Re: Sydney Light Rail

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

"Samuel Eades" <seades@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
wYZD5.11537$aD2.43519@news-server.bigpond.net.au">news:wYZD5.11537$aD2.43519@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> Peter Bollard <onk@magna.com.au> wrote in message
> 39E04AE0.709D0F29@magna.com.au">news:39E04AE0.709D0F29@magna.com.au...
> > Are there any definite plans to run it to
> > Haberfield or Ashfield bearing in mind that this would  seem to require
> > it to use  the line taking heavy freight to Glebe Island.Would it be
> > feasible ,safe and technically possible for it to share the line with
> > the freight trains?
>
> If a tramway started using the same lines as a railway, then that portion
> (IMHO) would have to become a railway as well (the difference between a
> tramway and a railway being that a tramway does not use any safeworking
> systems).

What a lot of rot. The Metro Light Rail is signalled (not in a sense of what
is generally accepted as railway signalling, but it is signalled all the
same).

> So the tram would become a train and therefore require radio
> equipment amongst other safety gear,

Why would it need a radio and other safety gear?

> and the drivers would need to be
> trained in the safeworking system used.

They would need to be trained in any safeworking system used, including that
currently used on the MLR. How is it so different to what is the current
situation?

> The trams would need to be capable
> of operating track circuits reliably. It would probably be possible and
> safe, but perhaps not viable.

Mindless rubbish. It happens all the time in Europe, and the last time I
looked at several systems, the safeworking was set up for the trams, with
the goods trains having to operate to their safeworking system, i.e. being
driven at a speed slow enough to be able to respond to street traffic and
pedestrians crossing the line. It works over there, and there is no reason
why the two modes cannot co-exist here, your mindless hyperventilating
notwithstanding.

Dave