Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the State Capital of Western Australia, the largest Australian State by area.
The city is serviced by an network of Suburban Trains and Buses that is administered by 'Transperth',
an agency of the Western Australian Government set up in the late 1980's to better co-ordinate public transport in
the Perth Metropolitan area. At the time it combined the bus services of the former Metropolitan (Perth) Passenger
Transport Trust, and the suburban rail services of Westrail (Western Australian Government Railways).
In 1993 suburban elecrification was launched, the electric multiple units built by Walkers of Maryborough, Qld -
the builders of the Brisbane EMU's. As a result they were based vaguely on these sucessful units, although the Perth
units consist of only 2 cars instead of 3 in Brisbane. The new Northern Suburbs railway to Joondalup also opened at
around this time, with virtually the entire length of the line being laid in the median strip of the Mitchell Freeway
with very attractive designed stations, it serves as a model for how new suburban rail lines should be constructed.
An extenstion to Currumbine has followed. The former fleet of DMU's were sold to the then New Zealand Railways
(Now privatised as TranzRail) in 1994 for use on the Auckland Suburban network. They are still in service in
Auckland at present.
Perth has not escaped the recent obsession with privatisation, with bus service privatisation taking place in the
late 1990's. However, it has been widely acknowledged that the implementation of privatisation in Perth has been
the best in Australia as services still operate under the Transperth label, and not that of the private operator (as has
happened in Melbourne, Vic), making it simpler for regular users and visitors alike to use transit and find information
on. The suburban (and country passenger eg Australind, Prospector) rail services are still government operated however,
and since the sale of the Westrail frieght business to Austraila Western Railroad, the passenger railway has reverted
to its previous title of Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR).
Enthusiasts should find the Perth network a pleasure to use with many interesting vehicles to travel on, and is a
refreshing change to some of the dreary & dirty east coast systems.
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