Te Papa

Hands up if you're excited about the opening of Our Place?? Good, I'll see
you there at dawn. I'll be the guy in the jeans and an ethnic t-shirt.
Meet you all on the Hataitai side of the Museum beach area.

Hei konei ra
Peter
--
Bigotry - something lots of people share.
All opinions are my own; they are not always those of my employers.
I think my e-mail address has a subtle error in it.

Hi Peter, it certainly seems if feeling has switched 180 degrees from
the original unfavourable opinions expressed a while ago.

I only hope that it lives up to expectations!

Cliff

Heaps excited about it - I'm planning for a massive day. I'm planning
to be there from 5.30 a.m. and at this stage look to be wearing my "Hard
Rock Berlin" t-shirt.

DPF

PS - Wellington really is lucky being the capital and getting such cool
things such as the National Museum.

So what was it like, everyone?

> things such as the National Museum...

... which was paid for by people who couldn't even find Wellington on a
map. <g>

Dave McL
Auckland New Zealand
As usual wishing he lived in Wellington

>
> PS - Wellington really is lucky being the capital and getting such cool

And hopefully an awesome sports stadium...

--
_____________________________________
Ausgezeichnet Publishers
DTP, Resumes, Page Layouts, Graphics Design

Are they going to scrap that and build a real one?

Cliff

Exactly - I'm all for a railyards stadium but 34,500 seats is not enough
when even Carisbrook is having over 40,000.

I mean if you're going to spend $120 million on a stadium, might as well
spend $140 million to get a decent one that can host a rughy world cup
semi-final.

DPF

Should be at Porirua anyway *big piss taking grin*

T

reply rabbot - xtra

-----

At the feast of ego, everyone leaves hungry.

ICQ 1378028

It looks like they might not be able to get the finance for the smaller
one if the law gets changed. Something to do with a proposed law change
over the tax status of council assets.

M.
--
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/4526

What I've wondered several times, is why a retractable roof is not part of
the plans. Such an option would solve much of the noise control problems
associated with concerts yet still allow open air games.
--
Dan Langille
DVL Software Limited - Wellington, New Zealand
to reply via email, note gov isn't part of the address.
http://www.dvl-software.com/RacingSystem.htm - for timekeeping solutions

>>Cliff Pratt wrote:
>>>

>>

Too right it damned well should

Ngauranga Gorge is hell at the moment, won't it be great going to a
test at the railyards?

Kerry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net
and he won't bother you for weeks.

ker...@ihug.co.nz
kerry....@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are they still arguing about where the stadium should go and if it
should be built??? I remember that discussion going on over three
years ago!!!!

Hopefully they'll make uptheir minds soon.....isn't NZ and Aussie
jointly hosting the next World Cup (after next years) in 2003.???

Karen

Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz> wrote in article
<34E537...@iprolink.co.nz>...

Kia ora Dave

It was totally awesome, and went on for hours and hours. The waka were a
little late -
pre-industrial technology unable to keep to timetable - but really
thrilling to see and hear. I decided not to hang round after 8.30 or to
queue but friends who did so said it surpassed fairs and parades and even
wine festivals(!) for entertainment value. I went back after dinner at
10.30 and spent an hour bopping with the crowd at the Main stage - New
Years eve without the drunks.

Inside?? Well, we went to a preview in early Dec before all the exhibits
were finished so feel like I can let the furore die down a little before
going back. But, we're lucky, lucky, lucky .....

Ks kite
Peter

Cliff

Not if you catch the train. <g>

It never ceases to amaze me how people commuting to the city moan about
the traffic congestion they are causing, when they drive past god knows
how many railway stations en route where they could catch a
congestion-free train.

Who wishes, every time he visits Wellington, that Auckland's transport
system was half as good as the capital's.

Is this a train that haunt got a chest infection or cold at the
moment? ?

Sorry I wouldn't normally point these typo type things out but this
one tickled me

But it's not a typo. A typo is a mis-hit key which causes a spelling
error. See the spolling error thread; that's a typo. I suspect your use
of the word "haunt" is a typo, as by the context it appears you meant to
write "hasn't".

But there is probably some other term for the kind of phrase which
tickled your imagination in this case.

<g>

> Kerry Thornbury wrote:

How many trains go to Miramar or the Hutt from the top of Ngauranga
Gorge?

