Link to the colourful frequency map: www.ttg4.paintbrushguy.xyz/post/sydney-trains-service-diagram Edit: Wherever I refered to T4 changes in 2024, that's now most likely 2025.
I find the 5:20 pm from Central to Newcastle Interchange to be a strange service. It stops Strathfield then Woy Woy, skipping the usual Epping and Hornsby stations. But as far as I'm aware, it doesn't actually gain any speed advantage, where it often has to slow down to allow for a Wyong via the North Shore train to go ahead of it after Hornsby. Why they didn''t give the Newcastle train priority when doing the timetable is beyond me.
Great video! As a local on the T8 Airport & South Line, I'll provide my opinion: I agree with your opinion on the T8 having the best express service and how the quadruplication of the line several years back has really helped improve services on the line. I almost always catch the slow trains on the line and often complain about waiting 15 whole minutes all day everyday for a service, so seeing the wait time being reduced by 5 minutes is very exciting. The only difference I would have made is that I believe they should have tried to re-incorporate City via Sydenham services for the local lines, it would be a big help as the trains can use the former T3 tracks whilst also connecting to major hubs like Sydenham to help connect with the Metro CSW (which I'll be using a lot when it opens). To sum it up, I believe a service roughly every 15-20 minutes between East Hills and the City via Sydenham would really be a big help, it would also extend slow running service frequencies a lot. I think it would make sense to obtain the current express pattern for on and off peak that we have now but a Southern Highlands service every 30-60 minutes to the city could be really beneficial.
I agree with your East Hills point.. having an extra train on the all stations track would be great, so instead of 4tph, it's 8tph. And yeh, going via Tempe would also be a great idea.
@@tsetstransport that just means we were typing them at the same time :) Also when I came it was 0 views 0 comments lol My message is wayyy longer 👍 so makes sense
Actually, the purpose of express trains on the North Shore are not meant to be for time savings, but rather crowd control. As someone that frequently takes the T1, I can tell you that the people at Chatswood exceed the capacity of the train, and think about what would happen if let people on at Killara, Lindfield and Roseville.
Nah- trains are packed either way. If every train ran local on the whole line frequency could be increased on the whole line, thus increasing capacity. I suspect current expresses are more a psychological factor in encouraging rail use.
@@thetrainguy4 No he's right. Between Hornsby and Chatswood, express trains exist as to free up as much space as possible for passengers down the line. Otherwise there is no need for an express service and is the reason why CCN runs express. Look no further than the evening peak. There is only 1 express being the CCN between 4-5pm. That's only to discourage T1 users from using a CCN service
@@kimjonguunnn Sure, that maybe true for the 4 hourly CCN trains but most expresses and all skip-stops are pretty random in their patterns and don't achieve anything.
Very interesting points made in this video! Another thing that will be a factor when considering the 2024 timetable change is train fleets. Quite a bunch of Waratahs will be displaced from the T3 conversion, and Oscars will be displaced from the Mariyungs. It'll be cool to see how they integrate these to the network. As a T4 local, my opinion lies here: T4/SCO: Oscars displaced from the South Coast should be put on all stops shuttles from Hurstville to Bondi Junction (there are about 5 that run from 8:30am-11am in the morning peak currently), but if this is expanded to an all day service at a 15 minute frequency (it'll only require 6 trains!), that would be very effective. We saw this during the RTBU strike action when only 3 Waratahs were able to run 30 mins all stops services from the City Circle down to Hurstville. CCN/T9: Oscars displaced from the CCN should add to the T9 as express services from Hornsby to Sydney Terminal, with the current Waratahs all going local. Also erase the Blacktown via North Shore services. T2: There isn't much that can be done about the T2, it'll have so many terminus points: Parramatta, Homebush, Leppington, Liverpool - maybe they should make all Parramatta trains into express Leppington ones (express from Granville-Liverpool), and use spare Waratahs from the displacement to increase T5 frequency to at least every 10-15 mins, covering all stops from Granville-Liverpool. T1: Screw the North shore, with 2 tracks there really isn't much room for change. T8: Fabulous as it is, I feel that they should keep the Macarthur via Sydenham trains and add Erskineville to the stopping pattern, it adds much more pathways for customers at St Peters and Erskineville to go, also nothing is quicker than skipping all 4 AirportLink stations via the amazing Sydenham route. So many people use this express service via the East Hills just for that reason. (Besides do you really want Erskineville/St Peters to be stuck to Tangaras for the rest of their lives!!!) T2/T3/T8: Also, utilising the junctions at the City Circle ends of Central would be extremely effective. Central has 2 platforms going into the City Circle via Museum, and 1 going into the City Circle via Town Hall. T8 Revesby-City trains should serve as the T2 City-Leppington trains, T8 Macarthur-City trains should serve as the T2 City-Homebush trains. The T2 Liverpool-City trains can be their own line of service, going into the City Circle via platform 20 at Central.
