Sydney's abandoned rail tunnels

These forgotten tunnels and station platforms, built decades ago to accommodate for a much greater suburban network, never had an active train run through them. And never will.

John Bradfield, the man who designed the suburban network, the City Circle underground and the Harbour Bridge, wanted lines to Bondi, Randwick, Balmain and the Northern Beaches, among others. When the current City Circle and Central to North Sydney lines were being built in the 1920s, Bradfield added small sections of tunnel to allow for the these other lines, if they were ever built.

Two single line tunnels run from St James Station, each a kilometre long, lie beneath Hyde Park for the proposed Bondi and Randwick lines. North of St James, a tunnel was built for the Balmain line. It now sits under Macquarie Street and terminates under the Botanic Gardens.

The tunnels run into two centre platforms at St James, complete with tiles, now hidden from the public gaze.

Sydney Trains director of operations Tony Eid, took the 'Today' show on to Central's platforms 26 and 27, built at the same time as the Eastern Suburbs line, which opened in 1979. The platforms, just concrete shells, sit above the underground platforms 24 and 25 on the Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra lines.

Here is a little sneak peak, behind closed doors!

** Sourced: ABC Radio National, Australia For Everyone

- Tim

The Future of MAGLEV Trains Around the World

There are many proposals for high-speed trains around the world that would be most likely using MAGLEV technology. Some of the countries include the United Kingom, United States, Puerto Rico, Germany, Switzerland, China, India, Malaysia, Iran, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.

Earlier in this year in Australia, Peter Hendy, the Federal Member of parliament for Eden-Monaro proposed the idea for the Very Fast Train project. This project would make a train connection between Canberra and Sydney most likely using MAGLEV technology. Its aim is to connect Canberra and Sydney through a train trip that would take less than an hour.

Plans that sound more feasible is over 1,500 kms of train track between Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. The Federal Government of Australia has already committed $300 million for the plans. A study by AECOM in 2013 estimated this VFT project to cost around $114 billion and will be complete at around 2065.

The project is very important according to Hendy as he states:

 "Such a long term project will lead to development in our region that kills once-and-for-all Canberra's unhealthy dependency on the federal public service and concerns about being a "one company town"."

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/canberrasydney-very-fast-train-key-to-regional-development-20150306-131qjr.html

- Ryan

ISYS100 Trains!!!

Hello World!!!

For our ISYS100 Group Assignment Blog we have decided to make the blog topic about trains was decided by the group because we all use trains throughout our daily lives and we wanted to share our personal view on trains through a blog. Additionally, after discussion, everyone gave the impression of being eager to further their knowledge about trains in Sydney, Australia and worldwide. This doesn't exclusively cover trains themselves, but also the networks in which they operate and some of the customer ticketing systems used.