However, I do agree with you with the moaning about the traffic
congestion, about 90% of the cars that go up and down Ngauranga Gorge
each and every working day to get to work have only ONE person in
them. Not only is it cheaper to car pool, it would ease the traffic
congestion quite a bit.

--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Gedye sonic-hedgehog(at)geocities(dot)com
Wellington, New Zealand sgedye(at)netlink(dot)co(dot)nz
http://www.netlink.co.nz/~sgedye/

The VGA Planets Common Player Utilities List can be found at
http://www.netlink.co.nz/~sgedye/vgap/
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Ha ha. As was obvious, I was referring to the majority of Wellingtonians
who commute to the central business district by car, not the small
number who work in Miramar or the small number who live at the top of the
Ngauranga Gorge and work in Lower Hutt.

People like car pooling even less than they like using public
transprt. More important is improving the public transport system to
make it fast, efficient, cheap and attractive. Many cities overseas have
achieved this. Here are my ideas for Wellington, based on best overseas
practice.

The Johnsonville rail line should be converted to light rail and
continued on-street through the CBD to Courtenay Place, then via
Kent/Cambridge terrace, the Basin Reserve, Wellington Hospital, Newtown
and Kilbirnie to the airport.

A second light rail line should be built via Willis Street, then via Aro
Street, a tunnel to the far side of Karori tunnel, thence to Karori via
Karori road.

The Paraparaumu and Upper Hutt rail lines should also be converted to
light rail, with the Hutt line being detoured on-street from Waterloo to
Lower Hutt CBD thence to the city via the Melling line.

Light rail vehicles are quite capable of operating on both heavy-rail
alignments, such as the Tranzrail lines through the Hutt Valley and
Paraparaumu, and on streets (see particularly Karlsruhe and Saarbrucken
in Germany, Machester in the UK or the Port Melbourne and St Kilda light
rail lines in Melbourne). Low-floor articulated light rail cars are much
faster and more flexible than Wellington's archaic multiple-units.

Stagecoach buses should be fitted with Vetag equipment to turn traffic
lights in their favour or keep lights green as they approach
intersections. Bus stops should be relocated on the far sides of
intersections to eliminate the problem of buses first having to stop at a
bus stop, then face further delays at the traffic lights immediately past
the stops. The present archaic trolleybus fleet should be replaced with a
fleet of world-standard low-floor trolleybuses to take advantage of the
existing overhead wire infrastructure and for the obvious passenger
appeal of modern trolleybuses.

Bus-only lanes should be established in Taranaki Street, Courtenay Place
and Kent and Cambridge Tce (shared in the latter with the light rail
tracks).

A single ticket available on all trains, buses and ferries (and the cable
car) operating in the greater Wellington area should be introduced to
make transfers between services simple and cheap. There should be
two-hour tickets, 24-hour tickets, weekly, monthly and yearly tickets,
all available for use on any public transport service regardless of
operator or mode. These multi-mode, time-based tickets would replace the
existing stage and distance based tickets. There is no problem in
allocating the correct revenue to the respective operators -- systems
allowing this operate all over the developed world, most closely to us in
Melbourne.

]
] It never ceases to amaze me how people commuting to the city moan about

Which would also be faster in many cases. The Underground is an
accepted fact of life in London.

---
Patrick Dunford, Christchurch, NZ
http://www.caverock.net.nz/~pdunford
To e-mail me, replace nospammers
with xtra in my e-mail address

> Cliff

Hmmm....that's all folks...didn't mean to reply to this..but since there
is no cancel button I guess I'll just babble on...babble babble babble
babble...babble...not to say that I babble ofcourse! ;-)

I hope they decide to build a really great stadium and go all the way
with it rather than try to save a few buck here and there...it would
really be great to have a large capacity stadium, perhaps 45,000...and
this should be quite adequate for a few decades with the increasing
population...and imaginging having concerts there rather than in the
stinking Events Centre....

What are you going on about..???

You better believe it!!! So they'd better make up their $%&^* minds
fast and build that stadium...otherwise Wgtn will miss out on the
RWC2003
--

>tricia wrote:

Oh god I knew that would come back to haunt me, taking the mickey out
of a journalist, don't you hate that

How come you know so much about wgtn when you're in Auckland New
Zealand? ;-) But yep..definitely needs to be another tunnel into
Karori...perhaps a tunnel even under the town belt for the South side of
Karori so you can go loopy loop into and out of Karori...

