u/Gazza_s_89

NSW:

The recently opened line M1 of the Sydney Metro now carries more passengers per weekday than the entire QR network combined. What's even wilder is the line is still only operating two out of three stages.

So in essence they spent twice as much as what we spent on cross river rail but are going to get about 10-20 times the passenger numbers (Sydney is not 10 times bigger than Brisbane)

WA:

If you want to travel the 70 km from the coastal escape of Mandurah up to Elizabeth Quay underground station in the Perth CBD via train, it takes 53 minutes, with trains operating every 15 minutes, 7 days a week.

If you want to travel up from the coastal escape of the GC up to Roma Street, it'll take an 1h 10 minutes, with trains operating every 30 minutes, 7 days a week.

Mandurah is much smaller than the Gold Coast, yet are provided with a much faster and more frequent service.

So what's the justification to date for not spending that here?

In fact, Perth on the whole has a much smaller population than southeast Queensland yet it has a far better rail system.

VIC

We all hate boom gates right? They are dangerous. they cause traffic jams and can hold up emergency vehicles.

So over a decade ago, Melbourne began shutting down entire lines for months at a time to sink or elevate the tracks above roads to eliminate level crossings, modernising signalling and fully replacing stations. As a result trains get a clear run, plus they can run more of them since they use the opportunity to install high capacity signalling systems, plus for everyone else It essentially feels like a brand new system with the modern stations and the linear fitness trails they have built under the tracks.

For $15b in a decade they have been able to remove 88 (yes eighty eight two fat ladies) level crossings and modernise a significant part of the rail network at the same time.

Here in Qld we've spent $1b and done maybe 4 or 5.

We're just not even serious about it up here.

SA

So look Adelaides rail network is nothing spectacular, imagine most stations being worse than Gailes.

But they do have electric trains on the main North South line, a pretty good tram system, a fast Busway..

But the main thing is despite limited resources, they do at least run the network frequently.

Trains run mostly every 15 mins, and essentially every major Arterial Road in Adelaide is marked as a high frequency "Go Zone" with a bus every 15 mins (Including to the Airport!)

It's all a very neat grid system with a few massive orbital bus routes allowing you to get around without going via the CBD.

You can get a train up to Gawler near the Barossa, or down to Seaford and the beaches, or out to Port Adelaide markets and the huge defense naval campus, or down to the pier at Glenelg, or down to Flinders, or up to Belair National Park in the Adelaide Hills.

So yeah, despite being a small city that's made fun of, they still manage to have a frequent bus grid, generally frequent rail, and importantly transport that connects to key places people want to go.

So yeah...What gives Brisbane? Every other city understands the basics of what makes it easier to use public transport. None of them have dropped prices to 50c in desperation to get people to try it.

And there's one statistic that illustrates this.

Annual trips per Capita.

What this means is no matter whether you are a cute little city in Sweden or a dense Asian metropolis, The tell all statistics how many times per year your citizens are willing to use your network.

Sydney 105 – 110

Melbourne 84 – 88

Canberra 64 – 67

Perth 65 – 68

Brisbane (SEQ) 58 – 62

Adelaide 42 – 45

The only reason we're not in last place is because we had a bump from 50c fares.

But regardless, we are doing pretty shit, and it feels a bit grim in general with industrial action just to really spice the politics of this.

As far as I'm concerned the transport Minister would be better replaced with a sort of power ranger, comprised of the best policies from NSW, VIC, WA and SA combined.

Is wanting out network to be on par with the rest of Australia a reasonable expectation or am I a whinger?

I mean we're 3rd biggest but last place on this issue, and we've got the Olympics soon! Who's going to sort it?

So aside from the double deck trains, I think the one thing Sydneysiders. don't realise they are weird for doing is is opening every single door. So at every single stop the aircon just gushes out and then there is untold energy wastage from having to get the cabin temperature again, and that would be putting untold "cycle strain" on the onboard equipment.

meanwhile, the rest of Australia solved this problem decades ago by ensuring that every single train in the fleet has the same type of button that you push like an elevator button.

And only the doors where the button has been pressed get opened.

So if it's a small station and only one person is getting off, the aircon only gets let out of one door instead of like 16 at once. Which would be nice because it keeps the hot or cold out in our "unique" climates.

It's a very simple quality of life thing that wouldn't cost that much in the scheme of things compared to like a 30 km Metro tunnel (actually scratch that it would pay for itself in power saving alone) but they just don't seem to care about the passenger experience by and large!

A question.

So with Aviation, clearly there are massive safety and training requirements for everyone involved, given the devastation an accident will cause, so a bit like the railways in that respect.

