New NSW regional train fleet – a solid choice or missed opportunity?

Posted on 16 February, 2019 by

In signing a $1.26 billion contract with the Momentum Trains consortium for a new regional train fleet to be operated by NSW TrainLink the NSW Government seems to have learnt a few things from its chastening experience in selecting Hyundai Rotem’s offering to replace the intercity trains.

As part of the deal Spanish manufacturer CAF has been contracted to supply 29 trains based on its Civity platform. Unlike the intercity fleet, these trains will involve some local manufacture and assembly and will be maintained in rural NSW, with the bulk of the remainder of the $2.8 billion contract covering a new service facility to be located in Dubbo and maintenance of the trains for 15 years.

The government also appears to have avoided two other key aspects of its mishandling of the intercity trains agreement – at 2.88m width, the regional trains do not appear to require any major changes to rail infrastructure, and unlike the unpopular fixed seats in the intercity trains, seating in the regional trains will be reversible.

CAF also seems to have had a lot more experience in manufacturing the train it is contracted to provide than its Korean counterpart has had with making double-deck intercity trains. However, key questions remain – are the new regional trains going to be the best ones for the job and will the new fleet support the network’s future development?

Artist impression of the new CAF Civity train, bound for NSW. Source: Transport for NSW

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NSW High-Speed Rail: following Victoria’s example?

Posted on 17 December, 2018 by

The announcement by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian that the NSW government “would start work on a fast rail network in the next term of government” has already been criticised as being a repeat reading from a very hackneyed script.

True to form, the announcement was made less than four months out from an election by a government fearful of losing rural and regional seats. We all know the storyline – a government announces a High-Speed Rail (HSR) study with great fanfare or a private sector group promotes its own proposal for an HSR line. There is a bit of media coverage, route options are debated, and experts are wheeled out to proffer their opinions. Then a few months later – and in the case of government-led proposals, usually after an election – the proposal is shelved, invariably on cost grounds.

Despite the cynicism there are some worthwhile aspects of the approach the NSW government is taking this time round which are worth exploring. One of these is the similarities with the successful regional rail strategy adopted by its Victorian counterpart.

NSW Fast Rail: potential routes identified for investigation. Source: NSW Fast Rail Future website

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Bradfield, 75 years on – part 5: using Bradfield’s abandoned tunnels – trains, trams or tourism?

Posted on 3 October, 2018 by

I had intended to write a postscript to my series on the ideas of the engineer John Bradfield and their impact on Sydney in commemoration of the recent 75th anniversary of his death on 23 September 1943, but the NSW Government has, in a sense, beaten me to it.

Recently the government announced plans to transform the abandoned tunnels and platforms at St James Station which Bradfield constructed into an entertainment and tourism precinct housing bars, restaurants, shops or galleries, all occupying 6,000 square metres of underground space. This announcement provides a coda to the last article in my series which touched on the abandoned tunnels in discussing Bradfield’s plans for what was effectively a “missing metro” through Sydney’s inner suburbs.

The tunnels formed a key component of Bradfield’s plans. In this light is the announcement by NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance the wise recycling of redundant assets to encourage tourism, or a short-sighted takeover of valuable public transport infrastructure? It’s worth taking a look at why the tunnels were built, what the government is proposing to do with them and the potential, if any, for their use as transport corridors.

What was Bradfield planning?

Mr Constance states that “the platforms and tunnels were intended to link the Eastern Suburbs with the Northern Beaches but the plans were never completed”. This is incorrect.

Bradfield may have changed his ideas a few times, but it was clearly the lines across the Harbour Bridge that were always intended to prove a northern beaches link – not the tunnels at St James. In fact, while he proposed an interchange, Bradfield never planned a direct connection between his eastern suburbs and northern beaches lines.

Bradfield’s 1925 City Railway plan. Source: R Raxworthy (1989), The Unreasonable Man.

Instead, as I described in more detail in my last article, the St James tunnels were intended to provide an interchange between the City Circle and Bradfield’s planned line which would have run to both the eastern and the western suburbs. Unlike the extra platforms at Town Hall, the additional infrastructure would not only have allowed passengers to interchange, but also would have permitted trains to transfer from the eastern suburbs line to the City Circle, and vice versa. Continue reading →

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Bradfield, 75 years on – part 4: Unfinished business – Sydney’s “missing metro”

Posted on 23 September, 2018 by

In commemoration of John Bradfield on the 75th anniversary of his death on 23 September 1943, I’m writing a series of posts exploring some of the ideas outlined in his 1924 engineering doctorate thesis and their relevance for Sydney a century later. Please see part 1 for the background to this series, and follow these links to part 2 and part 3.

While Sydney’s Harbour Bridge and its underground CBD railway are enduring testaments to the way in which engineer John Bradfield shaped this city, they represent only part of a grander vision.

Bradfield thought big. He wanted to solve the chronic traffic problems of Sydney in the early 20th century and provide a foundation for its continued growth by giving it a modern rapid transit rail system, based (as described in the previous article) on the latest European and American technology. He wanted to extend this rail network to the edges of “greater Sydney” as it then existed, but also to lay the foundations for rapid transit within the city’s inner suburbs.

At the heart of this network was the bridge and the CBD railway, but Bradfield also proposed three additional lines that would have filled the gaping holes in rail coverage in the inner city. Unfortunately, these were never built as Bradfield planned – had they been completed Sydney would in effect have gained a metro, a full century before the one currently being constructed, and consequently would have been a very different city to the one we know today.

This is the story of these abandoned and largely forgotten proposals and of the city that might have been.

