Brisbane's new trains

[westfalen]

The first of the new trains for the Brisbane suburban network dubbed New Generation Rollingstock or NGR finally arrived from Bombardier in India today.  Towed by diesel from the Port of Brisbane to the new Bombardier maintanence centre at Wulkuraka.

 

Passing my home station of Booval and arriving at the new depot.

 

[Socimi]

Well, it's the second time i say this about a brand-new train:

 

The train itself looks very good. The thing that worsens it are the headlights.

 

Thankfully we have photoshop

Edited February 19, 2016 by DavideTreni

[tossedman]

Canadian trains from India in Australia! Who knew?

[westfalen]

Well, it's the second time i say this about a brand-new train:

 

The train itself looks very good. The thing that worsens it are the headlights.

 

Thankfully we have photoshop

After seeing one in the flesh I have to admit they do look good but there are a lot of real problems that photoshop won't fix.

 

The trains were ordered by the Department of Transport of the previous government without any consultation or input allowed into the design by either QR or the traincrew's unions hence there are a lot of operational issues to figure out now that they actually have one of the trains to play with.

 

The trains are five metres longer than our current six car trains made up of two three car sets, the extra length split between the sloped nose and extra overhang at each end, making them too long to fit most of our storage yards meaning signalling and other infrastructure in those yards have to altered.  The extra length also means that at many stations the nose of the train will stick out past the signal at the end of the platform causing signal sighting issues as well as technically passing a signal at danger if it is red even though the wheels have not passed the track circuit.  The extra length may also cause clearance issues on some sharp curves.  The guard will now be at the rear of the train instead of in the centre of the two three car units as at present causing many visibility problems on curved platforms and other operational and safety issues, ie; passengers in wheelchairs will still board in the middle of the train.  The list goes on and on but they say it will still be cheaper changing the network to fit the trains than cancelling the order and changing the design to something we could use.

[Socimi]

Why this reminds me of a certain French EMU?....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, yes.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/french-railway-operator-sncf-orders-trains-too-big

[kvp]

That's actually a french speciality. Hungary got some french metro cars that were supposedly in the standard loading gauge, except they have externally mounted doors instead of the pocketed variants used on the old soviet sets. The loading gauge was only good for the cars without the doors. Luckily the soviet tunnels were built for the slightly larger military equipment, so only a single newly built platform edge had to be chiseled down. It turns out, the order was correct but the french manufacturer didn't want to change the sizes already in production for other cities, so they simply lied about it and hoped for the best. The liberal politician who actually took the money for it told everyone that the height clearance is fine in the gangways (we got the asian standard height ones) and got filmed while hitting his forehead on one of them during the first run celebrations. They are yellow striped now, but still too low.

 

For the Brisbane sets, the only really serious problem i see so far is the conductor's location. As the old sets were 3+3, the conductor could use one of the middle cabs and the new sets are 6 cars with end cabs only. I think the reason for the special areas being at the front and back cars on many japanese commuter trains is similar. Perhaps moving the wheelchair area to the back or adding a guard's cabin to the middle car could solve this problem. (personally i would say eliminating the guards and having station staff on every platform would be more effective) The clearance issues are understandable, but maybe some of them can be solved by leaving the nose covers off as on the transport pictures. They would look ugly this way, but have a shorter length and easier to access couplers.