@@SydneyTrainspotter T8 via Sydenham is only 3 minutes faster I think they should get rid of that and make them all go via the Airport but this is more of a personal opinion CCN via the North Shore shouldn’t be removed but definitely should be changed to stop at more stations as there is no point for them to skip stations especially between Gordon and Chatswood but you know Sydney Trains it is all about OCD and “Intercity trains must skip stations” If they are going to run them via the Airport every 5 minutes then there will have to be 3 opposite destinations for them to run to which are Leppington, Homebush/Parramatta and Liverpool via T3 which if you think about it it that is the way they will do it. T9 trains don’t need an express it is bad enough that the CCN trains often go slower than the max speed at certain points due to too many trains on the line and network 15 minutes is good with an express CCN every 30 minutes And the T4 have always had power supply problems you gotta be careful adding too many trains to that line as it is not as strong as all the other lines hence why Tangara’s only operate on that line. I am more of a guy who prefers fewer trains but fast journeys rather than more trains and slower journeys with more delays
Once upon a time there were suburban express weekday morning services from Emu Plains the north shore stopping all stations to Mount Druitt then non stop to Redfern and onto the north shore then in the afternoon all to Redfern then non stop to Mount Druitt and all stations to Emu Plains. Highly patronised and there was always one passenger who hoped on expecting to be able to get off mid journey however there were no compromises ever😬
East Hills express services were meant to operate at 130km/h meaning you would have a really attractive rail services between the southwest and the city. Instead they got capped at 115km/h or even lower in some places.
That really doesn't affect much in reality. The largest time savings come from speeding up really slow parts (ie City Circle, Central Terminal etc) not the already pretty quick parts. With ETCS Level 2 implementation higher speeds may be reintroduced.
@@thetrainguy4 yes, but wouldn't you agree that in principle it seems logical to not arbitrarily throttle line speeds as is done now, but rather allow rolling stock to operate at its approved limits?
@@poino11 Sure, obviously trains should be operating at the highest line speeds they can, this is why we need more automation so the network can stop under-achieving and also stop falling into a heap and crashing every time something goes wrong somewhere on the network.
Great stuff! Very informative! Speaking personally I value regular predictable stopping patterns and high frequency over the odd minute or two from express services. Hopefully there is scope to pursue both of these objectives further.
Omitting stops in peak times on two track routes is done to allow extra "fat" or recovery time to assist with on time running kpis rather than to reduce journey times. If the journey time is reduced, this is probably to reduce the number of train sets needed to operate the service with a certain headway by reducing the amount of time a particular train needs to complete a round trip.
A minute or 2, yes. But we're talking 7mins in a 5 station skip. Do that a couple of times in a journey esp on the long Western lines (skipping the inner city as well as a few of the western groups) and you're up around the 20min mark. Definitely worthwhile
@@peterhoz Absolutely. Separating the all stops inner T2 from the express to Parramatta T1 makes a lot of sense.... if it is predictable and not at the expense of frequency. It's the random skipping odd stations from the occasional service that is really annoying. I would much rather have a train every 5 minutes that took a bit longer than wait half an hour (purely personal opinion). Or to know which train goes where without having to wait for the indicator to scroll through. Each line could have a few predictable stopping patterns eg T1a, T1b etc. In Germany they do this e.g. The S1, S11, S12 etc (or S2, S21 etc) are generally different stopping patterns on the same line.
