Monday maps- CityRail 1991-2

This is the only version that I know of of the 1991-2 new CityRail map which has the Sandown branch on it. By the time the 1992 timetable came out, the Sandown line was gone and the line excised from the map.

This is taken from a newspaper advertisement for a free day of travel for St George Bank account holders in 1991.

Monday maps- 1996 CityRail map

In 1996, The Cumberland Line opened. A new map was commissioned, with the new line of course, but also some other additions. The under-construction Airport line is added, as is a fairly poor attempt at representing the light rail line, then being built as far as Wentworth Park but marked as going to Pyrmont on the map. Note also the angle of the Carlingford line towards the Northern line to accommodate the proposed Chatswood- Parramatta line, and a gap between stations on the Western line to accommodate a proposed Nepean University station. Also Wolli Creek is marked as North Arncliffe.

All up, an improvement on the 1989 map.

Monday maps- first CityRail map

When CityRail was formed in 1989, a new map shortly followed. Here is the full network map, with the suburban network as a cutout. I hate it, microscopic text, ambiguous junctions, the bus services aren't diagrammatically represented.....

It wasn't to change until the Cumberland line opened in 1996.

Mortdale Maintenance Centre

A decade or so ago, CityRail hosted open days at it's depots. Here is a brochure picked up at one of them providing information about Mortdale maintenance centre. A V set is up on the hoist, despite being maintained at Flemington.

Macquarie Park rail links don't add up

From the SMH 17/6/2008:

A GOVERNMENT plan to make Macquarie Park the fourth-largest CBD in Australia, behind Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, may be undermined by the NSW cabinet's decision to dump the North West Rail Link.
Billions of dollars are being spent in turning the growing area into Australia's answer to Silicon Valley, with technology businesses setting up next door to an expanding Macquarie University.
The key to the corridor's development is the Epping to Chatswood Rail Line, which will offer 30-minute train journeys into the Sydney CBD.
But only four trains an hour will service the $2.3 billion train line in the foreseeable future because the Government dumped its promised CityRail extension to Rouse Hill, converting it into an independent metro line.
A masterplan for the area just released by Ryde City Council shows it had expected to shift 40 per cent of local journeys on to public transport.
"The Epping to Chatswood Rail Line, which will have two stations within Macquarie Park … will have the capacity to carry some 23,400 commuters in the one hour peak (subject to the completion of the North West Rail Link from Epping to Rouse Hill and the CBD Rail Link from Chatswood to Epping)," the document reads.
But now there will only be enough trains to transport a combined 8000 commuters in both directions in the one-hour peak.
It could be a particularly pressing problem for the Transport Minister, John Watkins, because the business and technology area is within his own electorate of Ryde.
Yesterday he told the Herald that more trains would be added as needed.
While there is capacity for up to 20 trains an hour through Macquarie Park, there is insufficient room on the network to send more than four trains an hour down the new line from Hornsby.
Under the Government's former rail plan the extra trains would have come from Rouse Hill via the North West Rail Link, boosting the number of trains to as many as 16 an hour.
Since 2002, Ryde council has been planning for growth because the State Government had placed Macquarie Park at the heart of its employment strategy.
"If the anticipated growth in Macquarie Park is achieved, it will become the fourth-largest business district in Australia by the mid-21st century, larger than the CBDs of Adelaide or Perth," the masterplan reads.
Macquarie University is also pressing ahead with a large-scale campus expansion.
"The rail mode is expected to attract between 21 and 23 per cent of the trips depending on the time of day," says the university's concept plan.
"There will be up to eight trains an hour servicing the stations in the Macquarie Park area. This has the potential to be increased further if the North West Rail Link from Epping to Castle Hill and Rouse Hill is constructed.
"This link will increase the service frequency at Macquarie Park stations by running trains direct from Rouse Hill to Sydney CBD via Macquarie Park."
Optus has moved 6000 of its 10,000-strong national workforce to the suburb, with plans for 40 per cent of its employees to travel by public transport.
This equates to almost 2500 people, most of whom will be travelling in the morning peak. If just half of these people switch to the train when the line opens next year, it could soak up 25 per cent of the line's citybound capacity.
Mr Watkins said extra services would be added as required.
-Linton Besser Transport Reporter

Bloated rail network needs job cuts: report

From SMH 6 June:

SYDNEY'S train stations should be largely unstaffed, train guards abolished and staff productivity radically boosted to bring CityRail into line with international best practice, says a report being released today.

