Re: [TramsDownUnder] Thinking laterally

Or...TfNSW will, using its 'expertise', advise the government that the best solution to the problem would be 'Trackless trams!'

Initially, just from Circular Quay to Town Hall. Then to Central. Then...well anyone who observed bustitution in the 1950s knows how it ends up.

If we don't stop the deliberate and unnecessary costs imposed on trams, it's easy to make an economic case for scrapping them and replacing them with trackless trams etc.

Like I said, Ministerial responsibility and an inquiry into TfNSW is the only way to keep trams in NSW. Their approach is one that makes trams totally uneconomic.

Mark Skinner 

On Wed, 11 Dec 2024, 10:12 am 'Tony Galloway' via TramsDownUnder, <tramsdownunder@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On 10 Dec 2024, at 15:14, 'Matthew Geier' via TramsDownUnder <tramsdownunder@googlegroups.com> wrote:

The 'KISS' method of stringing up overhead will lead to howls of defiling a heritage precinct with 'ugly wires'. (Not that the road past Westmead hospital could be by any stretch of the imagination be an 'architecturally sensitive' location.

Yeah, like demolishing a popular historic pub really enhanced the "architectural sensitivity" of that location.

I don't think wiring it all the way would cause too much trouble, and battery related disruptions would be more unpopular. A hot (eg, every future) summer causing trams to stall when the AC used up all the battery power would demand a quick solution, and overhead wiring would be easier and cheaper to install than extra ground level charging.

The usual bed wetters about this stuff would make noise for a while, but then they would run out of puff and no-one would care. Like with the residents along the L1 who said running trams there would be noisy and intrusive (they live under flight paths ffs) this "intrusiveness" is a non-issue now. Everyone along the L1 now accepts it as part of the landscape and many think it has "always been there".

And sooner or later, as with the George St APS, someone will do the sums on excess operating costs, and consider the disadvantages of persisting with power supply systems that lock in particular rolling stock builders, and decide that a couple of wires over a street aren't that ugly after all.

 I remain an optimist….

Tony

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