Ah, but I lived in Wellington for several years and visit every few
weeks. It is my favourite New Zealand city. I would move back tomorrow,
but my family refuses to follow. :-(

Indeed, every time I make the suggestion, my wife says "Goodbye." I
suspect she is trying to tell me something.

There is a law change, due to take effect on April 1, which will require
local body owned companies to pay company tax, the same as private
companies and SOEs.

>Ken Wright wrote:

Cretins

It's obvious which genes have been passed on!

Come back David all is forgiven, if they want Auckland, that's all
they deserve

Kerry
;-)

So you're not a JAFA then ;-) (Just Another "Something" Aucklander)

Hmm Jafa- auckland.. sounds like a comment on the skincolour of most
of south auckland if you ask me :-)

Indeed. And if our public transport system was as comprehensive as
the tube, I would gladly use it. Instead to get from my abode to
Gracefield, Lower Hutt I had a 20 min walk to the train station; A
trip to Wellington; Change trains; Trip to Woburn; 1/2 hour walk to
Gracefield. By car I can do it in 20 minutes, plus I could nip out to
the bank etc in my lunch break. But to salve my conscience I had a
Greenpeace bumper sticker ;->

The other term is Dorklander. I like that one.

Dave McL
Dorkland New Zealand

What, Orange?

That obviously flew over your head :-) I thought everyoen had heard
the joke about what do you call a maori/samoan/insert brownskined race
here in a red mini? a jaffa..

Female ones possibly. But a male in a red mini I would call a
transvestite, and you will find more of them in Vivian Street than in all
of South Auckland.

Sonic Hedgehog wrote:

> Dave McL wrote:

transport. More important is improving the public transport system to

The most serious drawbacks to the railway as public
transport in Wellington are:

1. It stops at Wellington Station. A dirty dingy barn of a
place located quite some distance from the majority of jobs.
One can catch a bus, but many commuters do not like modal
change, and use their cars instead.

2. Many of the suburban stations are dirty filthy
graffiti-covered hovels, with broken glass and empty
glue-bags as a carpet. Yum Yum.

3. Rail is relatively expensive for what you get.

4. Rail is slow for many of the outer suburbs. At peak hours
there are express (limited stop) trains which help, but
during the main part of the day the trains stop at every
dreary station.

5. Rail is not nice to take in the evening. Too many drunken
goons, not enough security, especially in the vicinity of
some of the suburban stations.

6. Rail simply does not serve all of the region anyway.

I disagree that the Johnsonville line should be converted to
light rail and runthrough to Newtown etc. Why the
Johnsonville line? That causes (or rather, solves) no real
problems of congestion. The main congestion comes from SH1
(Tawa and beyojnd) and SH 2 (Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt. This
nonsense about the J'ville line is the classic "fit a
solution to a non-existent problem". Also, what is meant by
"light rail", in terms of average operating speed and
passenger capacity? How does it compare with "conventional
rail"? I suspect that ppl get very confused about these
terms.

However, I agree that running a rail line further into the
city than the station would make some sense, but it does
seem that the Council stuffed that up by failing to direct
Lambton Harbour Management accordingly.

The trolleybuses should go to the tip. They are outmoded and
inflexible, and the modern diesels are quite acceptable.They
cost MORE than diesels to run when the costs of the
overheads are taken into account..

More and better suburban car parks, with some pedestrian
shelters, would be a help both for bus and rail passengers.

Tighter controls still are needed on all day parking in
Wellington.

I agree car pools are slack. Neighbours and ppl I don't like
blathering and burping in my car while I am thinking.......

My car is nice to drive. It has a nice stereo, a
multichannel radio, comfortable seats, decent self-control
heater and fan. And it is private. THAT is why I want
EVERYONE ELSE to go on plebian public transport.

IMHO you are confusing concept drawings designed to win support fo a
project with what is actually built. The original drawings for the
Lambton Harbour development may have shown a tram line but that is
akin to architect's drawings which show crowds of happy people
wandering among the trees and flowers that have been planted at the
base of a proposed 20 story building.

