Melbourne Airport Rail Link

The best news in public transport this week was the Australian Government upping the ante that might finally see a new rail link to Melbourne Airport in Victoria State, Australia.

The rail link is proposed to be a completely new link from central Melbourne and serving as a commuter/local railway as well.  Therefore the Government's offer is AUD$5Bn and inviting the City or State to match fund.  There have been some feasibility studies with four possible alignments, so the expected cost is rather indicative.  As the proposals appear to be a whole new line from the city, rather than a branch from an existing line, it will take some years to deliver.

Melbourne's Tullamarine airport handles some 35 million passengers per annum, and with the exception of the USA, is probably the busiest airport in the west, if not the world, without a rail link.  To put this in perspective relative to the UK, Manchester Airport handles 27 million passengers per annum, about 8 million fewer than Melbourne, but has very frequent rail links to Manchester city centre and variety of services across the north.  In addition Manchester also has a tram link serving localities between the airport and the city centre.

I am hopeful for Melbourne, as the city and transport agency, Public Transport Victoria, are quite progressive and willing to invest in public transport.  There is currently a major project to relieve congestion on the 'Metro' loop track around the city by building a new tunnel under it.  Melbourne is also home to the world's largest tram network, and it introduced 'Night Network' a few months before me London.

I have not seen any detail behind the proposed rail link but it has a lot of potential to not only reduce journey times between city and the airport, but also to remove a lot of car trips.


Before a rail link comes to the airport, there is a non-stop bus service between the airport and city.

And it was whilst travelling on the bus I saw works in the median of the motorway. Building a rail link I hoped. No, motorway widening.  It was also whilst travelling on this bus that a child behind me was heard to observe to her father that there are a lot of taxis on this road!  A transport planner in the making, as she's observing modal preference/prejudice.

 

The bus link is primarily operated by these triaxle 'Bustech CDI' double deck buses.  They are somewhat unusual in having a double axle at the front.  I suspect these are a result of a 'buy Australian' policy else off the shelf Enviro 500s would be just fine!

Most notably drivers stand guard whilst passengers board.

However Skybus have a policy of lining a bus load up at the stop rather than trickle loading a waiting vehicle.  At AUD$19.50 one way customers may expect a waiting vehicle.

The vehicles are designed for maximum capacity, and are this equipped with a lot of conventional bus seats.  Again at a premium fare something a little better could be expected, Stagecoach Gold or Arriva Sapphire type spec maybe?

Bustech have adapted slanty bits a la ADL, but ADL sensibly did it at the top of the stair case whilst Bustech have pointlessly removed both elbow room and the view from two rows of seats.  Why oh why?

Whilst there's lots of seats upstairs, the downstairs sensibly has a substantial luggage rack.

Bustech CDIs come with a lot of rear lights! And free wifi.

The relatively expensive Skybus service does include a free connection from the central coach and rail station at Southern Cross to city centre hotels.  A collection of Optare Solo SRs provide most of these connections.  Despite requesting a connecting bus about five hour after arriving from the airport, Skybus were happy to oblige!

Southern's Gatwick Airport Replacement Bus Service

This morning saw a number of news headlines about a somewhat chaotic rail replacement bus operation by Southern Railway yesterday (Sunday 25 February) afternoon.  Despite the multitude of rail routes to and through Gatwick Airport, Network Rail and Southern agreed to close all of them, instead diverting would-be airport customers to Redhill, and from there operating rail replacement buses.

As this article in the Evening Standard, or this one on the BBC show, it did not go well.  All show hundreds, probably thousands of customers waiting on the forecourt of Redhill station for a rail replacement bus service (RRBS) to the airport.  The articles also highlight the fact customers could not move through the station, highlighting concerns about the safety of queuing on stairs.  

Victoria, Gatwick Airport and Brighton are on the heavily trafficked Brighton Main Line, which has a very high frequency train service.  As an airport Gatwick defies all convention on demand for travel: conventional peaks are an irrelevance as high levels of airport demand exist throughout the whole day. The rise of airlines such as Ryanair, Wizz Air and EasyJet seeking higher aircraft utilisation levels means there are no quiet times on the rail links to airports.  In the case of Gatwick, between 0900 and 1000 on a Sunday morning, a time when many rail routes are just waking up, there are usually thirteen trains between central London and Gatwick Airport, of which I expect most will be formed of between eight and twelve carriages.

During the current weekend works which cut off Gatwick Airport, that thirteen trains drops to just four between London Victoria and Redhill.  These four trains leave Victoria at xx00, xx02, xx30 and xx32 past the hour.  Operational convenience of ‘flighting’ stopping trains behind fast trains takes precedence over customer service.  It is reasonable to assume that the four trains will all be formed of twelve car Class 377 Electrostar trains.  With such a low frequency I’d consider it beyond comprehension that anything shorter would be operated.

