I had hoped to go on two tram lines yesterday but the T1 line from Sydney Terminal to Dulwich Hill was so incredibly packed that they had to employ platform guards. There was no way that I would enjoy a ride on that tram yesterday; nor will there be for several years while the Bankstown Line is out of commission and being converted to the new Metro specifications.
T2 begins at Circular Quay and the first thing of note is that the whole line is kind of run as a halfway house between a full on railway line and a tramway that is found in Melbourne. The trams are run in their own demarcated lanes with roll kerb markers to separate car traffic and where they do run down the centre of the street, regular vehicular access is denied. Unlike Melbourne, there are no Fairways nor Hook Turns. Maybe Transport for NSW thinks that the people of Sydney are too dim to figure it out. Circular Quay terminal has three platforms and none of them are numbered.
The 'office' of the tram driver is a rather cosy looking place. They are thrust forward in a central position and surrounded by a lot of fun buttons. I think that they are operated by variable speed control and a brake pedal and possibly with a dead man's pedal.
I have no real need to take photographs of the stops at Wynyard or the QVB because apart from trams running down the street, the built environment hasn't changed a lot.
I did however take a photograph of Town Hall Station as the example. The signs throughout the system are red, as opposed to the orange on the train network, the green on ferry wharfs, and blue at big bus stops. They all have a derivation of the New Johnston typeface which is found on the London Underground but I know not exactly what typeface it is. Also, the Opal Card readers are also the same ones found at train stations without passimeter gates; which is to be expected.
The line heads down George St, turns left into Eddy Ave, cuts right into Chalmers St, and then turns left into what I think is Devonshire St; before heading past the Sydney Cricket Ground, Randwick Racecourse, the University of NSW and ending up in the middle of a boring part of Randwick.
The stations which are separate from the regular flow of traffic, are functional but not exactly things of architectural beauty. I think that they fit in nicely with the overall corporate scheme that Transport for NSW is trying to convey but they are all a bit cold.
They call this station Moore Park which although is technically correct, it feels oh so wrong. Across the way is the Sydney Cricket Ground; which is a hallowed bit of turf which has defined 160 summers and many many winters. I think that this station should be called Sydney Cricket Ground rather than Moore Park.
This station has metal barriers installed and pedestrian underpasses, which I presume will mainly be used as vomitoria at the end of a big sporting fixture. Already there has been forethought put into the intended use of this station and I very much like it.
While I do like that these platforms all fit together with the same design language as the rest of the system, they all feel a bit lifeless and soulless. Had I been in charge of the project, I think that I would have given the task of designing the stations to different architectural firms and told them that it has to look like a Sydney Tram Stop. Many different ideas would have been expressed; in the same way that all of the London Underground despite having all kinds of different styles and methods of construction, all feel like the London Underground. Maybe it's just the newness of this system but it just doesn't really do anything to inspire me.
Somehow I suspect that this is the point. I know that it is possible to create nice things but for some reason, we choose not to. At the University of NSW, the tram stop actually complements the surrounds because the design language of the buildings is so monolithic. I am led to believe that medicine happens inside that building but I cannot help but feel that it is very impersonal.
If it ever came to it and a tram was in a situation where it outran the end of the line, it would probably come to a halt within about three feet. There aren't any fail safe buffers or triggers because Randwick Station is already on an upwards slope.
Also, I mentioned earlier that this ends in the middle of boring suburbia. In the immediate environs, there is one sandwich shop and whatever there is at the hospital down the street. This is not in the slightest a tourist destination and nor is it really intended to be. I love it. Just like Leppington Station which is a railway station in the middle of nowhere in preparation for a housing development, Randwick Station is a triumph of function. It does exactly what it is supposed to. Boring is brilliant.
I conclude this back at Central Station with a point of confusion. I completely realise that this is a tram line but over a brick wall is the regular train platforms 22 and 23. Not quite directly underneath this is platforms 24 and 25. I hope that the new Metro platforms will be numbered 13 and 14 because that is where the box for the new Metro line has been excavated. As platform 15 will not be reinstated, that number should be used for the single platform for the Dulwich Hill L1 tram line and I think that these two tram platforms should be numbered 26 and 27. That would greatly help with integration into the station because right now, it seems just a little bit orphaned.
Yet again my biggest gripe with the implementation of this network is why did we specifically have to buy trains from France and Spain? What would have been wrong with Comeng built trams which came from Australia?
There's nothing inherently wrong with the Alstom Citadis 305 but I have no idea why the decision was taken to choose to send the manufacturing jobs overseas. Evidently, we are too stupid to build trams in Australia.
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