Sydney Metro opens

[Khaul]

Sydney Metro opened to the public last Sunday 26 May. This is the first proper metro line in Australia. Sydney already has about 400km of commuter railways served by double decker EMUs. The system has about 1.2M boardings per day.

 

The new metro is fully automated and it is only part of a much more ambitious line going from the northwest to the southwest across the core of the city. So far the line goes trough a low density, very car dependent area known as "the Hills" and finishes at Chatswood (which is starting to look very Japanese), where people change to commuter trains running every 3min in the rush hour.

 

I tried the metro on Monday. It accelerates much faster than the heavy double deckers but the ride is super-smooth. One can stand and type in the phone without holding to anything! Trains and stations are very nice. Patronage exceeded 140,000 boardings on opening day and the system moved 21,000 people in the Monday morning peak, well above the 15,000 to 17,000 expected by the NSW government.

 

On the minus side, there have been some glitches: a train broke down on Sunday and another on Wednesday, information does not always show up and there have been reports of doors closing without a warning. Let's hope these teething issues disappear soon. Trains are currently running every 5min in the peak and 10min off-peak. After the first 6 weeks of operation they will run at 4min intervals in the peak. Trains capacity can be expanded from the current 6-car to 8-car. The system allows for a train every 2min.

 

I am not a big fan of how the front of the train looks, but overall the six car set would be very nice in N scale. 

 

That's a densha otaku video of the new line 

 

 

[ben_issacs]

Khaul,

Thanks for that. 

The video was interesting, the internal arrangements look very Japanese, longitudinal seating, plenty of strap hanging grips, obviously aimed at more standing passengers.

Were there any problems with trains overshooting the platform doors, apparently in the test runs this occurred?

How long did this line take to build?

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

[Khaul]

Ahem, the internal arrangements don't look particularly Japanese. They look like any metro anywhere in the world. The trains are made by Alstom in France so they look similar to Alstom trains running, for instance, in Barcelona. Colours and information systems are different and, critically for me, we go the British style moquette in Sydney. I don't always appreciate British influences, but that's a nice touch.

 

 

[trainsforever8]

We'll be getting the same type of trains when we get the REM, I hope we wont be getting the same glitches in the opening.

 

Hearing that they are smooth is very good news! 

[Khaul]

Trains are running well this week, fingers crossed!