From: "Brian May" <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>
On 8 May 2014 15:09, Peter Ross < Petros.Listig@fdrive.com.au > wrote:
From: "Brian May" < brian@microcomaustralia.com.au >
Questions have been raised about how the Airport Rail Link can reach the airport in 25 minutes, when it is sharing the line with the Sunbury trains, and it currently takes 20 minutes to reach Sunshine.
I cannot find the reference online but it is in today's The Age: It is using the Regional Rail Link.
As said, I cannot find the online version of The Age article I read at lunchtime.. Here it describes the same: http://michaelwyres.com/2014/05/a-stupid-train-of-thought/ The new tunnel will link to a hastened airport link, using the yet to be completed Regional Rail Link lines through the western suburbs, with no stops for passengers along the existing Sunbury line, and to the Dandenong group, via South Yarra. But it got corrected: http://www.danielbowen.com/2014/04/13/napthine-promises-airport-rail/ The Sunbury/Airport line will be through-routed aboveground to Dandenong, via Southern Cross and Flinders Street. This presumably means that any plans for 9-car trains would require extension of aboveground platforms only. I would think it also puts in doubt the Airport line’s planned 25 minute trip, if those trains have to share the rails with stopping Sunbury line trains (rather than the RRL tracks as I first thought) — which can take up to 20 minutes between Sunshine and Southern Cross. Well, how much detail do you expect about a project designed on the back of an envelope? The Metro Rail tunnel had years of planning. This has nothing. It appeared so mysteriously that nobody can figure what it really is. Nobody was involved, bar a premier from the Portland area, a Transport Minister from Colac and a Planing Minister who may actually know a bit of Melbourne. And all what they did was applying "common sense". Nobody needs to be bothered with details, underground, over ground or beamed, where it goes, geological details, existing infrastructure as freeway ramps at Montague, Domain and Burnley tunnel, how to build underground Southern Cross, a station rebuilt in 2006, whether it may fit in the airport terminal or it stops on the runway.. Good thing: We know how much it costs: choose a random number somewhere between 5 and 20 billion, and promise to have it finished in 2023 or something sounding good and is far away in the future to avoid trouble in the next election. And hope that you are retired by then. Never was less skills needed to govern. Does anyone needs these people? Can we not create some fairy tale positions? Maybe, dukes and kings as in Huckleberry Finn's Adventures? If you want, pay them a salary, a few 100 000 per year, just to make sure they do not ruin the real world? (As you may know, the Huck Finn king and duke get tarred and feathered..) Regards Peter