City and Suburban Railways 1915, authorised to Bondi (Junction) and Weston (now Victoria) Road Balmain. Source: R. Raxworthy, The Unreasonable Man

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Bradfield, 75 years on – part 3: Rapid Transit comes full circle

Posted on 17 September, 2018 by

As the 75th anniversary of John Bradfield’s death on 23 September 1943 approaches, I’m writing a series of posts exploring some of the ideas outlined in his 1924 engineering doctorate thesis and their relevance for Sydney a century later. Please see part 1 for the background to this series, and catch up with part 2 here.

The first name for the Sydney Metro when it was announced in 2012 was Sydney Rapid Transit, with much being made of the “new rapid transit system” and its ability to carry thousands of people per hour. The name has since changed but the fundamental premise, that a new breed of single-deck trains operating at high frequencies represents a step change for users of the Sydney rail network, remains the same.

This would have surprised John Bradfield because the concept of rapid transit was at the core of his plans to modernise and expand Sydney’s rail system a century ago. Why then is rapid transit being reinvented for the Sydney Metro, and what has changed in the past 100 years?

The use of “rapid transit” to refer to urban rail systems is older than you might think. In England, Picturesque and Descriptive. A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel published in 1882, Joel Cook, an American visiting the UK, admired the Metropolitan Railway, London and the world’s first underground railway which had opened in 1863:

The original idea seems to have been to connect the various stations of the railways leading out of town, and to do this, and at the same time furnish means of rapid transit from the heart of the city to the suburbs… In this way London has solved its rapid-transit problem, though it could be done only at enormous cost.

By the time Bradfield travelled to Europe and North America in 1914 to study the latest metro and subway systems the term rapid transit was in common use; the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company was formed in 1896 and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company opened in 1904 as New York’s first subway line. Bradfield made detailed observations of these systems, carefully documenting the speed, frequency and dwell times of trains for his 1916 Report on the proposed electric railways for the City of Sydney. This report also outlined his rationale for a rapid transit system in Sydney and how it would work.

Brooklyn Rapid Transit System A/B Railcar plans, 1914. Source: http://www.nysubway.org

NSWGR Standard Suburban railcar design, 1924. Source Bradfield thesis, University of Sydney

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Planning for AVs: part 1 – three perspectives on a driverless future

Posted on 4 September, 2018 by

Predicting the impact of new technology is a very inexact science. Technological change proceeds by fits and starts and the outcomes are rarely what its authors expect – who for example, could have predicted the rise and swift demise of the fax machine, or the marriage of phones and cameras, or that an app built on couch surfing could upend the hotel industry?

Despite this we still need to at least try to ask the right questions if we want to at least attempt to influence the direction of change. The seemingly unstoppable rise of autonomous vehicles (AVs) provides a potent example. There is an increasing realisation that AVs are likely to become a reality, though there is still considerable debate on how, when, and how quickly this will occur. What is certain however is that the impact of AVs will be profound. The advent of their predecessor provides abundant evidence for the impact of new mobility technologies; every aspect of human life over the last century or so, especially for people living in cities, has been substantially affected by cars.

While the impact of AVs will be different, our experience with cars gives us some clues regarding the potential spread and scale of disruption. Three major reports released in the past 12 months have looked at these issues from different perspectives. The first, Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030 by James Arbib & Tony Seba from the think tank Rethinkx, is full of dramatic predictions regarding the potential for AVs to be universally adopted within the next decade, and the consequent social changes.

Speed of adoption of Transport as a Service (TaaS). Source: James Arbib & Tony Seba, Rethinking Transportation, 2020-2030.

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Bradfield, 75 years on – part 2: “the only woman present” – Kathleen Butler and the Bridge

Posted on 9 August, 2018 by

As the 75th anniversary of John Bradfield’s death on 23 September 1943 approaches, I’m writing a series of posts exploring some of the ideas outlined in his 1924 engineering doctorate thesis and their relevance for Sydney a century later. Please see part 1 for the background to this series.

In his preface to his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Science in Engineering which documented his work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, construction of the underground railway and electrification of the rail network John Bradfield acknowledges the contribution of only two people.

He gives one a brief mention – Professor Warren, who taught him “the sound principles of Engineering practice” – but he is much more generous in thanking the other. After describing the establishment of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and City Transit Branch and his own appointment as Chief Engineer in 1912, Bradfield lavishes praise on the Branch’s next appointee:

The first officer appointed to the branch was Miss K.M. Butler now my Confidential Secretary: she has at all times carried out her duties with foresight, tact and marked ability. In preparing the Specification for the Sydney Harbour Bridge she was my only assistant; the technique of the Specification is hers, and I think it would be impossible to find a better arranged or better printed specification. During my absence abroad in 1922 she carried out all correspondence with tenderers throughout the world, herself; she is present at all interviews with the tenderers in Sydney and myself excepted she alone knows of the many issues involved in tendering for the bridge. Her conscientious and efficient help has materially lightened the responsibility which the design and construction of these two great engineering works have entailed, and in this Thesis I wish to place on record my sincere thanks to the lady for her invaluable assistance. (in this and all Bradfield’s quotes used in these posts his original spelling, punctuation, grammar and word capitalisation are retained)

Despite Bradfield’s generous recognition, “Miss K.M. Butler” seems to have largely slipped from public view. She doesn’t deserve this fate, not only because of her substantial contribution to the building of the bridge, but also because her story provides a fascinating perspective on the lives of working women in the early 20th Century, with some lessons for us today.

Kathleen Butler starts no. 1 compressor to commence construction of the Bridge in September 1923 (source: NSW State Archives)

Kathleen Muriel Butler was born in February 1891 in Lithgow NSW, one of seven children to an English father and Irish mother. She grew up in the Blue Mountains and attended school in Mt Victoria, where her father was stationmaster, and later Mount St. Mary’s Convent in Katoomba.* Continue reading →

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