Class 377s do not lend themselves to standing capacity or airport traffic, but Southern can only operate the trains they have.  However they do have 798 seats, so let’s assume that each train is capable of holding 1,000 passengers including standees (I am sure many more are possible but airport passengers also have encumbrances such as luggage which takes up room).  Two of the four trains from Victoria to Redhill, the ones at xx02 and xx32 have some intermediate stops which will have some level of demand, so let’s assume each of those carries 500 passengers wanting Gatwick Airport.  That’s 3,000 passengers per hour.

Southern stated that they were operating an RRBS bus every five minutes from Redhill to Gatwick Airport.  A check of this weekend’s timetable shows that is indeed the case, with each journey taking 23 minutes, as well as an additional half hourly service taking 35 minutes presumably via Horley or somesuch.  The photographs in the press articles show the majority of RRBS services being operated by double-deck buses, for which a capacity of 80 passengers can be assumed.  However, remember airport passengers are more than averagely encumbered, and have a preference to not be separated from their luggage, so 80 is rarely achieved: my personal experience says 50 is about the best that can be achieved in these circumstances, as some seating is lost to luggage storage.  If coaches are used, they typically have a capacity of 50 also.  On coaches customer luggage is places in lockers below the passenger saloon so being separated from luggage is the norm.

The capacity on the rail replacement bus service, whether buses or coaches, is therefore 50 per vehicle at 12 vehicles per hour, total 600. You do the math! 

The every five minute service is inappropriate for this demand.  If customers arrive randomly, then a frequent service is appropriate.  However in this instance customers were not arriving randomly: they were arriving on a train with an arrival time that is known to Southern Railway.  It’s not ‘dribs and drabs’, it is potentially one thousand people arriving at once.  So rather than a service ‘every five minutes’ it actually needs a line-up of 20 vehicles to meet the train, and the ability to safely queue customers and load vehicles as quickly as possible, and for them all to be gone before the whole process repeats itself when the next train arrives.

This brings us to queuing on stairs.  The fact that one arriving train will disgorge a thousand passengers was also known to Southern.  It seems that there was no, or ineffective, planning for handling those customers.  It is important to remember that not only are the encumbered with luggage, family, children, etc, they also have no desire to be in Redhill, are not familiar with Redhill, will be stressing about their flight departure time, and may not have English as their first language.  Luggage, stairs, queues, stress is the recipe for exactly the behaviours reported, with people pushing others out the way to get on to RRBS vehicles.

North of the river, great swathes of the Abellio Greater Anglia network were closed last weekend, with customers being advised to travel by Tube to Newbury Park station, and from there replacement buses would operate to points east.  Whilst this operation has been going on for several months, it is a very slick process that guides customers from the Tube to one of four replacement buses, helped by plenty of staff from Abellio’s train and bus operations keeping customers informed and safe.  

Well organised (if numerically questionable) rail replacement bus service at Newbury Park

I have my suspicions why this [latest] almighty cock up occurred at Southern, and it’s for much the same reasons as other things go wrong on train operators. But I hope that in the fullness of time Southern will be answerable to their paymasters, customers and stakeholders on why such an issue occurred, and are rapidly learning from it for this weekend.

Željeznički prevoz Crne Gore - Montenegro (passenger) Railways

After my recent rail experiences on the thoroughly crap operations in Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania, the operations of Montenegro Railways, or at least their passenger arm ZPCG, were a breath of fresh air.  Functioning websites, a recognisable ticketing system, reasonable frequency of service and some actual signals!

The system is centred on the capital Podgorica, with a line north to Niksic, west to Bar on the Adriatic coast, and east to Bijelo Polje towards the Serbian border. In addition there is a day and night train beyond Bijelo Polje to Belgrade.

The ubiquitous Soviet built EP31 dating from the 1980s is used on the Bijelo Polje to Bar services, via Podgorica.  These are four car EMUs known as Class 412 which were inherited from Yugoslav Railways when the country broke up.

A trio of newer CAF Civity EMUs dating from 2013 are generally used in the Niksic corridor.

Romanian built Class 461 locoomotives dating from the 1970s are in charge of the through trains from Belgrade.   This one was running spectacularly late from Belgrade to Bar hauling three coaches including sleeping accommodation.

The country's timetable fits on one poster.  There were some track engineering works which necessitated the cancellation of some of the longer distance services, cunningly covered with strips of paper.

This class 412 took us on a trip to Bar.....

Unfortunately like a lot of eastern Europe the platforms at Podgorica are just a few inches off the ground, resulting in a large step in to the train.

