of old is evolving into a nicer polished turd at central
I would Love to see a decent development covering over the top of alot of the inner city rail corridors to be honest, there are much better uses for that land, I find Newtown is a particularly egregious one, Redfern would really be good as well though the obvious problem is the heritage buildings. Central could be so much better though
123,474 average train passenger moments a day plus trams plus busses seems a pretty decent land use at Central, certainly better then some motorways , Newtown carries an average of 16,042 daily passengers and it’s rail corridor is hardly wider the parramatta road.
@francesconicoletti2547 I dunno why you are quoting me passenger movements like I said we should "close the railways" or some nonsense. We have OSDs and over-corridor developments over probably a dozen of our stations and rail corridors already.
@@BigBlueMan118 As long as future OSDs are built very differently to the ones we have now that are deemed to be major safety hazards. Yet these types of structures are 4x more expensive than regular construction. A related aside, one side-effect of the government's recent ditching of the Central re-development is that it all ditched the replacement of the Goulburn Street car park OSD. This structure dramatically cuts the speed on all six tracks since it was assessed as a significant risk.
@Robert-um6fr yeah I know, ridiculous isnt it regarding the Goulburn St carpark - several hundred thousand people pass through there every day and get slowed down by a few hundred cars that usually only park there for less than half the day! Look the older OSDs are not great obviously, and the Point you're making is about supports within the rail corridor itself which since the Granville disaster now force trains to run slower. St Leonards rebuild was OK but they had to shut the rail corridor and use a temporary platform for that, at least now with the park they built there it is quite nice. Kings Cross, Edgecliff and Bondi Junction are all kind of meh but also they were built when the line was. The ones on the rest of the T4 down the Illawarra line are the worst examples of course. The best example is Chatswood by a country mile, it's probably the best I know of in Australia. I guess OSDs get even significantly harder to do If the corridor is more than 4 tracks wide hence none of the inner West corridor has been done. I wish they would redo Parramatta properly, and its disappointing none of the Bankstown Line stations got an OSD during the shutdown though of course they have enough on their plate getting the line ready and protecting the heritage structures. One of the reasons I advocate for them is they can improve the passengers experience by adding more shops and destinations and they can also improve access to the station itself.
Clearest explanation of what's going on at Central which I have heard. My grandfather used to catch a steam tank engine pulling 'end platform' "Yankee" cars out to the end of the line at Bankstown in the 1920s. He must have used the 'Bankstown Yard' tracks. Makes sense.
A solid, well-argued proposal. Yours is a logical and achievable re-formatting of the tracks through Redfern, doubling the size of the throat into Central and taking full advantage of the relocation of Bankstown services out of the city circle.
Very well constructed video mate. Your changes are definitely achievable, and considering the south coast is about to be moved to Sydney terminal, there will only be more congestion incoming if the track layouts aren't improved. I've seen this happen a lot particularly when the Indian pacific runs, essentially 'blocking' platform 1 and forcing all intercity trains to use platform 3, with south coast line trains stuck in the tunnels. There are several stalemates like this that need to be addressed
Great video and explanation. Cheers!
such a great explanation. thank you.
A good tactical (short term) proposal. A few issues you could propose solutions for:
--- The flying junctions are way too slow
--- Terminal stations have low capacity
--- The Sydney CBD is displaced about 20 km from the population centroid of the metropolitan area, causing the radial structure of the Sydney railway network to be very inefficient - with most trains only reaching seat capacity near the Sydney CBD in the peak.
--- Both USyd and UNSW getting railway stations.
The proposals below are not a lot for a NSW of 8.5 million people when a NSW with a far smaller population built about 10,000 km of railway between 1855 and 1933.
In my view, we need a grid structure for the Sydney network which I have advocated through letters published in the SMH and DT. The initial grid would be made, in part, from existing lines and be 3x3:
--- In a North-South direction we would have: The Western Sydney Airport Line extended north and south; The 'South' line from Macarthur to Merrylands getting a tunnel to Parramatta, Epping and Hornsby (for their interconnections) with a few inbetween stations with alignment improvements to Newcastle and Goulburn-Canberra; The Illawarra Line diverting at Town Hall to link with the Northern Beaches Line tunnels at Wynyard and the Northern Beaches Line on a revised alignment north of the Harbour Bridge.
--- In an East-West direction we have the Airport-South West Line; The Western/Inner West Line; and Sydney Metro.
