I feel like the 3-track corridor is a bit tight for the addition of another track, especially at stations. To reserve more space for a fourth-track, they probably would need to remove a platform from all the stations in said corridor, requiring entire station rebuilds (or possibly an entire corridor rebuild).
You wouldnāt through route Beenleigh trains to the Kippa-Ring line in the off peak. I did a mock timetable and the train ex-Gold Coast would arrive Boggo Road 3 mins behind the all stopper. You would have a train run empty from Clapham and follow behind the train from the Gold Coast to start a Kippa-Ring train. The trains from Beenleigh would run to Exhibition and then empty to Mayne Yard.
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I like the idea of terminating and originating off-peak trains from the yards. But there will be significantly increased yard activity that QR has got to deal with.
Since SEQRailConnect shows that Cabo/SC trains will stop at Strathpine station. My best bet is that QR still plans on through-running Beenleigh with Redcliffe and Gold Coast with Sunshine Coast, and that they added a stop at Strathpine for SC services anticipating the interference before Bray Park.
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Question: if the northern busway/transitway/metro/whatever is meant to terminate at Carseldine, would it make more sense for express trains to stop there, rather than Strathpine? Or are there other reasons why Strathpine makes more sense?
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Iām sure that the stop at Strathpine is just to make some space between the SC/Caboolture and Redcliffe train.
But I feel like it is a wasted opportunity for QR to not have the SC/Cabo trains stop at Carseldine for good connections with the 340 BUZ and other bus routes.
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Strathpine makes a sensible branching point for any new āfastā route to Brisbane whether that involves Trouts Road, going via Chermside or otherwise. Youād only have to put in quad track from Petrie to Strathpine, then 3 tracks from Strathpine to Northgate would be plenty for the local services and freight / long distance with the majority of other services running via the new route.
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Iām a daily SCL user and I have been saying this for ages.
I understand why we have to stop at Northgate (allows us to overtake an inbound all stopper and links to Shorncliffe line) but Carseldine is so much better for transport connections already, and even more so if/when Metro is extended to the Carseldine bus interchange. I would have absolutely no issues losing northgate as a stop (or having SCL trains run express Petrie to Caboolture) if it meant an extra stop, even with some dwell time, at Carseldine.
It also provides a very important alternate route if something catastrophic happens to the inner city rail network. It would be chaos, but I can imagine jumping off a train at Carseldine and getting on a bus would be so much easier than having to wait for rail replacement to be arranged.
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While I agree and really want this to be the case, I donāt have high hopes for itā¦
That makes sense.
Although with any āfastā route via northern Brisbane being (probably) decades away (if at all), and with likely network changes to take place under that eventuality anyway, Iām not sure it makes sense to make this a express stop in the (very long) interim if thereās another station that makes more sense for the current network.
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Yes, Carseldine would make more sense in the meantime.
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Iām curious as to why Carseldine rather than Zillmere? 330 gives a quicker connection to Chermside than 340.
Carseldine station has a direct bus stop as part of the station.
Bus connections at Zillmere require passengers to walk to Handford Rd from the train station.
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It would add at least 2 mins for beyond Caboolture (DSCL/Nambour/Gympie) users and from memory would tick some of the commuters off for slowing the commute further (pre-sectorisation Nambour trains had the same stopping pattern as the Gympie North trains).
The only way I could probably see a Carseldine stop working if they actually triplicate beyond Petrie to Narangba (at the minimum) or ideally triplicate the whole Petrie to Caboolture stretch to re-enable a two-tiered approach with Caboolture terminators, extending the Nambour/Gympie North shuttles to Caboolture (to avoid double changing for Landsborough to Gympie North passengers), and running the Direct Sunshine Coast/Birtinya trains express from Beerwah to Eagle Junction, stopping Caboolture, Petrie, Carseldine and Northgate.
I would just keep the stops between Cabo and Beerwah for services to the Sunshine Coast. Think of them in the same way as stops for Gold Coast trains south of Beenleigh.
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It really surprises me that neither of those two options have been implemented yet. Without triplication to Caboolture I donāt see a way that the Caboolture to Birtinya section will ever achieve a proper āturn up and goā service frequency because you have Caboolture services, Birtinya services and then traveltrain and freight all sharing one up and one down track.