The level of graffiti hides a recently modernised unit, at least as far as passenger accommodation is concerned.  New seats and good heating: the services used did carry decent loads.

The interior work has included ceiling and lighting.

There is also a freight business in Montenegro, with marshalling yards at both Podgorica and Bar.

Locally built variations on a 1970s EMD locomotive, also inherited from Yugoslav Railways, are used for shunting.

And finally a Montecargo Class 461 at Bar.

Hekurudha Shqiptare - Albanian Railways

The continuing quest to visit every country in Europe was aided in November 2017 by a £10 Ryanair fare from Podgorica in Montenegro to London.  An obvious one to team up with Albania.  For a long time Albania was the poorest country in Europe by quite some margin, with a leadership that complained of the right leaning tendencies of the Soviet Union.  Visiting in 2017 however found a country that was welcoming to visitors, did not seek to rip anyone off, and where attitudes and investment were quite liberal.  However such good fortune had not befallen Albanian Railways, on whom friends had previously experienced windowless bench seated carriages, and where the main station in the capital, Tirana, had been demolished. It is understood that lack of money for fuel meant Albanian Railways had temporarily ceased operating earlier in 2017.

Nowadays four daily return services are operated from the coastal port city of Durres, two to Kashar on the outskirts of the capital, one to the north of the country and Schkoder, and one in land to Elbasan, south-east of Tirana.

We went to use a Durres-Kashar service and found an unloved and unused railway.  Here it is in pictures....

The interior of Durres station with the staffed ticket window at the far end. Two singles to Kashar, about a 40 minute journey, came to barely one pound.

Outside Durres station is the entire rail timetable for Albania.  Prior to the demolition of Tirana station there were 6 or 7 round trips from Durres. In comparison the private coach operators combine to operate a 20-minute headway between the two cities.

The fare chart from Durres, featuring many destinations no longer served.

Curious poster advertising Albanian Railways (Hekurudha Shqiptare) promising many things which are not delivered, not least the Intercity 'swallow' livery High Speed Train and a working signal.

Two platforms and a siding are available at Durres station.

Waiting facilities are available.

Rolling stock is former East German (Deutsches Reichsbahn) carriages that were used in a unified Germany and therefore are largely in Die Bahn's red colours.  Many windows are missing from doors. Each window frame in the passenger saloons had glass, but was usually cracked, shot at or missing some or all of a pane of the double glazing.

An attempt has been made to tidy up some rolling stock, with new windows and a new paint job, but in the case of this one the paint has rapidly peeled revealing the old German paint job beneath.

The passenger rolling stock is also very heavily graffitied.

Albania's passenger trains are hauled by Class 669 diesel locomotives built in Czechoslovakia in the mid-late 1980s.  I observed that two carriage formations seem to be the norm with one carriage locked out of use.  Demand levels did not present a challenge to the amount of accommodation provided.

One Class 669 we saw had been painted in the new HSH branding, and this was to form our train to Kashar.

The reason for the limited, day time only, timetable becomes evident when you realise there are no signals. Every signal post is missing lights.  This results in a low speed infrequent line-of-sight railway.

Taking photos and videos from an Albanian train is made easier by the lack of windows in the doors.  There were four passengers on our train to Kashar so no croding in the vestibules!

Which is probably just as well as the wooden floor was rotten and cracking under foot.

Passenger saloon largely 'as received' from Germany with added antimacassars.  The seats and arm rests are falling to bits.

The view from the train somewhat restricted by the condition of the windows.

Another confidence-enduring signal post en route to Kashar.  There appeared to be some form of token working as we stopped twice between Durres and Kashar and things were handed to/from the locomotive.  There were also several manned hand-worked level crossings.

We stopped here en-route. No idea if it is an active station.

Same here, a more modern/better maintained facility.

Kashar station, the terminus.  Like everywhere on HSH it was well staffed.

Fare chart from Kashar.

At Kashar the locomotive runs around, not sure if it stabled or runs empty back to Durres.  Those bicycles outside the station? Kids who turn up to ride on the loco as it runs around!  For any train enthusiasts I am convinced that not many lek will score you a cab ride!

Another Class 669

And the final gratuitous train photo of a load more 669s at the depot just outside Durres.

Quite a few partially complete buildings are present along the line from Durres (which broadly parallels the main road, a dual carriageway, between Durres and Tirana).

However this is how the Albanians travel inter-city, on a series of privately owned/operated but remarkably well coordinated coaches and minibuses.  This is one of at least three coach stations in Tirana.

 Two more HSH shots.....making me glad I didn't go with the original plan of riding on the four hour trip to Schkoder!