News & Discussion: Trams

[bits]

I am saying the theory about price and maintenance is from members here. There is no officially released prices to compare.
How can you compare prices relating to tram type 1 to tram type 2 when we have no actual figures in front of us.

Dpti and the government do actually have those numbers and picked one tram type over the other.
We are dealing in untested theory, they are dealing in reality.

So it is a fairly big claim that the selected model is a bad choice and sets a low bar.

[rev]

I am saying the theory about price and maintenance is from members here. There is no officially released prices to compare.
How can you compare prices relating to tram type 1 to tram type 2 when we have no actual figures in front of us.

Dpti and the government do actually have those numbers and picked one tram type over the other.
We are dealing in untested theory, they are dealing in reality.

So it is a fairly big claim that the selected model is a bad choice and sets a low bar.

You should read my post, again, and again, until you understand because the basics of what I'm saying in that post are correct.
It cant be an untested 'theory' when it's factual.

And I'm not making any call on which tram is better or worse.

[rubberman]

I am saying the theory about price and maintenance is from members here. There is no officially released prices to compare.
How can you compare prices relating to tram type 1 to tram type 2 when we have no actual figures in front of us.

Dpti and the government do actually have those numbers and picked one tram type over the other.
We are dealing in untested theory, they are dealing in reality.

So it is a fairly big claim that the selected model is a bad choice and sets a low bar.

First point. Unless DPTI went out and invited tenders from suppliers, they don't have the numbers at all. At best, they will have a price for the Citadis, but no price for competing models.

The price for the first six Citadis was $36m. If we got another 3 at half that price, say, that's a total amount of $45m.

Bear with me here, this is important.

Now the reason for picking the Citadis initially was that DPTI had underestimated the passenger demand and needed something in a big hurry. The Citadis were available, we needed something urgently, so we bought them. The point being: the Citadis were never bought because they were the best tram, they were bought because we needed something urgently.

So now we will have spent roughly $45m on 9 trams, without going through the open market, not because of an economic analysis, not because of a technical analysis, not because of an operational analysis, but because there was an initial blooper in estimate of traffic demands. If that's not a low bar, I'd like to know what is! Spending $45m because of a blooper. Whoops!

Add to that, the fact that the fixed bogie principle was outmoded a century ago - the last ones built prior to the Citadis in Adelaide were the C class "desert gold" cars, literally 100 years ago. There's so much literature in publications like "Street Railway Journal" of that era pouring scorn on such vehicles, it's almost inconceivable that anyone would buy them. They are rough on track, and they are limited in speed in areas where track is rough.

[metro]

O stands for Omnibus, which is the German long form of bus. So it literally means Bus Train.

And, yes, it infuriates me when people spell it O'Bahn. No, it's not Irish, thank you.

O'barn

[citywatcher]

Did I seriously read someone claim the O-Bahn is a failure because no one else has called their guided busway system an O-Bahn

Glad I'm not the only one who thought that was a stupid thing to say.

No its not what I said. Obahn was a registered trademark. The one here was called the adelaide busway. When they realized no one was going to buy the technology "we" bought the name for a few million and it's now the Adel obahn or obahn busway or whatever

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[citywatcher]

Listen. There is no other obahn busway in the world. No one else bought it. Only us forty years ago. Similarly there are other guided busways in the world tried with similar results. It was a novelty that failed hence there are not many examples of them and they have been all but put out of business by trams. Can you split those hairs or is critical thinking not possible for you.

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If the obahn was being built with the intention of making money from selling it internationally you might have a point.

Given that it isn't, whether or not other cities are using the identical system is irrelevant.

Inner city I definitely prefer trams. However the strength of the obahn comes from allowing outer suburban access into the city in good time.

What they made it to lose money ?

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[citywatcher]

My whole point was that generally speaking busways did not really take off and had noticeable limitations and that's why there are not many of them whereas trams proliferate in comparison. If you like / prefer the busway great.

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[rubberman]

O stands for Omnibus, which is the German long form of bus. So it literally means Bus Train.

And, yes, it infuriates me when people spell it O'Bahn. No, it's not Irish, thank you.

I suspect those who use O'Bahn are confusing the correct usage of apostrophes for contractions like it's, they're and so on, with clipped forms such as bus/omnibus, gym/gymnasium and so on where the apostrophe is never used.

[fishinajar]

This conversation should probably be happening over on the O-Bahn thread. Moderators care to move it over before it takes over?

[citywatcher]

Done and dusted far as lm concerned. Just an argument over semantics really. Bring on the new tram. Something we can all agree on.

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[rubberman]

Jetty Road

20170529_112051_resized.jpg (402.86 KiB) Viewed 2889 times

.Note the installation of the concrete groove.

[Llessur2002]

20170529_112051_resized.jpg

.Note the installation of the concrete groove.

This is preferable yes?

[rubberman]

20170529_112051_resized.jpg

.Note the installation of the concrete groove.

This is preferable yes?

Up for discussion. Use of concrete grooves means we can use Whyalla steel in lieu of imports on straight track. If the tram system is expanded, that's a lot of steel from Whyalla and Australian iron ore, vs imported rail and iron ore from wherever. Also, use of concrete grooves minimises the steel area so beloved of cyclists.

On the other hand, maybe the imported steel is hugely cheaper. I am not sure of the relative costs though.

[victorious80]

.

[PD2/20]

Gents

That is not a concrete groove. The inlaid grooved steel rail is already embedded in the concrete, just covered with excess concrete. The concreter is just using the groove tool to remove excess concrete off the rail, and will then sponge the rail clean.

Next time you are down there you will see 4 shiny steel rails slightly proud of the concrete slab.

The new rail laid in Jetty Rd is grooved rail, which replaced plain rail. The plain rail was cut in Jetty Rd just to the west of Brighton Rd and prefabricated plain to grooved rail transitions (about 2 metres long) were inserted between the old and the new rail sections. This is shown in the first photo below, where the old plain rail is visible in the bottom left corner. At the transition joint a short length of check rail has been machined away. Rubberman's photo shows a concrete groove being formed, which is necessary for the plain rail portion.


EDIT: I had a further look yesterday and was able to locate the plain/grooved rail transition which was closer to Brighton Rd than I thought. The new picture shows the transition and the concrete groove with the inside edge angled rather than vertical. Apologies for the confusion.