The Sydney Metro should connect to the Airport Line between Green Square and Waterloo - at Waterloo, the horizontal alignment difference is around 160 metres - this will allow the Sydney Metro to become an orbital railway with both airports along it, and the orbital railway will be the outer part of the 3x3 Grid. The Airport Line into Central Station would remain to allow services during Sydney Metro maintenance, but come off the flying cross-overs to use platforms 22 and 23 as terminal platforms. The Metro would retain the Sydenham siding.
As the West Metro is mostly dug, it should get a branch from Pyrmont into the esisting ES line Martin Place station, and ES line extended in two branches to Bondi Beach, POWH/UNSW, Maroubra Junction, Botany, Sydney Airport and Sydenham and some inbetween stations. The Hunter St branch would connect to the ES line near the viaduct. Half the West Metro trains could go to Hunter St and half to Martin Place - which will give more dwell time in the CBD.
The Inner West Line should be diverted east of Liberty St Newtown to a new underground Station at Newtown, then in tunnel to City Rd/Eastern Ave (USyd), then emerge in the Sydney Rail Yard for the CBD platforms - about 3.5 km. Newtown would get platforms on the Western Line. Macdonaldtown station would close with improved pedestrian access provided to Erskinville and Newtown stations.
The Western Line-North Shore Line should go underground just south of the Carriageworks to a new underground platforms at Redfern, then underground platforms under Central platforms 1 to 4, then linking to the existing North Shore Line platforms at Town Hall (platforms side-by-side on the upper level - 3 km tunnels. On the North Shore, the Waverton and Wollstonecraft stations would be replaced by a station just north of the Waverton tunnel and a new tunnel built to St Leonards that cuts out the Wollsontecraft curves. These two measures will cut 10 minutes off journeys between St Leonards and Redfern, and reduce the train requirement by six trains due to the time saving.
The fifth and sixth intercity commuter tracks from Granville to Homebush are missing - they will fit in the corridor with some minor take of industrial land and a street. This enables more intercity services from the west. Burwood should replace Strathfield at the major regional stop on the Western, Innercity and InnerWest lines.
The fifth and sixth tracks from Erskineville to Sydenham with the recovery of the Metro platforms at Sydenham (2.6 km).
We should build medium speed (200 kmh) intercity lines:
--- the 21 km Waterfall-Thirroul tunnel for Wollongong-Central in under one-hour;
--- a fast Blue Mountains line - a 4.2 km viaduct from the Penrith railyard to Emu Heights, then a 50 km tunnel under Springwood and Blackheath stations that exits the ground about 720 metres above sea level just east of Cox's River below its junction with the River Lett (1.38% grade), then bridges, tunnels, cuttings and embankments to the Sodwalls three-quarter circle (15 km) as the first stage of a new Western Line to Orange - total about 160 km. Springwood and Blackheath would get underground stations (respectively 253m and 577m deep) that would serve as interchange and emergency stations.
--- A new south-west line from Campbelltown to the Southern Highlands, Goulburn, Gungahlin, Civic, Woden Valley, Tuggeranong and Royalla (250 km) as the first stage of a rail line to Cooma (plus 100km) and Jindabyne (plus 150km).
--- Hornsby-Gosford tunnels with bridge across the Hawkesbury for a 30 second iconic view of the river (about 36 km).
--- for the above we will need a Second City Circle Line devoted sole to intercity trains - with tunnel dives at macdonaldtown and stations at Central, Pyrmont, Bridge St Sydney and Kings Cross (10 km).
After the above, we are left with the Inner West, Bankstown, Illawarra and Cronulla lines using the current City Circle which could be reduced to four platforms for normal services, with two platforms used during maintenance and special events. The flying junctions in the Sydney Railyard could then be rebuilt to faster simpler design.
Sounds like the full optimisation of the Sydney yard and higher utilisation of all tracks at Redfern station would be seen after the south west Metro is complete.
Sydney Trains doesn't really like high-speed crossovers which is a hurdle you would need to get past.....apparently their intial cost & lower reliability (by way of more mechanisms) is something the signal team won't accept........meanwhile the rest of the world is logically removing all uncessary slowing & re-accelerating of trains...
It's not really high-speed crossovers that he needs here. As his commentary makes clear he's really just slewing pairs of tracks to use different pairs of platforms at Redfern-once at the country end and back again at the city end. Since almost all movements would follow these new routings, the track geometry would be altered to favor them. They would become the "straight" paths. It makes sense to retain crossovers at the same points, for flexibility and occasional movements, but of course they won't need high-speed turnouts.
It just means that all trackwork would be replaced at these points to achieve the needed new geometry.