ISTR that when the Wellington urban motorway went through the Bolton
St Cemetary a cut and cover construction method was proposed to keep
supporters of the cemetary happy. After the cemetary had been nearly
destroyed all of a sudden the plaza became too expensive and was
replaced by a narrow pedestrian bridge.

Anyway, Lambton Harbour management *is* planning a tram line. One day
you may be able to travel from the cable car to the nearly empty
Stalinist shopping centre (-;

I walk past the *seaward* side of the events centre every day and am
appalled that that it is treated as the back of the building - there
are many rubbish tins and rubbish bags piled up. It has a back alley
feel to it.

Perhaps I should have called this thread Lambton Harbour Management
and stood back and watched <gn>

>~-~ The Slayer Of Kings ~-~ wrote:

Think car.. as in a morris mini :-) not a red vinyl skirt :-)

Not at all, I was just pulling your leg ;-)

That was an old one when I was at School.... and that was many years
ago.

The "JAFA", Just Another "something" Aucklander, I heard just the
other day at the drag races ;-)

> Sonic Hedgehog wrote:

> > Dave McL wrote:

Small number...... you should try getting of the motorway to go up
Ngauranga Gorge (going south, going north is nearly as bad) during peak
hour! I tried it once when I picked up my flatmate from work after he
wrote his car off.

But WCC wont do that, instead what they do is make it harder to drive
around town and charge heaps for car parks so people will use public
transport....

When I use to live in Island Bay and work in Miramar I use to cycle to
work as I could get there in less then 1/4 of the time then by bus...
we wont even go into the cost saving ;-)
By car it would have been slightly faster then cycle and still cheaper
then buses

Agreed with most of what you say, WCC has to make public transport
attractive by making it better and cheaper, NOT by making it harder to
drive a car in wgtn!

--

> Dave McL wrote:

> I disagree that the Johnsonville line should be converted to

J'Ville line should be pushed through both ways

Have you ever seen the London Underground?

Not just the Johnsonville line, but the other two as well. Johnsonville
would be the first to be converted as it is the shortest. It would ease
congestion because taking it through the city would encourage more people
to use it as it would take them closer to their destination than the
railway station.

A "light rail vehicle" is an articulated tramcar. One articulated tramcar
can carry 200 people or more (depending on the number of articulated
sections). "Light rail" is a railway system that uses these vehicles.
Their advantage is that they can run over conventional railway tracks, as
well as on streets. They are fast, quiet and efficient people-movers.

Which building is that? Do you mean te Papa? Now that IS Stalinist
architecture.

Sorry, both ways? You mean further *north*??

The NIMTL used to go via Johnsonville, up a wooden bridge and a
signficant incline. The Ngauranga tunnels weren't put through just
for fun: at the time was judged a better investment than the options,
like, all the NIMTL workdone *since* then :).

Travel the Johnsonville line sometime and notice the incline, the
narrow loading gauge, the sharp turns, and the old overbridges. Then
check out the elevation difference between the current NIMTL and SH1
on the flat stretch near the substation north of the second tunnel.
If memory serves (and its been a _long_ while) SH1 is downill from
J'ville at that point. (Hm, Takapu Rd is probably an easier comparison.)

As for underground, Wgtn doesnt have the population density of London,
not even in the CBD; and any route thourgh the CBD has to tunnel
through the reclaimed land. No, thankyou.

I have no idea what freight traffic is like in the Wellington yars
anymore. Do you really think TransRail would lie still for
partitioning the East Coast line, and cutting the NIMTL off at
Paraparaumu? Where would all that traffic at Te Rapa *go*?
Is *all* of it bound for East Coast ports these days?

Yeah, and their design tolerance is for collisions with other LRVs,
not with long container rakes.

Have traffic patterns really changed that much?

I havent watched NIMTL movements firsthand for yonks; but this sound
suspsiciously like an Aucklander being insufferably (and typically)
parochial about insignficant happenings south of the Bombay Hills.
Not something I'd have expected from Dave McL, on past form.

They could do the Upper Hutt line because there is not all that much
through freight traffic and it's double line all the way.

---
Patrick Dunford, Christchurch, NZ
http://www.caverock.net.nz/~pdunford/politics/
To e-mail me, replace nospammers
with xtra in my e-mail address

One could go over the top or at ground level

] | Someone wrote...