Express service on the North Shore line doesn’t make sense. Transport for NSW also wants all Sydney Trains stations to have a service frequency of at least with a train departure every 15 minutes in the long term.
Most stations already have 15 min headways, the only exceptions are Sutherland-Waterfall (20 mins), Hornsby - Berowra and Emu Plains (30 mins). T5 also only has 30 mins but doesnt serve any stations alone.
For that there will be more South Coast trains running more often, trains should be able to consistently run faster due to better separation of local and express, and all you need to do is get off at Hurstville and wait on the same platform for a T4 Waterfall/Cronulla train which will all be stopping at Wolli Creek. Longer-term they have looked at new interchange platforms at Wolli Creek but it's going to be expensive.
8:07 I reckon if the CCN continues past Central and then around the city circle and then all Airport stations to Wolli creek then Revesby, Glenfield and Campbelltown and time it to connect with the Southern highlands line would be ideal
Here's my thoughts on some of the limited stops/express services on the following lines when comparing the current ones to before the timetable change in 27 November 2017: T1: Before the timetable change, there were peak hour services that did not stop at Strathfield whilst running non-stop between Parramatta and Redfern, which they should have kept whilst the current weekday daytime stopping pattern from Richmond/Emu Plains/Penrith to the City should have also been implemented in the weekend timetable as well. T2: Before the timetable change, daytime services to Leppington used to only stop at Auburn, Lidcombe, Flemington, Strathfield and Ashfield between Granville and Redfern, which should have also been kept in the current timetable 7 days a week along with the former services that used to run between Campbelltown and the City Circle via Granville. Peak hour services between Campbelltown and the City used to only stop at Merrylands, Fairfield, Cabramatta and Liverpool between Granville and Glenfield, which should have also been kept. T3: It's great that express trains between Liverpool and the City Circle have increased stations skipped as it used to also stop at Punchbowl, Belmore and St Peters prior to the timetable change and should also be used on weekends. T4: Generally, there wasn't really much changes in both versions, but I think that services to/from Waterfall during daytime should have been done justice by reducing stopping stations between Redfern and Sutherland. T8: Same case with express trains on the T3, where express services no longer stop at Riverwood and Padstow (additionally Kingsgrove on weekends). Before the timetable change, there used to weekday hourly daytime services that only stopped at Holsworthy and Glenfield between Ingleburn and Wolli Creek, which could be something that could be brought back in the next timetable change.
I 100% agree with you on the T1, T2 and T8. They should've kept them as they were before the November 2017 timetable. I really hated how they added Clyde, Burwood and Newtown to the limited stops Leppington to City via Granville services for the T2. It makes it longer and more packed. I also hated how they removed Harris Park, Granville, Clyde, Auburn and Burwood from the T1 Western Line in favor of the unnecessary all stops T2 Parramatta Line.
I'd just like to point out something on the T4 which could really hurt a lot of passengers. Rockdale is an incredibly busy station during peak hours, hence having only local trains at Rockdale is forcing overcrowded local services to the City. Instead, the Express services should make that additional stop at Rockdale to ease the pressure on the local services and offer a better balance for commuters, although this could come at the expense of time. While some of the hypothetical time saving you provided are fantastic, the overall commute experience could be negatively affected as a result. This is what makes route scheduling and stopping patterns so difficult to master. Overall, you've done a fantastic job.
@ 6:20 you forgot to consider the inability to overtake. This is why the current archaic arrangments on the T4 - it's only twin track south of hurstville, akin to the t1.
T4 services run ok at the moment with a train every couple minutes in peak between Sutherland & Hurtsville. Only thing that throws a spanner is when an Intercity is delayed from Wollongong. Meaning an all/limited stopper has to wait at Sutherland. Bigger bunch occurs on the ESR. Especially when a packed train unloads 80% it's passengers at Town Hall & Martin Place.
