Good reasoning. Maybe the split at Altandi is the way to go. In the current timetable, it would mean all stops sections of 34 minutes (Roma Street to Altandi), 30 minutes (Altandi to Beenleigh) and 34 minutes (Beenleigh to Varsity Lakes), which is nice and even. Roma Street to Altandi would of course have to add more time to go up to Albion, but the directness of CRR should offset some of that and keep it relatively even.
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A couple of other things Iād do is close Sunnybank station as itās quite close to both Banoon and Altandi and Iād rename Altandi to Sunnybank. Iād also combine Runcorn and Fruitgrove stations into a single Runcorn station around Hill Street, and I would close Holmview station.
This would allow for faster travel times but still adequately serve those areas, especially with 15 minute all day frequencies. If we were being more ambitious Iād tunnel from Runcorn to Coopers Plains with a station at Pinelands.
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I wouldnāt straight close Holmview, I would close both Holmview AND Edens Landing and put a new Holmview station between them at this location near the Holmview and Grove Road corner.
Being at the top of Holmview Road means that it is more convenient to the newer sections of Holmview south of Logan River Road (Holmview Road is one of the only straight, direct roads in the whole area). The current Edens Landing station would have very little walk up traffic and isnāt directly serviced by local buses at all (250m walk from the nearest stop), so I donāt think there would be that much opposition to relocating it - maybe from the retirement village, but they still have an even closer bus stop.
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This can definitely be done for peak hour in peak-direction with our current infrastructure; the Beenleigh trainsārunning express from Boggo Road to Kuraby, stopping only at Altandiācould use the express track that the GC trains run on. At Kuraby, the express Beenleigh train could switch from the express track to the all-stops track and continue its journey to Beenleigh while the GC trains continue running express to Beenleigh.
Is there going to be public consultation on this? Just asking as this conversation (stopping patterns) is getting a lot of air time being at least 5 years away.
The most important thing is getting Loganlea Station done from an operational perspective. Hence, I would like to see a turnback there from 2028/9 to improve operations and frequency for commuters.
As from today, Loganlea station is moving along in great strides, platform 1-2 is already up as well as the steal frame for the shelter.
Unfortunately I didnāt have time to take a pic.
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I believe at one stage there was a plan to have some trains terminating at Helensvale, requiring a third platform. No idea if this will ever happen.
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It may be the crossing location for the express pattern should they ever introduce the concept of local services for the Gold Coast.
Helensvale makes sense as an intermediate point if the Beenleigh and Gold Coast patterns are ever split up further. The stabling capacity at Ormeau would support this.
I would have no issue with there being 3 patterns across the whole corridor once CRR and LGCFR are up and running. My suggestion would be (starting from Roma Street UG) that all trains stop at Albert Street, Woolloongabba, Boggo Road and also Dutton Park (given all trains must pass through the platforms anyway). South of Dutton Park it would be:
- All stations to Loganlea (which will have 4 platforms and is quite capable of acting as a terminus in and around 2 other through patterns).
- Express* to Altandi, express to Loganlea, then all stations to Helensvale (which would be capable of acting as a terminus if platform 3 is built). Southbound and terminating (from the north) trains would all finish up on the new platform 3, while originating trains (to the north) use platform 2 and northbound trains (from the south) use platform 1. There would be a centre turnback between platforms 2 and 3. This would also make connections to trams much easier when coming from the north.
- Express* to Altandi, express to Loganlea, express to Beenleigh, express to Coomera, express to Helensvale, then all stations to Varsity Lakes (and ultimately to Coolangatta).
The aim would be 4tph for each pattern as the basic off-peak offering (ie from say 5-6am to 8-9pm), with half-hourly at other times.
Depending on constraints between Dutton Park and Yeerongpilly it is possible all counter-peak trains may need to stop at all stations in this stretch, but I would otherwise want to keep everything 100% consistent regardless of time of day or day of week.
I think the essential stops for the express patterns are where I have them based on their relative importance as transfer points between each pattern and to connecting buses / trams, or as major centres with major facilities existing and proposed, but this makes a few assumptions (eg no extension from Salisbury towards Flagstone) which might throw this out if they donāt hold true.
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One issue I have with your pattern split is that youāre driving a wedge into intra-LGA travel.