] |> J'Ville line should be pushed through both ways

] If memory serves (and its been a _long_ while) SH1 is downill from

It's all downhill from Raroa. That's 158 metres ASL, Takapu Road is
only 41 metres ASL.

The viaduct that used to be just north of Johnsonville crosses over
one of the tunnels, it was 52 metres high.

If you read the first post in the thread, you would see that I advocate
running light rail mixed with the freight trains. I referred to Karsruhe
in Germany as one example of where this is done successfully. It is no
different from running passenger trains mixed with freight.

Ah, I lived in Wellington and urban transport is one of my major
interests.

There's enough complaints from the council and the transport co that
trolley bus _wires_ are too much of an overhead - what happens when you
add _lines_ too?!
--
8 Bare Imagine the disincentive to software development if after
o-+-o Foot months of work another company could come along and copy
< > Guru your work and market it under its own name... without legal
restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not
afford to advance the state of the art" -- Bill Gates, 1983
(New York Times, 25 Sep 1983, p. F2)

No, he refers to the Queen's Wharf Retail Centre (note the reference
to the Events Centre next door which you deleted), described in the
paper at one stage as resembling a Soviet Ablution Block.

I would hardly call Te Papa a shopping centre.

There also used to be a branch line around the waterfront...

But the important thing about the Underground is the frequency of its
trains -- if you show up an an Undergrund station you can expect to be
on your way within a few minutes, without ever having to refer to a
timetable. That's what makes the Underground successful. Peak time
busses in Wellington typically go at 15 minute intervals, half hourly
during the day and hourly in the late evenings -- even in the rush hours,
the busses are only just convenient enough to be regarded as a
replacement for private cars -- any other time, to use them you have to
be a slave to their timetables.

I've sometimes wondered whether running smaller vehicles more often would
make public transport more acceptable.

--
Don Stokes, Networking Consultant http://www.daedalus.co.nz +64 25 739 724
Network Design, Cable Plans, LANs, WANs, Radio Networks, Internet Consulting

|> If you read the first post in the thread [snipped]

No, I didn't, it doesnt seem to be on my newserver. What kinds of
consists do they run in Karlsruhe, and on what scale? How much of the
trackage is shared? Does it include long stretches of main trunk
line, and an interchange between the LRT line and a major goods yard?

IIRC, the Wellington terminus approach and the interchange to the
freight yard is, historically, where most of the (few) collisions
involving Wellington suburban trains have taken place.

I don't think that is factually accurate. The two are _demonstrably_
different. Legal frameworks in various countries prohibit such
working. We can argue about the quantiative risks involved, but to
assert there's no difference flies in the face of the facts.
You might as well argue that level crossings with and without
barriers are ``no different''.

Which was snipped from the middle of a paragraph, deleting the
immediately-following line without marking it:

Dave, quoting out of context like that is generally regarded rather
poorly on Usenet. My apologies if that caused offense. But I was
saying, in general, that you _werent_ the stereotype in the text
you quote.

Me, too ;). But silly statements saying mixing LRT and freight
working is no different than mixed `heavy' rail is just that -- silly.

Yeah. I didn't want to bring that up; it raises even more what-ifs
about resurrecting a line along the waterfront. Which would also the
core of the CBD.

Exactly so. The key difference between a viable urban railway and a
non-viable one is frequency of service: viable systems run frequently
enough that you _dont need_ a timetable. You can just show up at the
station and wait. That's the level of convenience required to make
them a viable alternative to private motor transport. (Excluding
high-density cities in cultures where private motor vehicles are
unaffordable, that is). Below that level, people will take cars
rather than be slaves to the bus timetable.

In Pre-Stagecoach days, this was suggested _ad nauseam_ to the
managers of WCT. They couldnt focus beyond the need to supply more
space (not even bums on seats, just more space) in rush hour. That
despite the long nonpeak runs with lightly loaded bus hours. ``Oh well.''

Wage costs don't help here either. Sigh.

I didn't. But its architecture is most definitely Stalinist. It would not
look out of place in Pyongyang.

