Sydney

[bblun...@yahoo.com]

The L2/3 service is shut down between Town Hall and Circular Quay for a week or so. Main work seems to be replacing rails on the curve from George St to Alfred St. 

Also noted some road/footpaths works around Wynyard. 

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

[TP]

Replacing rail after five years? Couldn't possibly be the trams. 

Tony P

[Matthew Geier]

I also wonder why the Quay first?. Admittedly I don't get down that way much, but Central Chalmers Street is walking distance from my office and I often go out for some lunch time tram spotting. The curves both sides of Central Chalmers Street have in excess of 10mm worn off the gauge face.

I hope they also take the opportunity of the shutdown to replace a few dead APS 'power blocks'. This equipment is in chambers under the tracks and access is via heavy concrete lids next to the track. They can only be accessed with a complete closure of both rail and road to facilitate safe access for the techs.

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[TP]

I know this has been discussed here previously, but can someone please remind me how often rails on curves are replaced in Melbourne?

Tony P

[Mal Rowe]

On 19/11/2025 15:05, 'TP' via TramsDownUnder wrote:
> I know this has been discussed here previously, but can someone please
> remind me how often rails on curves are replaced in Melbourne?
>

The busiest section of track in Melbourne in Swanston St at the
University has both curves and points.

This section was relaid in Dec 2004 and again in Feb 2024 - so 19 years
for a heavily used section.

On less heavily used sections it could be between 35 and 60 years or more.

Curves where fixed bogie trams run wear more quickly.

Mal Rowe who watches civil engineering with interest

[Richard Youl]

No Gold Coast curves have been replaced since testing began in 2013, including one curve near minimum radius.

Poorly shaped wheel treads can chew into curves which was the case in Melbourne until wheel grinders were replaced with lathes some years ago. 

Richard

On 19 Nov 2025, at 2:05 pm, 'TP' via TramsDownUnder <tramsdo...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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[Mal Rowe]

On 19/11/2025 15:17, Mal Rowe wrote:
> Curves where fixed bogie trams run wear more quickly.
>

I should add that Swanston St carries all the D1 Combinos and some of
the D2s.

Attached pic shows the track (on the straight!) after 19 years of
Combino pounding.

[Mick Duncan]

Gday  Mal,All

Do they still reprofile the gauge face with weld and grind it to gauge?

Cheers,    Mick

[Mal Rowe]

On 19/11/2025 20:42, 'Mick Duncan' via TramsDownUnder wrote:
> Do they still reprofile the gauge face with weld and grind it to gauge?
>

I have not seen that happen.

What they have done is to cut out sections of rail around a broken rail
joint or badly worn and put in a section of rail as a temporary fix
until they replace the whole lot.

The attached pic shows a patch job in 2016.  The whole area was renewed
in 2023.

Mal Rowe - watching

[Hal Cain]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 8:42 PM 'Mick Duncan' via TramsDownUnder <tramsdo...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Gday  Mal,All

Do they still reprofile the gauge face with weld and grind it to gauge?

I don't think they do; I think the danger to workers of working on track in roads bearing traffic became too great.  Besides, arc welding on track required either a truck-mounted generator or a connection to a live overhead span wire, and that became impossible when polymer span cables began to be used; and it was incompatible with pantographs when they began to replace trolleypoles.  And maybe the craftsmen who could weld with the degree of skill to minimize grinding back were becoming rare; I noticed some instances where the weld metal later broke away from the rail surface.

Hal Cain, who watched many times when this welding and grinding was being done

Virus-free.www.avast.com

[Matthew Geier]

There are self-contained machines that can do this semi-automatically. I saw one being used in Milan about 15 years ago - they were adding metal to the worn gauge face of a terminal loop.

I don't think I've ever seen or heard of such a device again.

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[Mark Skinner]

There's a few images here.

https://pstroj.cz/vyrobky-a-sluzby/navarovani-a-brouseni/

Mark Skinner

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[Matthew Geier]

Stands to reason that a capable legacy system such as Prague has such welders in their maintenance arsenal.

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[Greg Sutherland]

The busiest/sharpest curved section on the NSW Tramways was the outward
track from Phillip Street, right into Hunter Street, left into Elizabeth
Street, in the CBD where the curves were extremely tight.  The tight
curves and heavy 24 hour/day operation required much greater regular 
rail replacement rather than the norm for the general system.

Is anyone able to find a record of the replacement schedule at this
location?.

NSW Tramways were well aware of this costly  situation and lobbied for
total reconfiguration of the road layout.

This was addressed with the Qantas building/Wentworth Hotel
redevelopment which  saw the roadway altered to a sweeping right hand
turn out of Phillip Street, followed by  a sweeping left hand turn into
Elizabeth Street passing what was then the NSW Police Headquarters.  The
road between the two curves was concurrently redeveloped as the high
rise Commonwealth Office Block.  This is still the current  roadway layout.

Unfortunately by the time this project was completed the last of
Australia's largest tramway system was being obliterated and tracks were
not provided in the roadway.  For this reason the tramway connection to
Circular Quay was cut back to Elizabeth/Hunter Streets which became the
final CBD terminus for Sydney's trams.

Greg

[Mark Skinner]

Hi,

Given that Pražská Strojírna sells special work to Melbourne,  I imagine that their sales staff have included welders etc in their offers to Melbourne,  and I'd bet that Melbourne staff are aware of it.

However,  they only do 20m per shift, and given that Melbourne could rip out and replace at that speed, it's likely that in Melbourne,  it would be a very niche usage.

Mark Skinner 

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[TP]

Here's that page in English, for those whose mastery of impenetrable Slavic languages is not in Mark's league!

https://pstroj.cz/products-and-services/rail-surfacing-and-grinding/?lang=en

The other major Czech manufacturer of track and special work, DT, has, apart from Melbourne, supplied a lot of complex track and special work for Gold Coast, Canberra and Sydney. The Sydney order was for 24 turnouts in 2013. Going by the date, I assume these were for the IWLR extension. Some could have been for CSELR, construction of which started in 2014, but that's only speculation on my part. For those with technical knowledge, the turnouts are listed as being rail profiles 60E1 (quantity 8), 60R2 (9) and UIC60 (7). Somebody with knowledge of rail profiles and the Sydney lines might be able to identify where these are.

 https://www.dtvs.cz/reference

Tony P

(who only speaks "supermarket and tramvaje Czech")

[TP]

I looked up those rail profiles and 60E1 is standard rail:

https://rails.arcelormittal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/content_uic60-60e1-profile.jpg

60R2 is grooved rail:

https://french.railwayfastenings.com/photo/railwayfastenings/editor/20150327111536_54385.jpg

and UIE60 is also standard rail:

https://www.kirail.com/data/attachment/image/20211207/20211207100104_65765.jpg

I'm not sure what the subtle differences are between the two types of standard rail, but it seems evident that the whole lot was for IWLR, both on and off-street sections.

Tony P

[Mick Duncan]

Gday  Mal,All

Thanks,a better job than the old weld and grind than in my days on the job

Cheers,    Mick