Re: [VIC] Transpositions Was Re: [NSW Heavy rail] - Some oddities

["Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au>]

"Michael Walker" <wk@cgsc.vic.edu.au> wrote in message
8lrmkq$6kb$1@nnrp1.deja.com">news:8lrmkq$6kb$1@nnrp1.deja.com...

> [Hijack!]
> I used to enjoy it when I went to Swinburne (Glenferrie Station) and
> lived in Greensborough. As often as not, the train from Glenferrie
> would pull into platform 14 and become a Hurstbridge/Eltham train. It
> was one of the many redeeming features of a long trip home (minimum
> usually 1h15 from station to station, with an exception once of 55
> minutes).
>
> To be honest, I'm surprised that more of it doesn't go on and be
> advertised as a public service. The last time anything close to this
> happened was when trains from the Western Suburbs went to Dandenong or
> Frankston (and I think rarely maybe Sandringham, I shall have to dig
> out my old timetables) and vice versa and they were marked on the
> public timetable. This seemed to stop around the time they changed from
> fold out timetables to the booklets. Of course, if you are a regular
> passenger, you soon work out which trains 'change lines' and aim to
> catch those. Or you could by a current WTT I suppose too...

The problem with it is that if you have services from one line (or group of
lines) going to another line (or group of line) then any delay on the first
line (or group of lines) carries over to the second line (or group of
lines).

Taking Melbourne as an example (please, someone take Melbourne, take it to
Iceland or Greenland!) if a train was through routed from Broadmeadows to
Frankston, then a delay at Essendon would impact upon the through service,
which *could* impact upon the entire Frankston line service.

There is a lot to be said for segregating the various lines.

> Still, I have occasionally thought (when I lived in Reservoir and had
> to catch the train to East Camberwell) that it would be useful if the
> Epping train became a Box Hill train or something like that. Or even if
> better connections were made, although thankfully I wasn't without my
> car terribly often and could get up 30-40 minutes later and drive!

Adequate connections is what they should be working on, and the best wya to
do it is the way that Perth does it - have everything arrive at once (at
Flinders St),  wait five minutes, then have everything leave at once. Repeat
every thirty minutes. Of course, you need to have a reliable system for this
to work.

Dave