Wednesday, April 6, 2011

June 2011 Timetables - Ipswich, Rosewood, and Richlands Lines.

After yesterdays review of the new timetables for the Caboolture and Sunshine Coast Lines, it is time for a review of the new timetables for the Ipswich, Rosewood, and Richlands Lines. A previous blog post reviewing the draft timetable is linked below:
http://brizcommuter.blogspot.com/2010/11/2011-timetable-consultation.html

The draft Ipswich and Richlands Line timetable was reasonably well received, with peak hour trains at 6 to 12 minute intervals in the peaks, more homogenous service patterns, and a 15 minute 7-day a week off-peak service between Darra and the CBD. These are all major improvements over the previous messy timetable. There has been little change from the draft Ipswich Line timetable, mainly due to TransLink and QR doing a pretty job with the draft in the first place.

Many commuters expressed concern that Toowong would be a better stop for Ipswich express services instead of Milton, particularly due to it's frequent bus connections to UQ. However expresses will continue to skip Toowong, possibly to help even out loadings between Ipswich express and Richlands all stations services. Some am peak all stations services have to start at Darra instead of Richlands due to poor track layouts at Richlands, and lack of electrified 4th track between Corinda and Darra. BrizCommuter is concerned that overcrowding may occur in the early shoulder peaks, where there are a few 18 minute gaps. The reverse peak 15 minute service could also be improved for those travelling from the CBD to employment centres such as Indooropilly and Toowong in the am peak, and reverse in the pm peak.

The Rosewood Line has received quite a few improvements compared to the draft timetable, mainly related to better connections, and to serve school traffic better. However one am peak connection previously shown to connect at Ipswich (06:05am from Rosewood), will now not connect, with a 12 minute additional wait for the next train at Ipswich.

On a final note, only 1% of feedback was related to the extinction of the Tennyson Line.

3 comments:

  1. Must strongly disagree with your comment that AM services starting at Darra is necessary do to infrastructure limitations. They are well able run inbound on the mains (up & down) and then use the third track.

    At Richlands, it is easy enough to have half the services run past the station, platform #1, and have the other half go directly into platform #2. Not sure what the problem is.

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  2. So what does the train that goes past the station do, when platform #1 is effectively occupied by a reversing train for 11 minutes (8 minutes dwell + 3 minutes re-occupation time)? That doesn't allow a train arrive at #1 and depart from #2, nor arrive at #2 and depart from #1, and maintain a 6 minute frequency.

    There is little question that Richlands diabolical track layout prevents consistent 6 minute frequencies - thus the Darra starters.

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  3. Now the timetable is fixed with no considerations to the many people who wrote directly to the minister and translink. Skipping Toowong is ridiculous. 40,000 students plus staff attend UQ, 8 million recently spent on the 412 bus route to co-incide with trains and UQ. Now they are spending more money increasing bus services to the futher more distant Indooroopilly Stn. Great timetable if you work in the City, shame about everyone else on the line.

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