Yer you missed the point of these stopping patterns. The purpose of skip stop and express trains is to spread demand and ensure that trains aren’t all over crowded
North Shore skip stops don't really do that either though. Trains are always packed at Chatswood regardless and you could perhaps squeeze one or two extra trains per hour if all trains were local.
From experience the all stops trains are always the crowded ones. Particularly on the T1 Shore as the first train to reach the station you are at will be the first train to reach your destination.
3:07 the CCN via the North Shore are pretty much local trains if we need more local trains make the CCN trains at all stations on the North Shore instead of removing them entirely
There is no possibility of all day Hurstville locals as you propose currently, as freight trains take 7 minutes to cross from the freight tracks to the Illawarra locals, (so a 10 min total travel time) and there is generally two freight slots outside peak hour. You could get it to work only through making waterfall a shuttle to Sutherland and a 4tph Cronulla all stops to Hurstville - Wolli Creek, and then a 15 min frequency Hurstville all stops, with the platform for the local and express swapping between P1 and P3, which is a poor passenger outcome to fit in the freight services.
Bearing in mind the track swap- the locals will be used by fast trains not all stops. Also the slow part of freight operations at Meeks Road is past the XOs most T4 trains use to access Wolli Creek.
@@thetrainguy4 definitely. But your proposal South of Hurstville still can't happen because of the freight. The current stopping patterns and frequency is to purely work around that.
I know on the CCN line its so amazing having it. it takes the around 14 stop ride to a 5 stop ride. stopping at koolewong, tascott, and point clare right at the end is a pain in the ass so its great to skip it
@@XavierBaker the CCN is the most populated intercity line especially up to Gosford which is understandable why it would have the most trains out of all the intercity line but the South Coast line isn’t too far behind it either
If they are going to have trains to Macarthur every 10 minutes they won’t be able to have express trains on the T8 and if SHL trains go to Central they will be forced to stop at every station except between Wolli Creek and Revesby
@@thetrainguy4 but those are for the Revesby trains and there are 7 stations that the express train will need skip compared to the Macarthur trains and 7 minutes is not enough time as the speed is quite fast there Unless if it does what the XPT does and use the the T2 lines at Glenfield and not stop at Glenfield to overtake the T8 train in front but it will still create delays I think they should just cut 1 of the local Macarthur trains per hour or 2 and replace that with the SHL express
i will admit, attempting to figure out the T1 service patterns have caused too much suffering... thank goodness they are supposed to be split into north shore and western and northern services.
The rubbish ones are my own. The watermarked colourful ones I got from an FOI request, it's a bit out of date but I'll stick it on my website. The track diagram at the end is part of this: standards.transport.nsw.gov.au/search-standard-specific/?id=TBA%20-%200006133:2023
Link to the colourful frequency map: www.ttg4.paintbrushguy.xyz/post/sydney-trains-service-diagram
Edit: Wherever I refered to T4 changes in 2024, that's now most likely 2025.
Excellent video! Very good suggestions, I’m very interested to see what comes out of the 2024 timetable change
I had tried to get an FOI into the 2024 timetable but to no avail.
I find the 5:20 pm from Central to Newcastle Interchange to be a strange service. It stops Strathfield then Woy Woy, skipping the usual Epping and Hornsby stations. But as far as I'm aware, it doesn't actually gain any speed advantage, where it often has to slow down to allow for a Wyong via the North Shore train to go ahead of it after Hornsby. Why they didn''t give the Newcastle train priority when doing the timetable is beyond me.
Great video!
