Re: Trams in Newcastle again?

["Alex Pout" <alpout@optusnet.com.au>]

Trig Lycerides <Trig.Lycerides@bigpond.com> wrote in message
_4vg6.20268$65.102085@newsfeeds.bigpond.com">news:_4vg6.20268$65.102085@newsfeeds.bigpond.com...
> i have no doubt that the real plan is to close the railway and flog off the
> land at bargain basement prices, generate some paltry rates for the council
> and inconvenience the citizens of newcastle and surrounding areas such as
> port stephens.  there is no way that the newcastle council will commit any
> funds to introduce a light rail line after the heavy one has been ripped up.
> governments are not presently into committing any funds for infrastucture
> and anyone who thinks so is fooling themselves - take a look at the alice to
> darwin project - it will definitely not go ahead, but howard, olsen and
> buffoon burke from the nt will fool people into thinking it will every time
> there is an election.  novocastrians are a hell of a lot smarter, i would
> have thought.
> trig


Ha, good thinking, but not likely.  Novocastrians are currently arguing about
what was the fastest train to do the Sydney-Newcastle trip (the Newcastle
Herald reported today that "3801 still has the record at 2 hours 1 1/2
minutes, done in 1964").  I thought that an XPT broke  2 hours a long time ago
(ie mid 80s sometime)??

Also, judging by what's been in the paper, people are just asking for a 2
hour, regular reliable service to be in place (several articles this week
about our "Snail Rail").  Not one single person has asked why does it still
take over 2 hours for a trip that short.  Can anyone help me here, what other
similar distance trips are there around, not necessarily in Australia, and how
long do they take??  Nor has anyone taken the government to task for only
working on a half hour reduction over the next 10 years (if that'll ever
happen anyway).

Public transport around this area is crap.  There is no other way to describe
it.  As an example, I live near Thornton/Beresfield, in an area with a lot of
teenagers.  Blue Ribbon runs a twice daily bus service, but to Wallsend.
Noone around here goes that way, everyone does things around Maitland and the
train line.  If the bus service was turned around, especially during holidays,
and went to either Beresfield or Thornton (where the trains are), just about
every bus they ran would be full.  What's ironic, is considering the seats of
Maitland (state) and Paterson (federal) are both marginal, that we've still
got 620/720s running around here.

One reason why so many people drive here is because if you live more than 5
minutes from the train line (or bus route) then it's unfeasible. The only
decent PT axes around Newcastle are trains to Maitland (better live near the
line) and busses to Port Stephens, Belmont and Wallsend.   Anywhere in between
is a big black hole, so if your planning on doing anything in those areas,
you'd better drive.  Not to mention frequency of service.

And I'm a believer in public transport.

Have a nice day,

Al