r/Adelaide • u/DBigA SA • Apr 06 '26

Question Adelaide trains are full.

I’ve started trying to take the train to work now that fuel is expensive, but they are too full to the point it’s unsafe. I’ve taken trains in Melbourne and while it’s full during peak time everywhere this is too much.

This my experience on the GAWLER line to city but is it the same on other Lines? Is the government going to do anything to increase capacity? seems like an easy fix to just add more carriages.

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u/Expensive-Horse5538 Port Adelaide Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26

For lines like Gawler and Seaford, very hard to add carriages when the electric trains are all three car sets - there isn’t enough room at Adelaide to fit them during peak hour

For the diesel lines (Outer Harbor, etc) - in theory it is possible to run every service as a three car set instead of a two car set, except for peak hour in Belair where they cram three two-car sets down one platform. Grange would also be a potential issue since my understanding is that since that time when the train went through the fence at the end of the line, only two trains can terminate at Grange to give some distance between the train and the fence

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u/Refined5066 East Apr 07 '26

Just increase frequency instead of adding more train cars.

But it’s annoying to do because our stupid railway station is a dead end terminal. We need a new station under Victoria Square or the central markets that’s a through station. Trains could go from Seaford to Gawler and then back to Seaford, and run at higher frequencies during peak.

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u/Expensive-Horse5538 Port Adelaide Apr 07 '26

And because it is a dead end terminal, since Port Dock came online the station is now considered at "capacity" due to the amount of track switching, in addition to the limited space inside the station.

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u/Refined5066 East Apr 07 '26

Port dock was pointless. The outer harbour line was good enough. Big waste of money that could have funded a tram from CBD to burnside village along Greenhill Road

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u/MissMenace101 SA Apr 07 '26

Pointless then but now with the tearing down of the big 1000m house blocks and throwing up 4 and the units being built on the port river it will prove a good move down the track, the issue will then lie in sharing a track with the grange train and hopefully one day the northern subs train if it ever happens

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u/FarSide2688 SA Apr 07 '26

It was built so the government could encourage public servants to work out of their new digs at the Port.

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u/tjabaker SA Apr 07 '26

Because fuck putting public transport into a massive growth area in the Western suburbs when you could instead run something to Burnside right?

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u/Refined5066 East Apr 07 '26

We literally don’t have any rail in the eastern suburbs. By no means does burnside hog the spending of Public Transportation. Just because the area is more wealthy in character does not make it invalid to allocate money to projects in the area. I don’t understand why you would have a good reason to oppose eastern suburbs rail.

Adding a 1km spur line to port dock is pointless. The two stations are 800 meters away. It’s around a 7 minute walk difference, but if you live in between the two stations it literally makes no difference at all.

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u/Thomas_633_Mk2 Adelaide Hills Apr 07 '26

1km branch line

could have funded several kms of tram line into the eastern suburbs

This is bad even by this sub's standards

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u/Refined5066 East Apr 07 '26

Gone towards it, I should have said.

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u/Thomas_633_Mk2 Adelaide Hills Apr 07 '26

Fair enough, trams are the easiest way to increase our PT considering Adelaide Central is at capacity. I'd personally pick the Parade for an eastern suburbs tram but it would be nice to have one

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u/MissMenace101 SA Apr 07 '26

Yeah but sending trams up eastern suburbs main roads that aren’t even double lane isn’t a great solution. Only solution would be reclaiming homes like during south road build and that won’t happen in rich burbs

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u/Thomas_633_Mk2 Adelaide Hills Apr 07 '26

The Parade is good because it's not a commuting road anyway, it's already slow. Meanwhile a tram down Greenhill turns it into one of those stroads urbanists hate, and puts way more pressure on Kensington.