International Railroad Discussion > Sydney LRVs from 2 perspectives

I'm spending a few days in Sydney enjoying their 40th Mardi Gras. We are staying at a hotel near Central Station very close to their one and only LRV line. In fact our room is on the top (39th) floor from which I have an excellent view of the LRVs in action along Hay Street. The first photo shows an out bound LRV crossing George street, while the remaining 5 show a sequence of a single LRV about to arrive at Central Station, just leaving and making its way outbound on Hay street.

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Next three photos in this sequence. Pretty neat vantage point from our hotel balcony:-)

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And now a few from ground level at several locations along Hay street

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And a final pair of photos

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Great photos! I hope you are enjoying Sydney!
As mentioned, photos are of Sydney's only tram/light rail route. However there is another one under construction, due for opening in 2019 (I believe).
The route is from Circular Quay in the city, along George Street, past Central station then out to the southeastern suburbs.
Construction is currently underway & can been seen in a number of the photos.
George Street construction in photos 1 & 4. The new line will cross the current one at right angles. Whilst there is a link shown in the photos, the plan is to operate the two lines separately.

The current line ends in a (clockwise) loop at Central station - shown in photos 2 & 3. Construction for the new line can be seen in both these photos as well.

The new line will be at ground level, below & in front of the current line. the new line will run below the 3rd section of the tram in photo 2.
The new line will be operated by Alstom Citadis X05 trams/LRVs - 2 trams coupled - totally 67 metres. The first ones have arrived in Sydney & have recently started testing on a competed part of the line in the Eastern suburbs.
The current system uses CAF Urbos 3 vehicles.

Photo 2 also shows the suburban lines at Sydney's Central station - 4 through platforms/8 faces. Lines to the left head towards Sydney City & underground after about 500 metres. There is an additional underground platform (2 faces) below the road beyond the station at the top of the photo - look carefully & you will see a truck. This road will also host the new tram/LRV line - which turns right after passing under the railway viaduct.

Sydney Terminal on the right of photo 2, has 14 dead end platform faces, which host longer distance interurban & long distance services.

Finally, a new Metro is also being built - only pre-construction work is currently underway. The Central Metro station will be underground in the area between the Terminal building & the through suburban platforms. This demolition/construction is yet to commence, however I understand some of the terminal platforms will be taken out of use to allow this to occur.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/18 23:06 by Stephenloco.

Thanks so much for the additional detail. I had noticed the construction as we exited Central but I had no idea it was LRV related.

Something I eventually realized is that the LRVs I rode and photographed on my previous trip in 2012 have completely disappeared. Perhaps you would be willing to share the story of why those cars were replace with the CAF LRVs.

WP17

The trams you rode on in 2012, date from the opening of the Inner West Light Rail, in 1997, which at the time extended from Central to Wentworth Park. The line was a combination of street running in the city area, but mainly using the alignment of a closed section of the Sydney Goods Line.
The line was later extended to Lilyfield in 2000 (only a couple of kilometres). Originally there were 7 "Variotrams", a German design built by Adtranz in Melbourne.

It was later decided to extend the line to Dulwich Hill; an extra 5.6km, using more of the alignment of the then little used Sydney Goods line. This finally opened in 2014. Originally 6 extra trams were needed for this & the Urbos 3 from CAF were chosen. As these would not be in service in time for the opening of the extension, 4 used Urbos 2 trams were hired from Spain.

In the meantime, it was decided that a uniform modern fleet was needed, so an additional 6 Urbos 3 vehicles were ordered.

One of the original Variotrams was scrapped in late 2013 after derailment damage.

Once all the Urbos 3's had been put into service, the 4 Urbos 2's went back to Spain. The remaining 6 Variotrams were all withdrawn by late May 2015, each literally disappearing overnight - over a number of nights actually. They were loaded onto the back of a low loader truck in area shown in your photos 6 & 8 in the dead of night. They were "taken to Western Sydney for storage".

I've never actually heard what happened to them - whether they were quietly scrapped or sold or maybe they are still in storage somewhere.

The streets and the roofs of the buildings look so clean.
Picture #1 looks like a model railroad.
Great shots thanks for posting.
Frank30

Some late night testing going on now along the completed section along Alison Road,out towards,Randwick.The section down the Quay end of George st and along the quay is a mess.Seems it has been dug up for a couple of years now.
Regards,DK