Canberra Light Rail (CMET)

I recently visited Canberra for a short holiday and covered the light rail operation across a few mornings.

In a nutshell, the Canberra Light Rail is run by CMET (Canberra Metro Operations) with a 12km corridor from Canberra CBD to Gungahlin.  The line has 14 stops and a fleet of 14 LRVs (trams).  All the LRVs are Spanish built CAF Urbos 3 Series models which are a 5 carriage design.  They have commenced a line extension (Stage 2A) towards Parliament House.  The current track is double track mainline with cross overs at both termini and near Sandford St station is the LRV maintenance centre with access from both directions.    

001 - Flemington Road / EPIC Stn.  NAIDOC Week.

 

003 - Flemington Road / Sandford St Stn.  Technology One

The line from Canberra to the Race Course/Exhibition Park is along the A23 (Federal Highway/Remembrance Driveway/Northbourne Ave) which basically has no parking and is pretty busy.  The line runs down the middle of the highway (North-South mostly) so traffic is a pain for photos plus there are a lot of trees and tall grass plantings that kill your shots.  Intersections and stations are probably the best bet if you want to shoot in this section.  Aligna St station has some opportunities from pedestrian crossings.

003 - Northbourne Ave / Alinga St Stn.  Technology One.

004 - Flemington Road / Federal Highway.  Village Building Co.

I spent most of my time on Flemington Road which is basically the section of line from EPIC/Race Course to Gungahlin, but I stayed between the Federal Highway and pretty much Sandford St station.  I parked the car at the EPIC park and ride and walked along Flemington St, shooting across the road (I generally like to shoot wide to get in the tram side adverts – I used a 70-200m lens all weekend).  There are a few shots right near EPIC where you can get Telstra Tower in the background.  I didn’t check out the Gungahlin end of the network. 

006 - Flemington Road / Sandford St Stn.  PAWS - Safety.  The other side has a Super Hero theme.

007 - Flemington Road / EPIC Stn.  ING

For the mornings (in winter) on Flemington Rd, the sun favours west bound (to Gungahlin) running which means that you can have poles to contend with in some locations as they are running on the furthest line.  Some spots on Flemington Rd have poles on the far side which is good and you can also shoot at intersections a bit more head on to avoid poles as well.  West of Sandford St is a decent hill which can be interesting for shots.    

 

009 - Flemington Road / EPIC Stn.  Uni Super.  This tram was rebranded from a smaller Asics advert overnight.

Peak running is Monday to Friday roughly between 7-9am, so trams are running in each direction every 5 minutes.  After 9am the trams run back from the CBD to the maintenance centre, so between 9-10am you still get a tram every 5 minutes between Alinga St and EPIC.  During the peak, 12 of the 14 trams are in operation, which means that if you wait for an hour, you should see all 12 trams on the network (or wait 30 minutes if you are near the network mid-point).

 

011 - Flemington Road / EPIC Stn.  MenuLog.

During my time, I noted the same 12 trams in service each day (both 002 and 005 where not in operation at all and appear to have been out for the past 6-7 days; possibly for battery installation or heavy maintenance).  

Interestingly, at least one tram was rebranded overnight, coming out on Tuesday fully blue for UniSuper, after having Asics adverts on Monday.  Most of the branding and advertising looks pretty good.  Some nice fully marked trams are getting around with only 012 still a cleanskin (at least on one side).    

012 - Flemington Road / Sandford St Stn.  CMET no adverts on this side.

014 - Flemington Road / EPIC stn.  Don't be bait - Safety.  The other side has Don't get cracked branding.

The safety messages on 006 and 014 are well done,  and they span the window line only and are different on both sides.  

These trams are very similar to the Sydney light rail (qty 16) and the Newcastle light rail (qty 6).  

Enjoy!