A review of the troubled rail service has identified almost half a billion dollars in cuts that can be made to CityRail that would not affect customer service.

Train crews, maintenance yards and stations are all grossly overstaffed, says a new report by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.

The tribunal has recommended the abolition of train guards and the slashing of more than 520 personnel who staff stations that cater to fewer than 2000 passengers a day.

But while worker productivity has been put under the microscope so too has management's performance.

RailCorp is top-heavy, the tribunal found, with 90 head office managers to every 1000 employees - 80 more than organisations of a similar size in Britain.

A cost review by LEK Consulting identified about 300 head office jobs that could be abolished as part of the staff cuts.

"A like-for-like comparison against comparable Australian and international operators has indicated that CityRail operating at benchmark would result in operating costs approximately 23 per cent (about $610 million) lower than projected in 2011-12," the review says.

But the tribunal decided such a radical cut was impossible in the near term. Instead it recommended an 18.4 per cent saving, or $480 million per year by 2011.

The Government's decision to retain all train guards and staff at poorly frequented stations will cost RailCorp about $160 million a year in four years, LEK found.

"[But] about $450 million [in potential savings] cannot be explained by these policy choices and are primarily to be found in overall station staffing, rolling stock maintenance as well as overheads."

The radical efficiency savings would require, however, some capital investment. More than $800 million would be needed over four years to install credit card and eftpos ticket machines at unmanned stations, closed-circuit television cameras to monitor passengers alighting at platforms and a $375 million refurbishment program for the ageing fleet of Tangara trains.

But there were other bloated parts that LEK exposed. The report claims that 42 per cent of costs in the running of train crews can be slashed."CityRail drivers spend only 35 per cent of their on-shift time driving scheduled services," it says.

Stuffed: CityRail's timetable woe

From SMH, 7 June:

CITYRAIL'S timetable is at risk of collapse under the weight of the millions of new passengers using the network, as trains are becoming so overloaded they cannot leave stations on time.

Data released by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal show 10 of CityRail's 13 lines experience maximum volumes of more than 135 per cent of seating capacity.

In the morning peak three of every 10 trains arrive in the city so packed with passengers they eclipse CityRail's official measure of overcrowding.

"There is no reason to believe the survey results are atypical," the tribunal says in a four-volume report released yesterday.

The pricing regulator has warned that the billions of dollars the State Government is pouring into the rail network are still not enough to meet soaring demand and the Government's own targets.

The tribunal warns in the report that more capacity will be necessary to "meet forecast growth in demand, reduce congestion to meet service quality requirements and meet targets in the State Plan".

In January cabinet ditched a plan to build another rail line through the city and across the harbour, but the tribunal yesterday described the city centre as an "infrastructure bottleneck" that "restricts the number of services that can be offered without significant capacity expansion".

"The likely growth in peak demand means that meeting the Government's objective of improving the quality and reliability of these services will be a major challenge."

Trains are becoming so full they cannot load and unload passengers fast enough at larger stations to stick to their timetables, even though the network timetable was drastically adjusted in 2005 to slow trains down.

"While crowding at stations represents a reduction in service quality for passengers on its own, it also increases the time it takes to load and unload a train," the report says.

"This longer dwell time in the city stations has a cascading effect on on-time running, as each train behind needs to wait for the train in front to move. Typically, this lost time is not made up, so by the time they reach the end of their journey, these trains are running behind the timetable."

The pricing tribunal has also recommended that fares be changed. Its "preliminary view" is that the discount on weekly tickets should be more consistent and cost be based on distance across the network.

"IPART considers that this approach [is] best … because it is more cost-reflective, and is simpler and more consistent. This approach will also be compatible with an electronic ticketing system, expected to be introduced in the future."

The result, however, is that long-distance commuters could face much bigger fare rises than those living in the inner city.

"IPART is mindful of any adverse social impacts of moving towards an improved fare structure," the report says.

"However, IPART considers that any adverse social impacts of its fare decisions in the longer term should be addressed through targeted government assistance rather than incorporating further subsidies into fares and potentially distorting the fare structure."

This fare structure has been widely blamed for the failure of attempts to install an integrated transport smartcard for Sydney's public transport network.