Great, clear video. Hello from London. Used to commute daily from the south coast in the 80s and 90s and have seen many interesting moves here over the years. The smoothest times for south coast trains was actually in the Olympics when they terminated and started from platforms 9 and 10 at Redfern. Very efficient and no low speed dives or walking pace in Sydney yard. 7 & 8 could be used for this post the swap to the local from Hurstville in 2025 along with 9 and 10 as a bonus? Could this free up Sydney Terminal even more? South Coast commuters generally are heading to the City Circle/ESR or North Sydney. Stopping SC trains at Sydenham (Metro/ESR) and terminating at Redfern (shorter change to City Circle / ESR than ST) would not inconvenience many and speed up things for most. Haven't been through there for a decade and a half so probably missing something. Thanks for the mentions of the diagrams, will look them up.
Yeah, I gotta stand at the front of the train to get the tunnel view soon
I love you thetrainguy4
Very informative. You are right, Redfern platform 7&8 will become obsolete in a year's time, like the Platform 9&10 which I presume died after the ESR connected to the Illawarra line. Also in the Sydney terminal are there any tracks that can turn a locomotive the opposite direction? eg when the Indian Pacific is pulled into platform 1, I presume the front engine need to disengage, reverse out from middle road, but it will still pointing the wrong direction. (Another life mystery waiting to be solved)
Not possible to turn in sydney yard but the middle roads were used to allow locos at the buffer ends to cut off then shunt forward clear of points then move back into the middle road and allow it run around its train
cool :)
this doesnt mean more services for the central coast newcastle line does it
Nope sadly :( bad for us
More for the south coast but ironically probably less for the central coast when they get pulled off the north shore next year
@@thetrainguy4 really the ccn line is the highest patronised line almost double of all the intercity lines the ccn line needs 3 tph between 5 am to 9 pm 7 days a week 2 0f those all station services 9pm to midnight needs 2 per hour all stations midnight till 5 am 1 per hour all stops both ways if its to hard to run all to sydney woy woy needs a terminating platform no weekend timetable and no dumb services terminating at wyong what other stations in sydney get 1 train per hour on a weekend timetable
@ WHAT HOW WHY?
@@LeroysTransportVlogs more services a general weekday off peak is insufficent if they want to keeep things the same ditch express most stations only get 1 service an hour why not some frequencies n the network are 15 minutes or better
im a bloody mexican but enjoyed the pesky northerners take on railways.. amazing to see how the dump of old is evolving into a nicer polished turd at central
I would Love to see a decent development covering over the top of alot of the inner city rail corridors to be honest, there are much better uses for that land, I find Newtown is a particularly egregious one, Redfern would really be good as well though the obvious problem is the heritage buildings. Central could be so much better though
123,474 average train passenger moments a day plus trams plus busses seems a pretty decent land use at Central, certainly better then some motorways , Newtown carries an average of 16,042 daily passengers and it’s rail corridor is hardly wider the parramatta road.
@francesconicoletti2547 I dunno why you are quoting me passenger movements like I said we should "close the railways" or some nonsense. We have OSDs and over-corridor developments over probably a dozen of our stations and rail corridors already.
@@BigBlueMan118 As long as future OSDs are built very differently to the ones we have now that are deemed to be major safety hazards. Yet these types of structures are 4x more expensive than regular construction. A related aside, one side-effect of the government's recent ditching of the Central re-development is that it all ditched the replacement of the Goulburn Street car park OSD. This structure dramatically cuts the speed on all six tracks since it was assessed as a significant risk.
@Robert-um6fr yeah I know, ridiculous isnt it regarding the Goulburn St carpark - several hundred thousand people pass through there every day and get slowed down by a few hundred cars that usually only park there for less than half the day!
Look the older OSDs are not great obviously, and the Point you're making is about supports within the rail corridor itself which since the Granville disaster now force trains to run slower. St Leonards rebuild was OK but they had to shut the rail corridor and use a temporary platform for that, at least now with the park they built there it is quite nice. Kings Cross, Edgecliff and Bondi Junction are all kind of meh but also they were built when the line was. The ones on the rest of the T4 down the Illawarra line are the worst examples of course. The best example is Chatswood by a country mile, it's probably the best I know of in Australia. I guess OSDs get even significantly harder to do If the corridor is more than 4 tracks wide hence none of the inner West corridor has been done. I wish they would redo Parramatta properly, and its disappointing none of the Bankstown Line stations got an OSD during the shutdown though of course they have enough on their plate getting the line ready and protecting the heritage structures. One of the reasons I advocate for them is they can improve the passengers experience by adding more shops and destinations and they can also improve access to the station itself.