Re: Blacktown, Parramatta, Epping, Chatswoood, St Leonards and all stations to Wolli Creek, then Canberra

["Bill McNiven" <wmcniven@gunzel.ozemail.com.au>]

Everyone else has pontificated on this subject, so now it's my turn ...

Some possibly relevant points:

BLACKTOWN vs. HORNSBY

The work at Blacktown is basically construction of an additional platform
face beside the existing Up Refuge line.  Constructing a track to the
partly-existing platform face on the site of Hornsby Loco would be a bigger
job.

Blacktown is being favoured because it has become the western terminus of
the Olympic Games service.  The Olympics plan seems to be developing towards
running, at peak times, 16 trains/hour to Blacktown, and keeping them
separated from the rest of the network as far as possible.  Terminating a
train every four minutes seems to need either exclusive use of four
platforms or exclusive use of two platforms which lead to four dead-ends.
Given that Blacktown also needs (in off-peak periods) three platforms for
Down Penrith, Up Penrith and Richmond (both ways), the construction under
way seems to be the simplest way to do the job.  An alternative IMHO would
have been to build platform 2.5 as a third branch platform on the site of
the old stock siding and run all OP trains via platform 1 to the yard, then
out via platform 2.  As posters to long-past threads pointed out, the
solution adopted also allows down Penrith / Mountains trains that are
mistakenly routed over the flyover at Seven Hills to re-join their intended
route at Blacktown.

HORNSBY RESIGNALLING

A recurring tragedy of rail infrastructure planning by the various NSW
authorities is that there isn't any (just look at the so-called "Parkes
Y-link"!).  We've just seen all the junctions and signalling at Hornsby
re-done without anyone asking whether the platforms are in the right place!

Hornsby station, including the former goods yard and steam loco depot, is a
magnificent site.  If somebody had said "we're going to spend megabucks at
Hornsby so let's look at how we best use the land bounded by George St,
Bridge St, Jersey St and the 'old' Pacific Highway", the outcome might have
an entire new station with six platforms and a pair of independent goods
lines sited around 200 metres north of the present station.   No change to
the present "old" Pacific Highway bridge.  No change to the Bridge Street
bridge.  Just replace the entire cramped "station plus goods yard plus steam
loco depot" layout with a decent station.

This sort of inspirational planning doesn’t happen in a culture in which
“continuous improvement” means making pedestrian improvements to “what we’ve
always done”. I don’t know what CityRail operational management does, but I
suspect that it’s reaction to delay statistics and political demands rather
than planning a better operation.

One suspects that the Hornsby planning was a purely engineering project
based on the premise that the number and location of platforms had been
determined pre-1924 and all that was needed was to replace the points and
signals.  About 80 years after the last time the station was re-designed!

The Sydney resignalling in 1979 was done like this and it's only 20 years
later that we've seen the last of the engine sidings (for S class taking
water and waiting to drop on to their next train) and carriage sheds (for
the Kempsey Mail and the Cootamundra Day Train) disappear.  We have yet to
see how Sydney can efficiently handle a 26-car Indian Pacific or 16
trains/hour to Olympic Park!

CHATSWOOD - WAVERTON

The cheaper earthworks for quadruplication were done ca. 1924 as
unemployment relief.  The line was electrified in 1927 (after Harbour Bridge
construction had commenced).  Four tracks were constructed from North Sydney
to Wynyard but two were used for trams (1932 - 1958) and then converted to
road use.  Pretty clearly, the additional two tracks would have involved
slewing the original tracks at various locations (as happened with the
contemporaneous Sydney - Homebush sextuplication).

Despite the details posted by others, the overhead wire structures and
over-line road bridges tell us what was planned circa 1927:

Chatswood:  The structures on the west side have concrete bases built up to
platform level for a fourth platform.  (Sure, I bet Willoughby Council
wouldn't like their little park to become Platform 4 now!)  BTW, the bus
interchange is not on railway land.  It's on the site of what used to be a
street and a Woolworths store.  BTW, the original single track layout at
Chatswood had platform 2 as the main and platform 1 as the loop.  The
extension of the local platform road in electric days was nothing to do with
the goods sidings, which were on the western side (goods yard south of Help
Street, Willoughby Council sidings to the north.)

Artarmon:  The overhead structures on the east side tell us where the second
island platform was going to be.

Wollstonecraft:  The overhead structures suggest that the plan was to make
the present 1893-vintage platforms a pair of island platforms.

Waverton:  On the north-east side, there is a cutting which suggests that
two extra tracks were planned here to lead to a second tunnel.

Overbridges including Thomas St, Mowbray Road, River Road, Bridge End (both
the old one and the new one) are all built to span four tracks.  Even the
relatively-new Gore Hill freeway passes under a bridge built for the four
tracks planned re-1924!

I appreciate that building a four-track main line to pre-1927 plans would
produce a line with tight curves, tight clearances and no space for the
trackside access road that's a part of current-day track maintenance.  I
don't understand the posting that it wouldn't work with double-deck cars.

PARRAMATTA - CHATSWOOD RAILWAY

I don't think that the appearance of a "Parramatta - Epping - Chatswood -
St. Leonards" line on the maps stuck up in trains for passenger
(mis)information mean much.  These are a compromise between customer
information and political misinformation.

Chatswood is following North Sydney, Parramatta and Bondi Junction as a
significant business district.  When somebody starts planning a transport
terminal to serve the Chatswood CBD for the next 50 years, I hope they're
not dusting off the plans of 1924!

Whether it's underground, on the present site, or perhaps a new site north
of Help Street, Chatswood Station deserves to be a spacious interchange
between trains from Hornsby / Gosford, trains from Blacktown / Epping and
trains to Wynyard and maybe elsewhere in the CBD.  Ideally, it would be a
spacious and attractive four-platform station.  Whether it's underground and
whether it's still at the Victoria Avenue tram terminus are irrelevant.

CHATSWOOD - NORTH SYDNEY - SYDNEY

It would be pretty easy to complete the long-planned quadruplication from
Chatswood south to St. Leonards.

St. Leonards to North Sydney is possible (just!).

As I see it, there is no way that
* North Sydney - Wynyard can be quadruplicated by reposessing two road lanes
on the Bridge (the North Shore motorists would re-join the New Guard!)
* Wynyard station could handle the added passenger flow if trains from
Parramatta via Epping were terminating at platforms 1/2 every three minutes
in peak periods.
* The budget for a Parramatta / Chatswood railway would expand to include a
Wynyard - somewhere near Town Hall or St. James -- ?? City Underground
railway.

So, an essential part of the "Parramatta - Chatswood" railway plan has to be
"how do we run more peak-hour trains from Chatswood to the city?".

My suggestion:  A new two-track underground line from St. Leonards to St.
James to Central platforms 26/27 to Mascot.  Use the underground space that
exists.  Junk the stupid junction arrangements at Prince Alfred Park.

AND ONE MORE THING ....

If anybody was really planning ahead, they would look at all the loose
promises of Very Fast (or even moderately fast) trains to Newcastle etc.

Again IMHO, the ideal first-stage Very Fast Train would run Newcastle -
North Shore Line - Sydney - Sydney Airport - Canberra - Melbourne.

CONCLUSION

Before the Parramatta - Epping - Chatswood railway gets too far, government
and its rail agencies had better think through
* Chatswood Station
* A new pair of tracks from Chatswood to the City, linking to the Airport
and preferably to Wollongong, Canberra and Melbourne
* The future of a moderately fast Sydney - Newcastle operation which might
pass through Chatswood

Looking forward to being told it's easier with model trains ...

Rgds

Bill :{)