As a local on the T8 Airport & South Line, I'll provide my opinion:
I agree with your opinion on the T8 having the best express service and how the quadruplication of the line several years back has really helped improve services on the line. I almost always catch the slow trains on the line and often complain about waiting 15 whole minutes all day everyday for a service, so seeing the wait time being reduced by 5 minutes is very exciting. The only difference I would have made is that I believe they should have tried to re-incorporate City via Sydenham services for the local lines, it would be a big help as the trains can use the former T3 tracks whilst also connecting to major hubs like Sydenham to help connect with the Metro CSW (which I'll be using a lot when it opens). To sum it up, I believe a service roughly every 15-20 minutes between East Hills and the City via Sydenham would really be a big help, it would also extend slow running service frequencies a lot.
I think it would make sense to obtain the current express pattern for on and off peak that we have now but a Southern Highlands service every 30-60 minutes to the city could be really beneficial.
I agree with your East Hills point.. having an extra train on the all stations track would be great, so instead of 4tph, it's 8tph. And yeh, going via Tempe would also be a great idea.
bro practically read mine and shortened it lol
@@SydneyTrainspotternice try buddy, my comment was posted 14 hours ago, yours was posted 13 hours ago 🤡
@@tsetstransport that just means we were typing them at the same time :)
Also when I came it was 0 views 0 comments lol
My message is wayyy longer 👍 so makes sense
Id like trains to go via Sydenham simce there's more scenery
Actually, the purpose of express trains on the North Shore are not meant to be for time savings, but rather crowd control. As someone that frequently takes the T1, I can tell you that the people at Chatswood exceed the capacity of the train, and think about what would happen if let people on at Killara, Lindfield and Roseville.
Nah- trains are packed either way. If every train ran local on the whole line frequency could be increased on the whole line, thus increasing capacity. I suspect current expresses are more a psychological factor in encouraging rail use.
@@thetrainguy4 No he's right. Between Hornsby and Chatswood, express trains exist as to free up as much space as possible for passengers down the line. Otherwise there is no need for an express service and is the reason why CCN runs express. Look no further than the evening peak. There is only 1 express being the CCN between 4-5pm. That's only to discourage T1 users from using a CCN service
@@kimjonguunnn Sure, that maybe true for the 4 hourly CCN trains but most expresses and all skip-stops are pretty random in their patterns and don't achieve anything.
Very interesting points made in this video! Another thing that will be a factor when considering the 2024 timetable change is train fleets. Quite a bunch of Waratahs will be displaced from the T3 conversion, and Oscars will be displaced from the Mariyungs. It'll be cool to see how they integrate these to the network. As a T4 local, my opinion lies here:
T4/SCO: Oscars displaced from the South Coast should be put on all stops shuttles from Hurstville to Bondi Junction (there are about 5 that run from 8:30am-11am in the morning peak currently), but if this is expanded to an all day service at a 15 minute frequency (it'll only require 6 trains!), that would be very effective. We saw this during the RTBU strike action when only 3 Waratahs were able to run 30 mins all stops services from the City Circle down to Hurstville.
CCN/T9: Oscars displaced from the CCN should add to the T9 as express services from Hornsby to Sydney Terminal, with the current Waratahs all going local. Also erase the Blacktown via North Shore services.
T2: There isn't much that can be done about the T2, it'll have so many terminus points: Parramatta, Homebush, Leppington, Liverpool - maybe they should make all Parramatta trains into express Leppington ones (express from Granville-Liverpool), and use spare Waratahs from the displacement to increase T5 frequency to at least every 10-15 mins, covering all stops from Granville-Liverpool.
T1: Screw the North shore, with 2 tracks there really isn't much room for change.
T8: Fabulous as it is, I feel that they should keep the Macarthur via Sydenham trains and add Erskineville to the stopping pattern, it adds much more pathways for customers at St Peters and Erskineville to go, also nothing is quicker than skipping all 4 AirportLink stations via the amazing Sydenham route. So many people use this express service via the East Hills just for that reason. (Besides do you really want Erskineville/St Peters to be stuck to Tangaras for the rest of their lives!!!)
