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I believe that the Sydney Metro track should be shown on the diagram in red as it was originally, rather than blue. This is because red is for heavy rail, which the metro demonstrably is—it runs on standard gauge track, with the mainline standard 1500 V DC overhead electrification, on line which was formerly used by Sydney Trains and required minimal conversion, and with peak/off-peak headways mostly comparable to the core parts of the Sydney Trains system. The only significant differences are that the Metro has a more modern signalling/control system and a marginally smaller loading gauge along part of the line. They are so similar that they even treated as the same mode within the Opal ticketing hierarchy, with tapping on or off at a Metro station considered no different to tapping on/off at a Trains station.
Meanwhile blue is for light rail, and so is therefore used in Sydney to represent the Sydney Light Rail system. This mode, consisting of the DHLR and the CSELR, is a very different beast to the Metro/Trains mode, operating amongst road traffic for large sections, and even sharing its alignment in sections, with buses on the CSELR branches, and with pedestrians along George Street. Its position within the Opal hierarchy is also completely different, with it sitting within a different fare band set at the same rate as the buses are.
So with Trains, Metro, and Light Rail and only two colours, it makes sense to group Metro with whichever one it is closest to. I think it is a fairly clear call to say that the Metro is significantly more similar to the Trains than to the Light Rail, and therefore it should be red. When the Metro begins to show up on the same diagrams as the Light Rail, as will soon happen with the City & Southwest Metro underway, it will make more sense for them to be differentiated than for the Trains to be. Tomiĉo (talk) 00:20, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to correct you, but Blue represents not only light rail transit, but rapid transit as well; Heavy rail refers to any type of heavy rail, excluding rapid transit, and it is irrelevant that the Sydney Metro Northwest is considered the same as the rest of the commuter rail system. As if you're still not convinced, here's the template that defines a railway line. VivaBlondie2000 (talk) 21:06, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No, rapid transit can be built to heavy rail standard – the Sydney Metro is an actual example of this (mainline gauge and overhead electrification). As the red/blue split is primarily a split between heavy and light rail, it therefore makes more sense for the Sydney Metro to be red. And that legend is a guideline which allows for local discretion to provide greater clarity in situation like this. As a result, please don't unilaterally alter that local precedent without first establishing a consensus. Tomiĉo (talk) 03:45, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Rapid transit isn't conventional heavy rail, and red and blue is used to distinguish conventional heavy rail with light rail and rapid transit. The latter, although similar to conventional heavy rail, is distinct from it, as no freight trains, commuter rail trains or inter-city trains share tracks with rapid transit, as it's designed solely for passenger use with high train frequency. If you're an Australian, then I understand that rapid transit is something new to you. I live in a city with a metro system consisting of seven lines, so I pretty much know what is rapid transit. VivaBlondie2000 (talk) 18:51, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but condescension doesn't win you an argument. Your point about rapid transit needing to be separate from intercity trains is incorrect, there are several examples around the world of rapid transit using the same track infrastructure as intercity rail services—this is because it is possible for a system to be both heavy rail and rapid transit. The East Rail line in Hong Kong is a good example of this—a 34 km double-tracked line which is shared by both Intercity Through Trains and MTR metro services, which operate natively on the heavy rail line. This is because the terms heavy rail and rapid transit are not mutually exclusive: heavy rail describes the track infrastructure, while rapid transit describes the servicing of the route. The two terms are describes separate concepts, which is an important distinction to make. Tomiĉo (talk) 07:30, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please, everyone, the Sydney metro should be shown in blue and only blue as it is a metro route. If you change it to red, I will change it back to blue because it needs to match the colour of the Sydney Metro City & Southwest, which is also currently set as blue. Thank you for your understanding.Edgar Searle (talk) 02:03, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
