Re: [luv-talk] Melbourne transport gets more bizarre?
From: "Brian May" <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>
The media has lost the point, it isn't just a tunnel, it is a complete redesign of how many lines use the city loop, making it more consistent and less confusing in the process (e.g. the 'new' loop pair will be bidirectional and won't change direction at midday every day).
Yes, but to achieve it, all four tracks are completely reserved. They are fed by more than one line each (they all split further out) and every disruption will immediately cause a backlog piling up. Imagine you are a sysadmin and have four machines exclusively dedicated to "their" services. What do you do when one is in trouble? (Well, if you do not shutdown a few services completely you have to mix again, as in "the old days") And this trouble, on an old railway and signalling system as Melbourne has, happens every day. Over the last years working where I work now I cannot remember _one_ time during peak hours when I took a train according to a timetable and it proceeded smoothly. Regards Peter
On 8 May 2014 12:10, Peter Ross <Petros.Listig@fdrive.com.au> wrote:
Yes, but to achieve it, all four tracks are completely reserved. They are fed by more than one line each (they all split further out) and every disruption will immediately cause a backlog piling up.
Not sure what you mean here. All 4 loops are already completely used. No point having a loop unused. There are 6 tracks between Flinders Street and Spencer Street stations, they will be all used too (and I think already are used). It is a lot better then the current situation - e.g. Frankston and Dandenong trains share the one loop. Over the last years working where I work now I cannot remember _one_ time
during peak hours when I took a train according to a timetable and it proceeded smoothly.
I hope you complained on that day? :-) That should never happen.... -- Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>
On Thu, 8 May 2014, Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au> wrote:
On 8 May 2014 12:10, Peter Ross <Petros.Listig@fdrive.com.au> wrote:
Yes, but to achieve it, all four tracks are completely reserved. They are fed by more than one line each (they all split further out) and every disruption will immediately cause a backlog piling up.
Not sure what you mean here. All 4 loops are already completely used. No point having a loop unused.
If you want to have any reliable service then you need to have some redundancy to cover problems. You could either have all loops not used to capacity or an extra loop that's not used in normal operation. If the rate at which trains enter the system is greater than they can go through it then delays will continually increase. So when you have all loops used to capacity and a problem in any loop at the start of peak hour then you will have an increasing number of delayed trains through the normal peak hours and for some time after peak hours have ended. There are some situations where a lack of redundancy can be excused. For example last time I checked there was only one track between Lillydale and Mooroolbark stations. When there's a problem in that section it's not difficult to use buses to bridge the gap (even at peak times trains in that section are well below capacity). -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
participants (3)
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Brian May -
Peter Ross -
Russell Coker