T2/T3/T8: Also, utilising the junctions at the City Circle ends of Central would be extremely effective. Central has 2 platforms going into the City Circle via Museum, and 1 going into the City Circle via Town Hall. T8 Revesby-City trains should serve as the T2 City-Leppington trains, T8 Macarthur-City trains should serve as the T2 City-Homebush trains. The T2 Liverpool-City trains can be their own line of service, going into the City Circle via platform 20 at Central.
@@SydneyTrainspotter T8 via Sydenham is only 3 minutes faster I think they should get rid of that and make them all go via the Airport but this is more of a personal opinion
CCN via the North Shore shouldn’t be removed but definitely should be changed to stop at more stations as there is no point for them to skip stations especially between Gordon and Chatswood but you know Sydney Trains it is all about OCD and “Intercity trains must skip stations”
If they are going to run them via the Airport every 5 minutes then there will have to be 3 opposite destinations for them to run to which are Leppington, Homebush/Parramatta and Liverpool via T3 which if you think about it it that is the way they will do it.
T9 trains don’t need an express it is bad enough that the CCN trains often go slower than the max speed at certain points due to too many trains on the line and network 15 minutes is good with an express CCN every 30 minutes
And the T4 have always had power supply problems you gotta be careful adding too many trains to that line as it is not as strong as all the other lines hence why Tangara’s only operate on that line.
I am more of a guy who prefers fewer trains but fast journeys rather than more trains and slower journeys with more delays
Once upon a time there were suburban express weekday morning services from Emu Plains the north shore stopping all stations to Mount Druitt then non stop to Redfern and onto the north shore then in the afternoon all to Redfern then non stop to Mount Druitt and all stations to Emu Plains. Highly patronised and there was always one passenger who hoped on expecting to be able to get off mid journey however there were no compromises ever😬
Terrific video, and the multitude of stopping pattern diagrams was an enormous help
East Hills express services were meant to operate at 130km/h meaning you would have a really attractive rail services between the southwest and the city. Instead they got capped at 115km/h or even lower in some places.
That really doesn't affect much in reality. The largest time savings come from speeding up really slow parts (ie City Circle, Central Terminal etc) not the already pretty quick parts. With ETCS Level 2 implementation higher speeds may be reintroduced.
@@thetrainguy4 yes, but wouldn't you agree that in principle it seems logical to not arbitrarily throttle line speeds as is done now, but rather allow rolling stock to operate at its approved limits?
@@poino11 Sure, obviously trains should be operating at the highest line speeds they can, this is why we need more automation so the network can stop under-achieving and also stop falling into a heap and crashing every time something goes wrong somewhere on the network.
Excellent video, very informative! I look forward to the introduction of the new 2024 Sydney Trains timetable.
Great stuff! Very informative! Speaking personally I value regular predictable stopping patterns and high frequency over the odd minute or two from express services. Hopefully there is scope to pursue both of these objectives further.
Omitting stops in peak times on two track routes is done to allow extra "fat" or recovery time to assist with on time running kpis rather than to reduce journey times. If the journey time is reduced, this is probably to reduce the number of train sets needed to operate the service with a certain headway by reducing the amount of time a particular train needs to complete a round trip.
A minute or 2, yes. But we're talking 7mins in a 5 station skip. Do that a couple of times in a journey esp on the long Western lines (skipping the inner city as well as a few of the western groups) and you're up around the 20min mark. Definitely worthwhile
@@peterhoz Absolutely. Separating the all stops inner T2 from the express to Parramatta T1 makes a lot of sense.... if it is predictable and not at the expense of frequency.
It's the random skipping odd stations from the occasional service that is really annoying. I would much rather have a train every 5 minutes that took a bit longer than wait half an hour (purely personal opinion). Or to know which train goes where without having to wait for the indicator to scroll through. Each line could have a few predictable stopping patterns eg T1a, T1b etc. In Germany they do this e.g. The S1, S11, S12 etc (or S2, S21 etc) are generally different stopping patterns on the same line.
Express service on the North Shore line doesn’t make sense. Transport for NSW also wants all Sydney Trains stations to have a service frequency of at least with a train departure every 15 minutes in the long term.
