Re: RIP ASW?

["Grahame Ferguson" <grahamef@users.mcmedia.com.au>]

Exnarc wrote in message <7n6h0b$14uo$1@otis.netspace.net.au>...
>
>> been set aside for crossing loop extensions.
>> It would cost less than $10 M to convert the existing mess into CTC
>> from Totty Loop to Pyrenees Loop including track circuiting the line ,
>> provision of departure sigs & approach distants ,plus one set of
>intermediate
>> autos .
>> Lets get on with it.
>>
>> MD
>>
>
>Yes for a relatively small outlay CTC is an option, some months back the
>figure was either 6 or 8 million, (can't remember the exact amount but as
>you said less than $10 million) rumour has it that the PTC has spent
upwards
>of $40 Million on ASW whilst this figure maybe an exageration its still
>money (no matter how much) down the drain.
>
>I remember a former Supt of Safeworking saying to me when ASW was in its
>infancy, "Why would you want to spend $20 million dollars on ASW when for
20
>cents you can get a Train Order book to do the same thing".
>
>So you see not everyone in the PTC supported it!!!
>
>Bob.
>
>
I think that ASW has been a great debarcle, especially when for similiar or
slightly greater cost, CTC could have been introduced.
A cheaper version using axle counters would have been ideal, for what is an
interstate corridor, albeit not an express corridor.
The Victorian Western SG line to Wolesley has the worst of all worlds:-
1. A tortuous route from Tottenham to Newport, causing increased transit
times and excessive 'bottle necking';
2. Having to share broad gauge track from Brooklyn to Newport, and Nth
Geelong to Gheringhap;
3. A substandard track from Gheringhap to Maroona; and
4. A host of differing safeworking including, an experimental safeworking
system from Newport to Pyrenees Loop (ASW).
5. Another tortuous route over the Adelaide Hills, limiting speed and
tonnage.

One thinks that it all must have been designed by the Road Transport
Industry!  For if it wasn't they are probably thinking "We couldn't have
designed it better ourselves".  It is like an 'own goal' that the State &
Federal Governments have scored for Road Transport.

As I remember it, it is costing $600million for the rerouting of Highway One
over the Adelaide Hills.  What could the same amount have been done with, if
given to improve the Adelaide to Melbourne rail line??

GF.