They de-scoped the original proposal they advised on when the LNP delayed the project to cut the budget. The project was about 2-3 years behind their schedule, they blamed architectural digs but I had written to my local MP because they lied to me about the delays and then had to advise they didn’t meet their procurement schedule (not a huge deal, just fucking say that). They removed an additional ramp, originally the platform raise was the entire length of the platform (lol de-scoping raising only a single platform - tight asses), they removed a small bike cage and a wombat crossing to the park and the footpath that the St Pats kids will walk to school from.
Having worked in procurement, the project comms team just flat out lying in writing is silly shit and would have saved them time when I kick off the additional work for them to deal with the Ministerial.
I’ve heard that a lot of the Sandgate and Shorncliffe residents (particularly elderly) are writing to their local MP about the future of the R346 shuttle. They definitely don’t want it to cease operations.
I’ve used it a few times and it’s routinely used by people not getting off the Sandgate train. There’s definitely a demand for a loop service given the public housing all throughout Shorncliffe.
I wonder if when the sectors change post CRR during peak they might alternate services starting at Sandgate and Shorncliffe due to the single track and platform section? I know that a 15 minute all day service can be reliably sustained with the current infrastructure, but it doesn’t seem right to penalise the rest of the line for that. 15 minutes during peak at Shorncliffe would suffice and I do think there is latent demand on that line, especially with the additional housing being built.
It should, but the fact even the Shorncliffe accessibility upgrade was half-arsed demonstrates there’s basically no appetite for improvements to this line.
I expect we’ll see 4 tph to Shorncliffe, and 4 tph to Northgate during peak.
There should be an enquiry about how QR closed an entire station for months on end, and cant even raise the entire length of a dead straight platform. Alot of money went into this for almost seemingly no improvement.
You have to keep in mind that there are minimum turnback times (turnback being the rail terminology for what people here call a ‘turnaround’ - ‘turnaround’ is the bus terminiology - I know semantics) that are locked into the crew’s contracts and rules. From memory when I was creating timetables for the Shorncliffe line for the Boondall events (a long time ago ala 2009), for a 3 car train it was a minimum 6min turnback, and for a six car unit, 8min turnback.
What this essentially means that is the crew arriving on the 7:20am arrival at Shorncliffe don’t then form the 7:24am, they get off the train and a crew from the previous train gets on board and forms the 7:24am service, the 7:20am crew then board the next available departure after the 7:24am train, at least from a rostering perspective. It would be either this set up or an extra crew would run up with a train to do a quick turnback, what we called a ‘Turnback crew’, ie: they just rode with the crew driving the train up to the terminus, then that crew would then get the train ready for a quick turnback. Other things we’d also do is send an extra service to sit on the track beyond the platform itself at Shorncliffe, where once a train departed and cleared Shorncliffe station, the train behind it would then move up to the platform before departing, and you’d normally only get signal clearance once the train ahead had departed Sandgate.
In a nutshell, this isn’t terribly efficient, and the track also needs to be available during the day for crews in training so they can get a run down to the station as part of their track learning (same applies to the Cleveland line and Doomben line), which means that 15min services can’t happen during the day as that track has to be cleared for non passenger services (crew training, track inspection vehicles etc - both of which aren’t allowed to run during peak hour).
So the only solution is for the track to be duplicated, which should happen, but honestly it is a low priority compared with other parts of the network (eg: Cleveland), due to the majority of the patronage being at Sandgate, not Shornclife.
Surely shifting the timetable so that inbound and outbound services cross at Sandgate would allow the time needed for turning back - 2 minutes each way from Sandgate to Shorncliffe allows for 11 minutes dwell time.
Honestly though, how does such a small section of single-track cause such a massive bottleneck on a major suburban line? Because with such a short section only for a single leg, surely there is also a way to reduce the time a train is using up that single track section.
PLEASE TELL ME THAT THE OLD SIGNALLING IS A LIMITATION FOR TURNBACK AND ETCS WILL HELP WITH THAT.
Edit: Perhaps Deagon would be a better place for trains to pass each other. You cannot be too sure that the trains are going to be punctual enough to perfectly slot in that single track section forna higher frequency.
Turnbacks at Sandgate station would be so much better with a simple DOWN-UP switch between Sandgate and Deagon, where Sandgate-terminating trains can use the switch to turn back on platform 1.
Well, perhaps we just do 15 minutes to Sandgate as that gets us 90% of what we want, and wear the awkward anomaly that 1 station at Shorncliffe will be 30 minute trains until the project to fix it is initiated.
What’s that saying that perfect is the enemy of the good?
And maybe a bus could plug the gap between trains sandgate <> shorncliffe so that there is a service, just not a train.
Its not sexy, but it’s workable with a do-minimum inclined administration.
The government (regardless of party) seems to be allergic to low-hanging fruit and easy duplications in smaller areas, presumably because they benefit less of the population/voting public, so they probably view it as a poor use of $$$, even for a bus.
Same reason Cleveland suffers, because they refuse to duplicate past Manly.
Entirely agree with this, and I think this solution would also highlight the ridiculousness of the situation & maybe generate some public pressure to duplicate the last few km.