Most stations already have 15 min headways, the only exceptions are Sutherland-Waterfall (20 mins), Hornsby - Berowra and Emu Plains (30 mins). T5 also only has 30 mins but doesnt serve any stations alone.
@@thetrainguy4 The Richmond Train line has 2tph as well.
@@thetrainguy4 Sutherland to water is generally 30 minutes
As a regular user of the north shore line I don’t even understand the north shore line express services 😂
So you’re telling me South coast trains will no longer stop at Wolli Creek in the future???? Just end me now😢😢😢
For that there will be more South Coast trains running more often, trains should be able to consistently run faster due to better separation of local and express, and all you need to do is get off at Hurstville and wait on the same platform for a T4 Waterfall/Cronulla train which will all be stopping at Wolli Creek. Longer-term they have looked at new interchange platforms at Wolli Creek but it's going to be expensive.
8:07 I reckon if the CCN continues past Central and then around the city circle and then all Airport stations to Wolli creek then Revesby, Glenfield and Campbelltown and time it to connect with the Southern highlands line would be ideal
Here's my thoughts on some of the limited stops/express services on the following lines when comparing the current ones to before the timetable change in 27 November 2017:
T1: Before the timetable change, there were peak hour services that did not stop at Strathfield whilst running non-stop between Parramatta and Redfern, which they should have kept whilst the current weekday daytime stopping pattern from Richmond/Emu Plains/Penrith to the City should have also been implemented in the weekend timetable as well.
T2: Before the timetable change, daytime services to Leppington used to only stop at Auburn, Lidcombe, Flemington, Strathfield and Ashfield between Granville and Redfern, which should have also been kept in the current timetable 7 days a week along with the former services that used to run between Campbelltown and the City Circle via Granville. Peak hour services between Campbelltown and the City used to only stop at Merrylands, Fairfield, Cabramatta and Liverpool between Granville and Glenfield, which should have also been kept.
T3: It's great that express trains between Liverpool and the City Circle have increased stations skipped as it used to also stop at Punchbowl, Belmore and St Peters prior to the timetable change and should also be used on weekends.
T4: Generally, there wasn't really much changes in both versions, but I think that services to/from Waterfall during daytime should have been done justice by reducing stopping stations between Redfern and Sutherland.
T8: Same case with express trains on the T3, where express services no longer stop at Riverwood and Padstow (additionally Kingsgrove on weekends). Before the timetable change, there used to weekday hourly daytime services that only stopped at Holsworthy and Glenfield between Ingleburn and Wolli Creek, which could be something that could be brought back in the next timetable change.
I 100% agree with you on the T1, T2 and T8. They should've kept them as they were before the November 2017 timetable. I really hated how they added Clyde, Burwood and Newtown to the limited stops Leppington to City via Granville services for the T2. It makes it longer and more packed. I also hated how they removed Harris Park, Granville, Clyde, Auburn and Burwood from the T1 Western Line in favor of the unnecessary all stops T2 Parramatta Line.
I'd just like to point out something on the T4 which could really hurt a lot of passengers. Rockdale is an incredibly busy station during peak hours, hence having only local trains at Rockdale is forcing overcrowded local services to the City.
Instead, the Express services should make that additional stop at Rockdale to ease the pressure on the local services and offer a better balance for commuters, although this could come at the expense of time.
While some of the hypothetical time saving you provided are fantastic, the overall commute experience could be negatively affected as a result. This is what makes route scheduling and stopping patterns so difficult to master.
Overall, you've done a fantastic job.
And Kograh
@ 6:20 you forgot to consider the inability to overtake. This is why the current archaic arrangments on the T4 - it's only twin track south of hurstville, akin to the t1.
Frequencies aren’t too high and station spacing is wide enough that it shouldn’t be hard to run fast.
T4 services run ok at the moment with a train every couple minutes in peak between Sutherland & Hurtsville. Only thing that throws a spanner is when an Intercity is delayed from Wollongong. Meaning an all/limited stopper has to wait at Sutherland. Bigger bunch occurs on the ESR. Especially when a packed train unloads 80% it's passengers at Town Hall & Martin Place.