Karlsruhe had a standard though modern street-running tramway system. In
the past five years the lines have been extended over the DBB tracks to
surrounding towns. The system uses articulated low-floor trams similar to
the ones you will find in Baltimore if you have been there/ The Karlsruhe
LRVs are dual current so they can use the 25kvAC DBB overhead wires and
the 750vDC town wires. The trams run in mixed traffic with DBB passenger
and freight trains using the same signalling.

The Karlsruhe experience has been so successful it has become a talking
point of the rail transit world. Saarbrucken in Germany two months ago
opened the first line of a similar system, using street tracks in the
city centre and DBB and SCNZ (French) tracks to get the trams to
surrounding towns.

Nottingham in the UK now proposes a similar line, using street track in
the city centre and British Rail [or Railtrack, it would be now]
mainline.

The rail yards are largely becoming redundant, for a sports stadium. The
problem with those crashes (in 1979 and 1980) was signals failure.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to quote you out of context. Most people here get
angry when people don't snip posts. I snip everything I am not replying
to.

But it is not silly. It is becoming accepted modern practice, and is
actually proposed in Auckland in several schemes to mix light rail with
Tranzrail mainline trains.

Which was withdrawn as much as anything due to the pollution caused by
steam trains. They then electrified... (My understanding may be faulty on
this one).

Off on a tangent, if we can now build clean burning wood stoves, could not
the same techniques be used to build clean running steam trains?

--
Michael Newbery Technology Manager Saturn Communications
Tel:+64-4-915-5102 Mobile:021 642 957 Fax:+64-4-915-5100

Anyone know the exact sequence of harbour reclamation for the railway
station and yards, the electrification, and closing the old harbour
line? Did the waterfront line go due to pollution from steam or from
the rail expansion? It seems like forever since I saw the old
engineering plans from the 20s and 30s; are they still on display
anywhere in Wgtn?

ISTR a fuss in the mid-80s about digging up the very last tracks
around the harbour heading towards Aro: it was the final deathknell for
sending rail thourgh to Courtenay Place or the eastern suburbs.
(light rail from Johnsonville was on someone's agenda at the time.
Or am I confusing it with one of the the harbour spurs?

Uh, maybe, but compared to what? 1920s/1930s technology, or mid/late
50s steam technology? Steam engines are already fire-tube designs, I
dont see offhand how modern woodburning technology would help
there. And using exhaust steam to force a blast doesn't make slower
combustion attractive. Plus with steam, driver skill makes a *huge*
difference to fuel efficiency and ability to make up time (unlike
diessels).

I'd guess it should be much, much easier to get oil-fired steam to
boil cleanly. But other than tourist attractions, uh, why bother?
Chapelon's designs were extremely energy-efficient, but they weren't
successful against even 1950s technology electric locos.

It's dangerous to generalize, but one could make a case that the more
`efficient' steam locos became, the more maintenance (and more highly
skilled maintenance) they needed, the sooner they were withdrawn.

>No, I didn't, it doesnt seem to be on my newserver. What kinds of

It is my understanding that the light rail vehicles used in Karsruhe
on the DB lines are built to higher structural collision standards
than a conventional tram. They are designed for use on the main lines
unlike the rest of the cities tram fleet.

Alex...

--
Mike Butler Wellington NZ
Tip CD Lab/Terrier New Zealand Dog Agility on the Web
Ben BC X http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~mbutler/nala/

Don Stokes wrote in message <6cpap0$6g1$1...@wnnews1.netlink.net.nz>...

>timetable. That's what makes the Underground successful. Peak time

What gets me about the frequent buses is there may be 20 an hour but they
always come in groups of 5 at quarter hour intervals. Its very annoying as
the only buses I catch these days are on rainy days :-(
At least the trains depart (and generally arrive) and regular intervals.

---
Standard intelligence test install in header....

Huh? The Te Aro Branch opened in 1893, as a first stage for a passenger-
only line to Island Bay. It closed in 1917 due to competition from trams
and inconvenience to traffic.

(Reference: David Leitch & Brian Scott, _Exploring New Zealand's Ghost
Railways_)

The Karlsruhe system allows the trams (light rail) to run on heavy rail
lines but also on streets. The main problem (as someone has written) is the
crash situation. The use of ATP (automatic train protection) is the norm in
the heavy rail areas of these schemes.

Incidentally, I rode the Johnsonville line in November last year - A
delightful experience except for the schoolchildren climbing all over the
seats.