Gold Coast residents from Pimpama wanting to travel to Nerang, or Robina (eg. for shopping/working at Pacific Fair and Robina Town Centre) are forced to change trains for a short local journey, and so too are Logan residents coming from south of Loganlea (like Beenleigh) to the the civic precinct of Logan Central.
For Logan, the longest intra-Logan train journey (Beenleigh to Trinder Park) is 20 minutes, and so too is my theoretical Pimpama to Robina trip, so even a relatively short 5 minute wait between trains still equates to an extra 25% of the current travel time.
I really think that pattern splits need to take into account these sorts of local, intra-LGA journeys, and donāt just concentrate on getting people from x location into the CBD as soon as possible.
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My thoughts are that itās funny that they were saying the NWTC, Beaudesert, Gold Coast Airport, Maroochydore and Ripley lines were going to be up and running by 2031ā¦
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Not to mention the high frequency Cleveland line 
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Well its a combination of:
- 20 years is a totally achievable period to deliver those, because basically all of those corridors were already protected (not necessarily acquired) by that point; and
- we will have so much decentralised population growth that we really will actually need all of those lines to avoid overinvestment in the highways.
It was always an ambitious idea and not everything would be deliverable in the timeframe, but it was certainly useful to have a plan.
The issue was the 2012 election brought a government that didnt believe that the critical first step (CRR) was necessary, and then the 2015 to 2024 government actively promoted that no planning for anything further rail projects would occur until CRR opened.
If we had a government like the NSW blue team over the same period, we very really could have delivered a lot of that plan by 2031.
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Yes agreed. It was more a reflection of a Labor government that values glossy brochures more than delivering stuff, and that LNP government that loved to cut things either entirely or replacing what they cut with ridiculous alternatives (bat tunnel anyone?).
I feel like that planning of Connecting SEQ 2031 may have included thinking that was envisioned in/for the pre-council amalgamations era (the amalgamations happened only a few years before Connecting SEQ 2031 came out, if I remember correctly). Before the amalgamations, the Logan River was the Logan LGA boundary, with Bethania - Beenleigh falling in GCCC, making a Loganlea split less troublesome for intra-LGA travel.
Even if this wasnāt the case, the intra-Gold Coast issue isnāt present - all GC Stations are serviced by the CoastLink service, so that solves half my issue. That leaves just the intra-Logan issue, and for that I would still push for the all stations portion of ExpressLink to be extended from Loganlea to Kuraby to incorporate the entire LGA.
Other variations could perhaps be to have CoastLink run all stops only to Coomera, then run express (stopping only at Beenleigh, Loganlea & Altandi), then have Expresslink form an all stations service from Varsity Lakes to Kuraby, then express from there, and then an All Station service from Kuraby?
Or just keep the existing pattern but up the frequency on both.
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For interest, this is the area that was previously in Gold Coast City that was transferred to Logan City on 14 March 2008 as part of the Local Government amalgamations, with the new boundary following the Albert River.
Addit: Logan also gained a significant amount of land from the former Beaudesert Shire, including Greenbank, Flagstone, Jimboomba, Yarabilba and Logan Reserve at that time thatās not shown well on that map.
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Theyāre only going to quad-track to Beenleigh (and that will mean they move Beenleigh station to do so, since they donāt want to expand the tunnel under Beenleigh town centre at great cost). Having both an all-stopper and an express in the Beenleigh to Helensvale section will end up creating the same issue that Logan to Gold Coast Faster Rail was trying to fix - express trains get stuck behind all-stoppers. They can get around this by building passing loops, but why bother when there arenāt that many stations between Beenleigh and Helensvale anyway?
With the infrastructure that will be in place, I think the better arrangement is the one listed here, all stations to Altandi, express Boggo Rd to Altandi then all stations to Beenleigh, and the current Gold Coast line stopping pattern.
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Exactly. Hope Island through Ormeau are 4 stations, so at 30 seconds dwell time thatās 2 minutes lost vs the express.
If both the southern-GC and Logan++ lines are at 8tph, that means leaving Helensvale northbound:
- GC A
- Logan
- empty
- GC B
Then entering Beenleigh:
- GC A
- empty
- Logan
- GC B
So then the question becomes āIs 8tph right for both lines?āā¦