News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Trains

[AG]

Topic name changed on request. The new topic name is probably more reflective of what the subject of this thread is, rather than simply pointing out a key feature of the upgrades which misses the point as to why the upgrades are being done in the first place.

[Aidan]

Yay to the revamp, but boo to the tone of this article, with negative touches like

But under the retro-fit program the number of seats on each carriage will be reduced by nine to allow for increased disability access.

"But"? I guess in Adelaide Now's view of the world, making it easier for the disabled to access public transport isn't a good thing.

I guess in your view of the world, any improvement in disabled access to public transport, no matter how slight, is a good thing regardless of how much worse it makes things for other passengers.

Meanwhile in the real world, reducing the number of seats in each carriage is a negative thing, because it means fewer passengers will get seats. And it won't improve disabled access much - it won't speed up boarding at all, so ramps will still be needed. And it's not as if there's currently a great shortage of space for disabled passengers.

The refurbished railcars are generally an improvement, but that's no excuse for pretending there's no disadvantage.

[Port Adelaide Fan]

As someone who is in a wheelchair I think it is a good idea. I can't wait to see the refurbished carriages but I could be waiting to March as I am on the Outer Harbor line.

[muzzamo]

There are plenty more photos here http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewt ... 62#p543862

[deano91]

I was on the refurbished train today and took some audio but I have no idea where to upload them to share on here?? Anyone have any suggestions of sites like Flickr or PhotoBucket that support audio upload??

EDIT - Alrighty,for those that haven't had the pleasure of riding the refurbished train yet, I've got it all uploaded to soundboard.com. Sorry for the horrible sound quality, the audio was taken on my phone because I didn't expect that I would be on that train. The link is: http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Deano91.aspx
The four sounds are:
1. SalisburyAlightBus - This is the announcement that is made when the train is pulling into a station which has local bus connections.
2. StandClearBeeps - This is the announcement that is made and the accompanying noise when the driver closes the doors or when the doors have been open for about a minute or two (such as sitting around in Adelaide Station). If the doors in the carriage are not opened, there is no announcement. The announcement always seems to be slightly cut off at the beginning, so it always sounds like she is saying "Tand clear"
3. NurluttaNoOpen - This is the announcement that is made when the train is pulling into a regular station. Also, the next part of the sound is the beeps that are made by the doors when sitting in a station and they aren't opened. This beeping continues until the driver closes the other open doors.
4. NextArrivingElizabethExpressSmithfieldAndBus - When a train is going to be running express after the next stop, there is an extra announcement before arriving in the station to warn passengers of this. It then has the regular "arriving at" announcement (and in this case, also has the local bus announcement).

So there ya go. Again, sorry about the poor audio quality. Overall, I liked the new improvements however the announcements do seem to be slightly muffled and sometimes are a bit glitchy (such as the closing doors announcement and also Mawson Lakes seems to be pronounced Msn Lakes). Hopefully these few glitches can be improved on soon enough.

[AtD]

Meanwhile in the real world, reducing the number of seats in each carriage is a negative thing, because it means fewer passengers will get seats. And it won't improve disabled access much - it won't speed up boarding at all, so ramps will still be needed. And it's not as if there's currently a great shortage of space for disabled passengers.

Less seats = greater crush capacity. Great for the morning runs from Mawson Lakes, for example.

[AG]

Meanwhile in the real world, reducing the number of seats in each carriage is a negative thing, because it means fewer passengers will get seats. And it won't improve disabled access much - it won't speed up boarding at all, so ramps will still be needed. And it's not as if there's currently a great shortage of space for disabled passengers.

Less seats = greater crush capacity. Great for the morning runs from Mawson Lakes, for example.

This is true, but having greater standing capacity alone is only useful up to a point. By removing the seats, greater capacity would be achieved but loading and unloading times at stations would increase significantly as they would still only have 2 doors on each side per car. Trying to rebuild carriage structures to accommodate a 3rd door would be fairly troublesome considering the position of the existing doors and windows on the 3000 series railcars. A few years ago, Hong Kong managed to add 2 extra doors on the sides of each carriage (from 3 to 5) on some of its older trains to improve boarding times but had issues with structural weaknesses and needed to make extra repairs to them. They're still working properly, fortunately.

[Mpol]

This is nice... but with many of the lines becoming electronic... in a few years, was this totally nessescary?

[Norman]

This is nice... but with many of the lines becoming electronic... in a few years, was this totally nessescary?

The refurbished trains will be changed to electric operation as well.

[fabricator]

The path to upgrade the trains to electric simply consists of swapping the engine/fuel tank for a 25kv transformer, install a pantograph on the roof, remove the roof radiator pod, and maybe move the exhaust 'bump' inside for the high voltage cable to run down. The trains were designed to be easy to convert to electric, and so carry everything else needed.

New SG bogies for the 3000/3100 class are on order, as the current ones have copped too much abuse over the years anyway.

[Hooligan]

I will try and take some photos next week of the Port Adelaide viaduct, on the eastern side of commerical road (behind the holden dealer) only the pylons are standing and the whole track deck is gone!

[Mpol]

Oh... I thought the tram like trains would be replacing all the passenger trains, how dumb of me. I did wonder about the stations but not anymore. Cool.

[jordan85]

Does anyone know which Noarlunga service this refurbished train runs during weekdays? To/from the city, I'm not fussed, just want to see what the ride's like for myself!

[Tonsley213]

I know that it is on an express service form norlunga thats gose past woodlands park at about 8:00 in the morning.

[muzzamo]

I know that it is on an express service form norlunga thats gose past woodlands park at about 8:00 in the morning.

Yep, that seems about right. I caught it at 8:55 at hallett cove beach BUT they had a major balls up that morning with a trained cancelled and another late so its normally around 8am.

Also there are PLENTY more photos in this thread: http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewt ... 62#p543862