--
Tony Albert, Holebroc Doomsday Book 1086
Editor of Rail East

My understanding is that it was a nuisance due to traffic being stopped
by trains, and competition from the city tramways.

Personally, I can't see myself paying a fare to ride from Thorndon to
Te Aro; even if transport really is needed along that route, I can't see
how laying a railway is going to be a suitably efficient and flexible
way of doing it. The only way I can see it being made to work is to offer
service as part of the ticket price into town, and run it either to
co-incide with train arrivals and departures or often enough that it doesn't
matter. Even then, it would miss most of the city area.

Perhaps a bit more co-ordination between transport operators would help
here...

More recently peak frequencies have been on a 13,13,26 min cycle, but
still (I think) with four carriage units. This capacity would be very
hard to match with units of capacity only 200. Light rail vehicles
still need to cross each other and would be no faster, so capacity could
only be increased by increasing frequency, which would, I assert,
require duplication of the line if the service were to be at all
reliable. And duplication at finite cost would be impossible.

--
Greg Arnold
Statistics, Social Science Building
Institute of Information Science and Technology
Massey University
P B 11 222
Palmerston Nth
New Zealand

g.ar...@massey.ac.nz

Phone +64 6 350 4254
Fax +64 6 350 2261

Quite correct. In the '50s (AFAIK) high pressure steam was in vogue, being
more efficient. In the '60s these engines were converted back to low
pressure steam. Less efficient but much easier maintenance. Steam trains
still have quite attractive attributes, including easy, low-tech
maintenance and incredibly long useful life.

They are also dirty. I was just wondering if MAYBE the same techniques
that gave us clean burning wood stoves could be applied to fireboxes,
without spoiling the low-tech advantages. Even if they could, it might not
be worth the effort. Maybe a light-rail steam train :-) :-)

>Karen Hayward wrote
>>
>>Are they still arguing about where the stadium should go and if it
>>should be built??? I remember that discussion going on over three
>>years ago!!!!
>>
>They are building it in Thorndon. It's going to cost $120M
>(read at least $150M)
>
>Cliff

Where abouts in Thorndon??? I remember seeing plans for the proposed
site there, before I left, but I can't remember exactly where.

Karen

>Karen Hayward <king...@intercomm.com> wrote:
>
>> Hopefully they'll make uptheir minds soon.....isn't NZ and Aussie
>> jointly hosting the next World Cup (after next years) in 2003.???
>>
>> Karen
>
>You better believe it!!! So they'd better make up their $%&^* minds
>fast and build that stadium...otherwise Wgtn will miss out on the
>RWC2003
>--

Cool.....hopefully I'll be back in time!! :-)

Karen

Just off Aotea Quay, just north of the railway station. More or less
across the road from the entrance to the container terminal.
--
Dan Langille
DVL Software Limited - Wellington, New Zealand
to reply via email, note gov isn't part of the address.
http://www.dvl-software.com/RacingSystem.htm - for timekeeping solutions

David Farrar wrote:

> Cliff Pratt wrote:
> >
> > Ken Wright wrote
> > >
> > >And hopefully an awesome sports stadium...
> > >
> > Where? The only one *I've* heard of that little pocket
> > handkerchief one in Thorndon.
> >
> > Are they going to scrap that and build a real one?
> >

> Exactly - I'm all for a railyards stadium but 34,500 seats is not enough
> when even Carisbrook is having over 40,000.
> I mean if you're going to spend $120 million on a stadium, might as well
> spend $140 million to get a decent one that can host a rughy world cup
> semi-final.

If the government are going to spend 140 million of tax payers money on
anything, I would certainly hope that it wasn't just for sports.

--
_____________________________________
Andrew McClure <and...@amac.com.au>
Software Engineer - Wellington NZ
Phone +64 4 479 2002
Mobile +64 21 671 117
_____________________________________

> Ken Wright wrote:
>
> > How come you know so much about wgtn when you're in Auckland New
> > Zealand? ;-)
>
> Ah, but I lived in Wellington for several years and visit every few
> weeks. It is my favourite New Zealand city. I would move back tomorrow,
> but my family refuses to follow. :-(
>
> Indeed, every time I make the suggestion, my wife says "Goodbye." I
> suspect she is trying to tell me something.

heh...I can think of other NZ cities that are better than Wgtn.. Nelson
would have to be the best city... But you're right... Wgtn is great!
;-)

I trust that the government are not going to spend one cent of taxpayers'
money (ie, mine) on the railyards sports stadium. Have I missed seeing
something here? I had the impression the Wellington City Council was
behind this project.

