Hopefully this is just the first step and we start seeing more of these little improvements over the course of the year. Even if QR don’t have the rollingstock or capacity for extra peak services on all lines, more off peak services would be a fantastic improvement.
They should have plenty of data now that 50c fares has been going for a while, and I imagine now is as good a time as ever to start trialling service improvements which can then be used to inform how the new timetable is planned to operate post-CRR.
It always pains me a bit when I’m heading into the city on a weekend and the stabling yard at Elimbah is full of trains as my 90-minutely service zips past.
This is all great news (especially Doomben FINALLY becoming 7 days a week), but I wonder why QR has suddenly decided to bring in these extra services. Not complaining though!
The timing is quite interesting, with these rail service upgrades (Doomben aside) both coinciding with the opening of the SE Busway Extension to Springwood. However, at the same time they are barely promoting these changes, which I think is a strange move - they aren’t ground-breaking, but together they are worthy of a decent press release I would have thought, rather than being hidden on the service updates page.
I wonder if these new services are coming out of the existing QR operational budget, or have they asked for extra funds to run extra services? They really need to look at efficiencies and track infrastructure improvements where needed. (DOO, and duplication).
That Cleveland line express is getting more and more vestigial - it used to save 5 minutes in PM peak and now it saves 3.
(However, we now have the delightful rarity of counter peak expresses.)
For the Cleveland line, part of the reason for the PM express is probably just to ensure that people past Manly can get a seat more reliably, since they can only get 4 trains/hour in peak.
I imagine these are just out of service runs that now will be executed in revenue service. Better fleet utilisation and whatnot.
About the Doomben line getting Sunday service: cool but I still find it insane that they run 6-car trains on a service that absolutely does not justify it.
Just take two 6-car SMUs, split them to have 4 3-car sets and voila: a much more realistic offering.
(And I think I would be murdered if I say that I’m in favour of the branch being turned into a busway…)
Also agree the line should be investigated for Brisbane Metro bus conversion. Sunday service would be every 10 min or better in that scenario instead of hourly.
If you want quality, don’t look so the wheels, look at the timetable.
The shunt operations involved aren’t worth it. There is no cost saving to running a 3-car train vs a 6-car train, as the largest cost of running a service is the driver.
Also considering the NGRs are 6 car consists that cannot be split, and the QTMP trains will be as well, there will be less and less 3 car trains available going forward. Unless there is dire rollingstock shortage there is really no reason not to just keep it as 6 car
I don’t support conversion of the Doomben line, if anything I would like to see some infrastructure improvements on the line. The emergence of Sunday/public holidays service is long overdue and is a vote of confidence in the lines future. I am going to try to go for a Sunday trip to Doomben when the Sunday services commence. There are many higher priorities than pontificating about the ‘Doomben line’ e.g. Carindale and Chermside BERT expansion.
Organised chaos on the Sunshine Coast and Ipswich lines this morning, with a police incident at Narangba causing a stop for southbound peak services which lasted for about 20 minutes.
Some services ran express Petrie → Bowen Hills (which only made up about 2 mins as we had to crawl through Northgate and EJ at walking speed) and switch tracks a few times as we’d obviously lost our position in the timetable.
Heavy overcrowding followed on the subsequent 3 car inbound CAIP service however it looks like following services weren’t too badly affected.
Labour Day weekend in Warwick means the annual trip to Goondiwindi. While I was unavailable to travel this year (managing a polling booth in Warwick), I popped down to get a close look at BB18 1/4 1037 which was loaned from DownsSteam in Toowoomba. After the cylinder covers blew last year on a run, they’ve now been replaced and she’s looking wonderful. She’s one of the rare UK-built examples of the class, as well.
This was her second trip to Goondiwindi in 3 weeks (with a private charter in early April), and as far as anyone is aware, the first (now 2) times a BB18 1/4 has been on the South-west line since the end of the steam era.
Ahhh, there’s the sort of press release I was expecting, complete with a nice stab at the previous government - The 111 additional services are more than all the new services combined delivered by Labor since 2016
And for the record, I’m also not a fan of the idea of ripping up the Doomben Line. Turning it from a single seat journey into the CBD into a BRT shuttle line between Doomben and EJ I would consider a backwards step.
Just throw enough money at it to do a partial duplication of the line to up the frequency beyond half hourly and it should be set (post CRR that could make for 15mins inner city service from Doomben to Indooroopilly.
I feel like the cost for a minor duplication would come in under the cost of ripping the whole lot up and rebuilding it as a busway.
Most trains will run down the core to Boggo Road on an hourly schedule, with the first two northbound services starting at Roma Street, and with the last two southbound runs terminating there as well.
• Last weekend northbound leaves RST at 7:19pm
• Last southbound leaves DBN at 7:58pm
Hooray! The change in stopping pattern for the express services is very sensible - as others have pointed out the time saved is very marginal now and they usually end up crawling through the Wynnum stations anyway waiting for signals to clear. There are usually decent crowds at Murarrie and Cannon Hill these days.
Additional contra peak services are welcome too - haven’t looked at what it means exactly in the timetable but the closer we can get to 15 minute frequencies the better. It’s ridiculous waiting 30 minutes for a service in peak hour just because you’re not travelling to the CBD.