Yer you missed the point of these stopping patterns. The purpose of skip stop and express trains is to spread demand and ensure that trains aren’t all over crowded
North Shore skip stops don't really do that either though. Trains are always packed at Chatswood regardless and you could perhaps squeeze one or two extra trains per hour if all trains were local.
From experience the all stops trains are always the crowded ones. Particularly on the T1 Shore as the first train to reach the station you are at will be the first train to reach your destination.
1:40 Good ol' Toonie!
3:07 the CCN via the North Shore are pretty much local trains if we need more local trains make the CCN trains at all stations on the North Shore instead of removing them entirely
There is no possibility of all day Hurstville locals as you propose currently, as freight trains take 7 minutes to cross from the freight tracks to the Illawarra locals, (so a 10 min total travel time) and there is generally two freight slots outside peak hour.
You could get it to work only through making waterfall a shuttle to Sutherland and a 4tph Cronulla all stops to Hurstville - Wolli Creek, and then a 15 min frequency Hurstville all stops, with the platform for the local and express swapping between P1 and P3, which is a poor passenger outcome to fit in the freight services.
Bearing in mind the track swap- the locals will be used by fast trains not all stops. Also the slow part of freight operations at Meeks Road is past the XOs most T4 trains use to access Wolli Creek.
@@thetrainguy4 definitely. But your proposal South of Hurstville still can't happen because of the freight. The current stopping patterns and frequency is to purely work around that.
Maybe south of Hurstville it wouldn’t work off peak, who knows. I’m very interested to see what the new Illawarra timetable looks like.
I know what it looks like, but it is nothing like the ultimate proposal.
I know on the CCN line its so amazing having it. it takes the around 14 stop ride to a 5 stop ride. stopping at koolewong, tascott, and point clare right at the end is a pain in the ass so its great to skip it
@@XavierBaker the CCN is the most populated intercity line especially up to Gosford which is understandable why it would have the most trains out of all the intercity line but the South Coast line isn’t too far behind it either
Will the post-metro changes allow Parramatta-Bankstown services?
The track layout has allowed it for many decades but there are no plans to introduce it as a service.
@@thetrainguy4 Or maybe even (in a polycentric Sydney) Hornsby-Epping-Eastwood-Fremington-Parramatta ??
@@jack2453 they would need to electrify the line as it is currently used as a freight line
@@kingsbishop1479 Yes and...
I had to get the last train out of Newcastle to Artarmon which was not fun or fast
If they are going to have trains to Macarthur every 10 minutes they won’t be able to have express trains on the T8 and if SHL trains go to Central they will be forced to stop at every station except between Wolli Creek and Revesby
The case for quadtracking...
I'll save that for another time.
@@thetrainguy4 but those are for the Revesby trains and there are 7 stations that the express train will need skip compared to the Macarthur trains and 7 minutes is not enough time as the speed is quite fast there
Unless if it does what the XPT does and use the the T2 lines at Glenfield and not stop at Glenfield to overtake the T8 train in front but it will still create delays I think they should just cut 1 of the local Macarthur trains per hour or 2 and replace that with the SHL express
i will admit, attempting to figure out the T1 service patterns have caused too much suffering...
thank goodness they are supposed to be split into north shore and western and northern services.
@@yukko_parra personally I would split the Richmond line to the T10 Richmond line at it feels as it is a different line to the T1
9:03 this express service already exists during peak hour
Hey, great video! Just wondering where you got all the diagrams from?
The rubbish ones are my own.
The watermarked colourful ones I got from an FOI request, it's a bit out of date but I'll stick it on my website.
The track diagram at the end is part of this: standards.transport.nsw.gov.au/search-standard-specific/?id=TBA%20-%200006133:2023
Maybe the SHL should stop at east hills like they did in the 80s and 90s
Why?
@@thetrainguy4 more people
these are better tan in Mwboirne