As a result you have ICAO standards, so a pilot can go from LA to Tokyo without learning different systems. You also see it in terms of the illuminated signs and markings on taxiways being the same and so on.

And as a result it is the safest mode of transport.

So why don't things like run like this on our trains?

We can order a new set of trains designed to international standards, but the RTBU will insist on years and hundreds of millions of dollars in modifications just so it matches their special way of doing things, irrespective of how well newer and more "standard" ways of doing things have been proven in the field elsewhere.

Are they just stupid?

o the recent debate around Gas taxation and the frequent comparisons to the Norwegian approach and its sovereign wealth fund have got me thinking.

Why don't we compare ourselves to Norway more generally?

In Asia, you definitely see this in online discourse, where Singaporeans are comparing themselves to the Japanese or HK to Taiwan and so on.

But first, I'll address the size thing first. Yes, I get it, we are one of the least dense countries on earth, but in turn that means we get the free kick of being self sufficient for most resources. Norway certainly doesn't have that.

Have a look at this map of Norway, but mentally flip it so the pink is following the eastern seaboard, keeping right of the Great Divide encompassing entire motorway corridor from Geelong to the Sunshine Coast. The bit where the majority of the population actually live.

Norway has 5.66m living in their borders.

Our equivalently sized Eastern Seaboard....16.5m people. Triple the population, in an economically productive region, yet we are not achieving better results......whyyyyyyy?????

And the GDP of Norway is higher than ours, which kind of kills the idea that if government is too big or taxes are too high you will automatically shrink the economy. Well it's clearly not happening there.

And for every supposed 'disadvantage' , Norway has, Australia could argue the same.

We get cyclones, they get blizzards.

We are concentrated in a few coastal cities, so are they, with the rest of the country uninhabitable wilderness.

We have to build roads across broad distances, they are constantly having to tunnel through mountains and bridge fjords.

We have to spend energy on cooling, they have to spend it on heating.

They don't even have SUNLIGHT in certain parts of the country during the depths of winter! Meanwhile we have basically unlimited solar.

And if you go to Norway, and every facet of government performance from the regional trains to the education system is superior in Norway.

Australians always want to finish first in the Olympics, why aren't we kicking out the lazy politicians who cannot keep us in first place in terms of living standards and keep our GDP high in the process?

I mean I don't know, maybe cos I work in a professional field it is assumed that you are constantly keeping up with international benchmarks.

My spicy opinion is that if you don't carry a global perspective on any issue, you basically enjoy smelling your own farts and should keep your shitty ideas to yourself.

So yeah....What else from Norway should we copy?

We get cyclones, they get blizzards.

We are concentrated in a few coastal cities, so are they, with the rest of the country uninhabitable wilderness.

We have to build roads across broad distances, they are constantly having to tunnel through mountains and bridge fjords.

We have to spend energy on cooling, they have to spend it on heating.

They don't even have SUNLIGHT in certain parts of the country during the depths of winter! Meanwhile we have basically unlimited solar.

And if you go to Norway, and every facet of government performance from the regional trains to the education system is superior in Norway.

Australians always want to finish first in the Olympics, why aren't we kicking out the lazy politicians who cannot keep us in first place in terms of living standards and keep our GDP high in the process?

I mean I don't know, maybe cos I work in a professional field it is assumed that you are constantly keeping up with international benchmarks.

My spicy opinion is that if you don't carry a global perspective on any issue, you basically enjoy smelling your own farts and should keep your shitty ideas to yourself.

So yeah....What else from Norway should we copy?

Look some people bash the RTBU because they fight for worker rights and they think driving trains is a lowly job that doesn't deserve good money. That's definitely not me

What I do think deserves flak is their steadfast refusal to accept criticism of outdated processes or technology.

I don't work in railways, but I do work in the design and construction of let's just say another type of driverless railway , but with fixed blocks that can cause people to vomit, so the fundamental principles around how you design and operate and in fact do it safely have a similar genesis.

Look, Sydney has an electric train system as the backbone of it's transit system and it's "not bad" whenever I've used it (though I'm always in Sydney on weekends, so it's a bit of a joke how they can't co-ordinate track closures between different modes)

And obviously there is a desire to expand this network and recent expansions have done very very well.

If you only had a finite budget for expansion..

Would you base the electrification system on a technology developed in the 1920s in use by the minority of Australian states?

Or would you just go with the "USB-C equivalent" of 25kV AC because that's what most other modern railways use and in fact most km of railway in Australia follows this standard.

Personally I think the objections around upgrades and modernisation on the basis that it "threatens jobs" is a total farce and is making it far too difficult and political to do what nobody complains about overseas.

Are there RTBU members who get pissed off by resistance to change or does everyone sing from the same song book?