A short hypothetical today.
Our rail network is one of the most radial in the world. Leaving aside City Loop variations, out of our 220 plus suburban stations there is just one (Laverton) where you can go to the CBD via a different corridor. And that difference is slight (Altona Loop or not) and is only available on weekdays. Our proposed Suburban Rail Loop is an ambitious and expensive way to overcome that (albeit on one orbital corridor only).
Sydney's rail network is very different. Whereas even our shorter lines (Alamein, Sandringham, Glen Waverley, Upfield) simply finish, in Sydney they generally end at a station on one of the longer lines. Thus there are far more suburban rail junctions that accommodate trains from multiple directions there than here. We have suburban rail junctions too (eg Footscray, Newport, Camberwell, Clifton Hill, Caulfield, Dandenong, Ringwood) but in all cases the lines fan out, never to meet again.
Below is a hypothetical augmentation of Melbourne's rail network. Lines have had extensions to connect to another line, typically the nearest longer line. They range from connections you'd see in official plans to something so geometrically terrible that you would never do. There are a total of seven joins - click on the map below for a better view.
Discussion of each connection option
1. Werribee - Wyndham Vale. At least on the above not to scale map, this is the shortest link of the lot. It involves extended electrification and likely a new station at Black Forest Rd. As well as providing new coverage in a growth area it restores a rail - rail connection between Werribee and Geelong, provides some capacity relief for Wyndham Vale and provides some extra network robustness if trains in one line inward from Wyndham Vale cannot run. This is by far the most likely connection to go ahead with it being mooted in the government's own
Western Rail Plan. The City of Wyndham has also
advocated for it.
2. Flemington Racecourse - Albion. Unlike the above this is one is very likely to sit in the untouched bottom drawer marked 'fantasy lines'. There's no clear rail corridor and there'd likely be significant overhead or tunnelling work (including over or under the Maribyrnong River one or more times). A very direct alignment might be under Ballarat Rd but there'd likely be a wish to operate further north-west to serve Highpoint (as mentioned
here). It could even be a new corridor serving Melbourne Airport (as some have suggested). f this north-west alignment is continued it could finish at Melbourne Airport. Such an option has been scotched by the intention instead to route airport trains via Sunshine. But this concept could still have the extended racecourse line finishing at a junction station like one potentially at Keilor East, though the map above has it running to Albion. Strictly hypothetical.
3. Upfield - Roxburgh Park. Here is the second (and I think last) one that is rooted in real proposals. A corridor already exists so costs would be low. And there's been support from people like Rail Futures and the
Upfield Transport Alliance. Because Roxburgh Park is only one station from the line's terminus at Craigieburn, the connectivity isn't as good as (say) an east-west connection like the Suburban Rail Loop (thin grey line) proposes. However, if accompanied by amplification, it could provide some capacity relief for a combined regional and Metro line to one of Melbourne's major growth areas to the north. Plus it could provide some long needed frequency upgrades for the Upfield line which is infrequent, even in peaks. Again this could well happen.
4. Alamein - East Malvern - Caulfield. This would not be a trivial engineering project despite its shortness. However what it lacks in extra track kilometres it makes up in network connectivity. Nowhere else on the network do so many lines carrying so many people come so close together at so far from the CBD. A rail Caulfield - Camberwell connection would connect six of Melbourne's lines serving almost the entire east and south-east. It would strengthen Caulfield as a hub and likely improve airport connectivity given the stated intention of running airport services through to Caulfield. And so many other trips in the east and south-east would become practical by rail. I love this concept as it would give the south-east a second orbital with only a few extra kilometres of track. However I don't think it's ever been part of any serious proposal, with others preferring other extension alignments such as via Chadstone, Huntingdale and then Monash and Rowville. Hence it's another hypothetical.
5. Glen Waverley - Ferntree Gully. This is really an extension of the radial Glen Waverley line so is more radial than circumferential. Some proposals for rail to Knox (including a PTUA one from the '90s) had its rail extending from Glen Waverley rather than Huntingdale. This option missed Monash University Clayton but may have balanced capacity as the Glen Waverley line is much quieter than Dandenong. Huntingdale has a bit of history; it was the branching off point for the
1969 Transport Plan connection to Ferntree Gully that was revived in a soon abandoned 1980s
Steve Crabb promise. Politicians of all colours have
raised expectations of rail to the Knox area for decades with nothing happening. This concept is likely to meet a similar fate.
