L2/L3 CBD and Southeast Light Rail

The L2/L3 City & Southeast is a light rail line that links the Sydney CBD to Randwick and Kingsford in the eastern suburbs. It is also known as the CSELR (City and South East Light Rail).

The line runs from Circular Quay to Moore Park wherein it splits into two branches, with 4 stops towards Randwick and 5 towards Kingsford. In total, it has 12km of track and 19 stops. It is run by a fleet of 60 Alstom Citadis 305 Light Rail Vehicles (LRV).

The L2 line, from Circular Quay to Randwick, began operations on 14th December 2019. The L3 line to Juniors Kingsford opened on 3rd April 2020.

There was free travel on the first weekend of service (14th-15th December 2019).

Services
A fleet of 60 Alstom Citadis 305 LRVs, based at a stabling yard near Royal Randwick, run on the line. These trams operate in a 10-car formation, consisting of two 5-car sets semi-permanently coupled to each other. This is to increase onboard capacity, accommodating higher patronage for the route’s major destinations, such as the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Moore Park precinct, which includes Sydney Cricket Ground and the Entertainment Quarter. It is the only light rail line to use the Citadis fleet, as all other lines use Urbos 3 units.

Much like the Sydney Metro, the City and Southeast Line uses a “turn-up-and-go” format, with each branch running at a frequency of 9-12 minutes. Prior to the L3 opening, the gaps in service in the core section were filled by additional L2 services between Central and Circular Quay.

There are also ocasionally shuttle services which display as LX. These run various routes depending on requirements:


 * Central to Moore Park (during special events at Moore Park and at school times to serve Sydney Boys/Girls High Schools)
 * Circular Quay to Moore Park (to serve the temporary car park at Moore Park that was opened during COVID)
 * Central to Royal Randwick (during special events at the racecourse)

Bus Network
Significant bus changes were made in 2015 at the start of construction. This involved rerouting all buses away from George St, with most Inner West routes moved to Elizabeth/Castlereagh St. Termini were also changed for most routes. Several routes were joined together so that they no longer terminated in the City due to lack of parking space.

It was planned that another significant change would occur when the line opened to reduce the number of buses duplicating the light rail route. However, for various reasons, this did not occur. Draft changes were finally revealed in May 2021. After community consultation, the changes took effect on 5 December 2021. Some routes following the line were discontinued (e.g. 393), while others were diverted away from the line north of UNSW (e.g. 392). A small number of routes were left unchanged due to their popularity (e.g. 373, 396). All the peak hour express routes were also kept as the line does not have sufficient capacity during peak hour.

Route
From Circular Quay Station: After Moore Park, the route split into two branches. The Randwick branch runs via Alison Rd, Wansey Rd and High St. The Kingsford branch turns into Anzac Parade and continues down to Kingsford.
 * George St
 * Rawson Place
 * Eddy Avenue
 * Chalmers St
 * Devonshire St
 * Tunnel under Moore Park
 * Moore Park Busway

The state government is currently investigating an extension south from Kingsford to La Perouse, using the former tram median on Anzac Parade.

Track
The entire line is made up of standard (1435mm) gauge track embedded in concrete/ashphalt. Unlike the L1 line, the L2/3 is built to tramway standard and not railway standard.

The line is entirely double track. There are various terminating facilities on the line, as shown in the table above.

Power Supply
North of Town Hall, an Alstom proprietry system - APS (Alimentation Par le Sol, literally "feeding via the ground") is used to supply power to the trams. Power is supplied to the tram through a third rail in between the two running rails. To ensure public safety, the power rail can only be turned on by antennas underneath the tram. The tram then picks up this power using current collection shoes underneath the tram.

South of Town Hall, the traditional system of overhead wires and pantographs is used.

Signalling
There are two types of signals on the line. Both can detect the presence of trams through a transponder at the front of every tram. The first are block signals, which prevent two trams from colliding. The table below shows the different aspects they can display. The other type are traffic signals, which are used at intersections to prevent trams, cars and pedestrians from colliding, and are similar to traffic signals for cars. The table below shows the different aspects they can display. Note that traffic signals do not display a white T unless a tram is detected, even if the intersection is clear. This is why trams will sometimes slow down or stop on approach to intersections, and then speed up again.