There are a couple stations bike riding is quite bad at, Birkdale is one that springs to mind.
Poor station managers keep having to tell kids often to dismount
5:42 pm Cleveland ex South Brisbane service was 3 cars today, and was packed to the rafters. Ridiculously overcrowded.
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They need to do all that they can to place the 3 car services on the low patronage routes such as Doomben or Coopers Plains services. Cleveland services are only every 15 minutes in peak and the peak services seem pretty well patronised, so definitely not a good option.
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It always shocks me seeing an NGR or a 6-car pair on a Doomben service - certainly Iāve never seen to demand that level of capacity
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AFAIK most of the Doomben trains required for each weekday are stabled at Robina and as such they do runs DB09 and DB11 in the early morning as positioning movements.
The third set is from Beenleigh I believe? Itās usually a pair of SMUs.
Iād imagine the fleet rosterings would have to be reworked a little bit to allow for two 6-car SMUs to be split while moving those two NGRs to somewhere else.
(Completely unrelated sidenote but GOOD GOD the NGRs have fantastic aircon. Itās like 32Ā° outside but the saloon is perfectly cool at probably 19Ā°)
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Welcome to Beenleigh, ladies and gentlemenā¦
Wouldnāt 3-car train problem still occur for inbound Gold Coast, Beenleigh, and Cleveland trains (pre-CRR) during peak-hour? The Doomben line gets 6-car NGRs and IMUs is because morning-peak trains from said lines through-run consolidate the slots for VLBR/BNBR/CLBR trains and BRDB trains. Otherwise the suburban sectors will have VLBR/BNBR/CLBR and BRDB using up capacity on the suburban sector.
I see merit in splitting 6-car IMU/SMU sets, but if one 3-car unit bounds for Doomben, where would the other set go? I not sure if the other 3-car set could bound for the Airport or Northgate without causing disruptions on the northern suburban sector.
Just a reminder:
Ed Sheeran is in town.
If youāre going to his concert, there are plenty of options to get there by public transport.
This afternoon, shuttle buses will be running from the city and some suburbs to Suncorp stadium (Regular buses will also be available, so too will the Metro from Roma Street). Meanwhile you can also get in by train. Milton station is closer to Suncorp but if you want to go to Caxton street before the gates open, then you can also get off at Roma Street, which is served by all trains.
Additionally, you can also get there by ferry but it can be quite the walk uphill from coronation drive.
As for those not going to the concert and want to minimise disruptions, may I advise you try your best to avoid Milton area, including the Inner City Bypass (Hale St) and Milton Roads, especially if your driving this evening or later tonight.
Iām going to tonightās concert.
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The ferry is not free for suncorp stadium events. sure 50c is nothing but ferries have never been included in the free public transport.
secondly, rip anyone who uses the 61 and 385. Always being put last with diversions and closing of dedicated bus lanes.
Also I forgot that the Northside had a track closure and rail uses on today. Why do they choose to do it on event days. They had months to plan this
Rail closures are planned years in advance and published 12 months ahead of time
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Iām getting mixed messages on whether or not trains are running on the Northside lines today.
If in doubt, always plan ahead I say
Itās only Beenleigh/GC closed today?
What Northside closure are you referring to
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There are events on in Brisbane most weekends. Are you suggesting trackwork should never happen?
should happen but not every flipping weekend. And surely they canāt shift more to night works. Whilst it takes us a Weekend or more just to replace some rail and dodgy switches, the Chinese and Japanese are building an entire train station from scratch in just 8 hours.
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This mentality of āweekend worksā clearly shows that there are passengers that are more important than others, and that off-peak/weekend travel is still seen as completely irrelevant to authorities even though post-pandemic travel patterns have changed a lot in that regard.
Do more nighttime work instead of just nuking entire lines for days at a time, for godās sake.
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I hate perpetual weekend track works. Heavy rail is my only feasible PT option and I would like to be able to use it on the weekend, especially as I also use a bike to extend my range from stations. It doesnāt look great when Translink are doing adverts about enjoying PT for weekend adventures. Sorry I donāt want to sit on a rail bus for 2 hours (and not take my bike) instead of a 40 minute trip. Itās been bad for me over the last few years due to my line being the Euro signal bunny for testing. I would love QR to actually post meaningful information about when itās expected to be completed also, it just feels like it never ends, especially when weāve had weekday track closures numerous times now also.
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In other countries having track closures isnāt too much of a problem because there are also buses running regularly as just another mode of transport (looking at you, South America and Europe).
āOh, the train isnāt running? Eh, there are coaches running every 15-30 minutes until late.ā
Having other modes should be seriously considered here instead of just having one above all.
The QR network carries quite a bit of freight at night, so at the very least, the main line, NCL, the Cleveland branch as west of Lytton Junction, and the South coast line north of Yeerongpilly need to remain open as much as possible.
The other issue is that far less work can be done overnight than in a full weekend, so far more setup/packdowns need to be done, so thereās far less for the actual maintenance work, and it will become substantially more expensive.
There are always bus replacements for rail shutdowns. I donāt see much point in always running themāthat would be incredibly wasteful.
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I would much prefer to have mode redundancy at all times instead of forcing everyone onto one mode that can fail at any given moment, which happens a bit too often for my liking.
And Iām not saying running buses to stations but rather making Brisbane/GC or Brisbane/SC routes that actually get to major areas like Coolangatta, Maroochydore, Noosa, Broadbeach, etc.