6. Cranbourne - Pakenham. Some extension to the Clyde area is desirable to take in development but otherwise the geometry is quite poor. The map has it running to Pakenham, though maybe Officer would be a better choice if that develops as a large centre. The
1969 plan had a different take, with a branch off at Lyndhurst looping around to Frankston. Like previously discussed areas in the north the outer south-east is a fast developing area, with new housing increasingly stretching further and further way either the Cranbourne or Pakenham lines as it spreads east from Clyde North and beyond. One can certainly see an extension south-east to Clyde, aided by current upgrade work for the Cranbourne line, but an extension to join any other line is most unlikely.
7. Sandringham - Southland. I've avoided any extensions on the SRL alignment. Hence this qualifies as the SRL starts at Southland, not Sandringham. It's not a growth corridor and a good bus along Bay Rd will likely suit most transport needs and capacity for a long while. On the other hand if Southland becomes a huge centre (much bigger than now) then there might be more than just casual discussion (like this
Reddit thread) on a high capacity Sandringham connection.
Conclusion
A mix of 'no brainer' and outlandish ideas have been presented for better connecting our rail network. Comments and ideas, impractical or otherwise are invited and can be left below. As further reading, enjoy this Wikipedia entry on various proposed extensions.
7 comments:
The Alamein line can be extended via the Outer Circle corridor to Oakleigh where it would then join the Dandenong lines, as the original Outer Circle did. Cranbourne trains can be routed via Alamein so additional Alamein trains can be provided at no extra cost. Pakenham trains already operate at 10 min. frequency and don't serve MATH stations, so not many passengers would be inconvenienced by Cranbourne trains bypassing their stations. The all night trains on both lines would go to City via the two routes which would provide welcome additional services to the common stations between Oakleigh and Dandenong, mostly utilizing the already required trains on Alamein and Cranbourne lines.
The Chadstone-Oakleigh option is better for the Alamein line. It gets Chadstone heavy rail covering significant parts of its catchment.
Can someone get in their time machine and convince the powers that be that keeping the Inner and Outer Circles might be a good idea for when rail has a resurgence?
I think the other thing Sydney has going for it is the relative importance of some of those junction stations. Caulfield, Camberwell, Oakleigh might fit the bill here but Roxburgh Park, Wyndham Vale, Ferntree Gully much less so - although the possibility of alternative regional connections might raise that for Roxburgh Park and Wyndham Vale. Connecting Flemington Racecourse to the airport line or SRL might be better than Albion, but again would that junction be one of importance?
I wonder if a Sandringham Line to Frankston Line link (with track connection south) would be good to provide effectively an additional track pair of capacity for the Frankston Line. Although maybe Sandringham Line level crossings could become a constraint.
Beside rerouting some North East Line services via Upfield instead of Essendon (and relieving metropolitan paths for metropolitan services), what real benefit does connecting Upfield to Roxburgh Park/Craigieburn have that can be derived by other Upfield extension routes? Both lines will still be parallel to each other, with no connection to other lines (except SRL, if that ever happens in the north). Cheaper, because it was always done that way?
Would you say lines like this are pretty much essential if we are to provide enough travel capacity for all of the people in our growing city? I say this because with the current network, I can't see how there can be much more capacity through the inner stations where all the lines converge. Can the lines between Richmond and Flinders St, for example, carry any more traffic? If they can't, then all of the additional services that are needed further out on each line (i.e. a 5-10 minute headway at every station) simply wouldn't be able to go all the way to Melbourne. They would have to be shuttles. Unless, that is, they began at, for example Lilydale, and then from Box Hill they headed off towards either Glen Waverley or Heidelberg.
Phil - arguably there's a lot of low hanging fruit in tram & bus priority & frequency to be done first. When the time comes to have circumferential rail the optimum distance for it to replace trips going into the CBD is likely not the ends of the lines. Rather it is likely to be somewhere in the 5 - 20 km range. This links a lot of big middle suburban destinations that just joining the ends of the lines won't do. In other words something like the Suburban Rail Loop though arguably there's scope for connections closer in also like discussed for Alamein - Caulfield.
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