The $320m I spent on Te Papa is enough, thanks.

> The $320m I spent on Te Papa is enough, thanks.

You spent? I thought I spent it. I want a refund!

We should put in a joint tax return. That should throw the IRD into
chaos!

>Dan Langille wrote:

You'll both end up in the slammer for overstating your expenses by $3
million ... unless you can afford Mercury's law firm :-)

--
Brian Harmer
"Our luck is even better than I expected Don Quixote exclaimed ... I'm going to attack those mighty giants and slay them in their tracks" - Cervantes
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~bharmer/

An interesting point. My first experience of the LU was on a Sunday,
when not only did we have to wait 15-20 minutes for a train, there
were alternative destinations as well.

Having (at the time) travelled on the Tokyo subways and at Moscow and
(then) Leningrad, this came as a shock.

However, in later visits as a businessman, I found the (weekday)
service levels on the LU to be excellent, although spending twenty
minutes on more with your nose stuck in someone's armpit less than
salubrious :-)

Cheers...JD
==========================================================
John Dennis jde...@acslink.net.au
Melbourne den...@cai.com
Australia http://www.acslink.net.au/~jdennis
Dutton Bay Tramway pages updated 1 January
DBT URL: http://www.acslink.net.au/~jdennis/dbt.html

Perhaps the fact that ``modern heavy machinery'' is almost by
definition diesel rather than steam has somethig to do with that?

If the diesel mechanic can handle rebuilding a diesel prime mover for
which they dont have a shop manual, they have a good chance of
handling a steam loco's cylinders and valves. The rest of the steam
loco can be handled by a welder or boilermaker; some of it is close to
blacksmith level.

One of the major reasons diesel displaced steam so fast was that steam
requires more frequent and heavier mainenance than diesels. Michael
is correct: steam maintenance *was*, on the whole, lower-tech than
diesel maintenance. There was just a lot more of it, which more than
made up for the cost difference. (Except in places like India and China.)

That's why the higher-maintenance steam techology like high-pressure
boilers, compounding, and poppet valves tended, on the whole, to get
withdrawn before more robust systems with lower power-to-weight ratios
and lower maintenance costs.

|> It just depends on
|> what you're used to.

Yes. So how come you miss the point that dropping a *modern*
diesel-electric loco in at a typical `modern heavy machinery
mechanic', the mechanic would be totally at a loss to handle an
electrical system using synthesized solid-state three-phase?

It's kind of in Thorndon. It's near the railway yards, right next to
the earthquake fault line (if not on it).

Samuel

--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Samuel Ng
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
Email: Samu...@vuw.ac.nz
URL: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~samuel/
Phone: +64-4-495-5233 x8193
Fax: +64-4-496-5446
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

<snip>

mechanic would find the diesel the easiest to handle. I t just depends on

Barry Campbell

It would have to be a fairly "basic" steam loco for that to be true.
A most steam locomotive designs from the 20/30s (let alone post WWII)
or so onwards require a somewhat more sophisticated engineering
capacity to maintain.

Presumably it would be handled in the same way most repairs of
electronic sub-systems are handled on almost all modern traction
systems, replace the faulty module with a "known good " spare.

Cheers,

Bill

Bill Bolton
Sydney, Australia

After running close to the base of the hill along Tinakori Rd, it
takes a bit of a bend out into the harbour. Passes under the NE
corner of the NZ Couriers building, past one of the cement tanks,
and under the ferry terminal.

>All that flat land is reclaimed, and in a good shake would turn to liquid, as
>it did at Edgecumbe.

Little or no liquifiable material in that area, apparently, even
though it's a reclamation.

>Unless a building is right across a faultline, being very close or just quite
>close is not much of an issue, the whole area shakes about equally.

There's a strong dependence on the substrate, unconsolidated
alluvium (or reclaimed land as you say above, if the material used
was fine-grained and uncompacted) shaking much more than bedrock.

Geoff