Petrie to Narangba I think is feasible and maybe even cost effective because Narangba already has a third platform and Dakabin has sufficient space to add a third platform on the western side as well, although you start running into issues having to rebuild or modify the two road over rail bridges north of Petrie to accommodate the third track.
Petrie to Caboolture would be a fair bit harder, with more station parking lost, however the corridor itself has plenty of space, you could even get away with 4 tracks in some parts. Some new rail over road bridges would be required, however itās interesting to see that the Morayfield Road overpass appears to have been designed to accommodate another 1-2 tracks underneath.
What concerns me a little bit is successive governments donāt seem to be too concerned about Petrie to Caboolture capacity. Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast are two of the fastest growing LGAs in Queensland, with literally hundreds of thousands of people expected to move into the catchment that is serviced by the Caboolture/SC Line over the next two decades. Trains in the morning are sometimes already standing room only from Caboolture onwards, so I hate to think what itāll be like in 2040. Sure ETCS will allow improved headway, but the single track in either direction is so limiting. At some stage a ~5-7.5 minute headway will be required between Caboolture and the CBD, and trying to mix express and non express services as well as non citytrain all into the one bottleneck will be interesting.
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Iām not sure that QR intend on making the Sunshine Coast line truly turn-up-and-go from Brisbane, since SEQRailConnect classes it as a long-distance express interurban service. A more reasonable turn-up-and-go rail service I see is to run off-peak services from Caloundra/Aura to Maroochydore/Noosa every 15min alongside the trains from Brisbane trains running every 15min as well. So trains from Caloundra/Aura to Maroochydore/Noosa would have a train every 7.5min all day overall. Turn-up-and-go seems a bit more appropriate for intraurban within Sunshine Coast.
I can see the same happen in the Gold Coast as well, have trains from Beenleigh to Varsity Lakes/OOL run every 15min during off/counter-peak alongside 15min frequent trains from Brisbane to have 7.5 frequency intraurban rail travel in the Gold Coast.
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I donāt see higher frequencies than every 15 minutes in the off-peak for the Gold or Sunshine Coast. Higher frequencies in the peak direction absolutely.
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Probably a poor choice of words on my part, I am used to the 90 minute offpeak frequency currently on the SCL so anything under 30 minutes is āturn up and goā for me 
My point is that I donāt see how they can easily achieve both high frequency and limited stops interurban services (as per SEQ rail connect) with inbound trains from both Birtinya and Caboolture sharing one track from Caboolture to Petrie (the other track is needed for contra peak). Right now in the morning peak from Caboolture to Petrie you have around 6-7TPH inbound which is made up of a combination of units originating at Caboolture, Nambour and then the morning service from Gympie too. Some services run as close as 6 mins apart on the UP track which is pretty tight for non ETCS and in my experience if a service ahead has a problem or boarding delays it can cause congestion behind.
Since Caboolture and Nambour follow the same stopping pattern it generally works and no overtaking is needed (the express from Gympie is timetabled to have a big enough gap that it slots in behind a Caboolture service after Petrie) but it leaves basically no wiggle room to increase frequency north of Caboolture with the current signalling system. My understanding is the current 6-7TPH is basically the hard limit with QRās current network setup at the moment, ETCS could increase that to 10TPH, but will that be enough? If we assume 5TPH are for Caboolture originating services and 5TPH are for Birtinya services, thatās still only a service every 12 minutes north of Caboolture. They could change some peak services to originate at Birtinya instead of Caboolture but that then raises the question of stabling capacity, etc.
I think the short answer is they could probably get away with just using ETCS and slightly changing the mix of Caboolture and Birtinya inbound services to achieve 7.5 minute frequency but that probably closes the door on any chances of Birtinya services running express to reduce travel times. It seems like one of those issues where they can either increase frequency or reduce stops for interurban Sunshine Coast ā Brisbane services, but not both. Triplicating the track to Caboolture would be the only real solution to achieve both those outcomes?
Personally commuting from Beerwah I donāt care about peak frequency as much, I would rather have a limited stops service that follows the Gympie North stopping pattern (with perhaps an added stop at Carseldine) to shave 10 minutes off the trip into the city, although overcrowding would eventually become a problem.
I think any of us would take 15 minutes right? 
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