Frankston line: the big dig

So this is what it looks like when hundreds of millions of dollars worth of infrastructure gets built rapidly in your neighbourhood.

Here are some photos and video of the first week of major works on the Bentleigh/Mckinnon/Ormond level crossings.

(Click any photo to view it larger at Flickr — or click here to view the entire album of photos as a slideshow.)

The end result will be three stations below road level, but first all the dirt has to be dug out.

150 (double) dump trucks are doing an hourly circuit between the work sites and a quarry in Dingley, taking away the dirt. Here a queue of trucks on the north side of Ormond station.

The view on the south side of North Road, digging out the rail line between Ormond and Mckinnon.

Loading up trucks between Ormond and Mckinnon.

Some people want a crossing at Murray Road, midway between Ormond and Mckinnon. For now, there is one, for loading up more trucks. This is smack bang in the middle of a residential area. Accommodation has been offered to those most affected by the works.

Temporary traffic lights are up at the end of Murray Road, to stop traffic so trucks can turn onto Jasper Road. Gotta keep the trucks moving.

The hole in the ground formerly known as Mckinnon station, on the north side of the road.

No shortage of interest from the locals, and from what I hear, many visitors from elsewhere around Melbourne are coming to have a look.

Some shops have been affected so badly by the works that they’ve virtually given up.

The view from near Mckinnon, looking south down Nicholson Street towards Bentleigh.

Nicholson Street, parallel to the railway line, is currently One Way so trucks can enter from the north, be loaded up with dirt, then head south and then east down Centre Road. I wonder how the garbage is being collected? Wouldn’t the garbage trucks only have claws on the left hand side?

At Bentleigh station.

Part of the deck at Bentleigh station was built after the third track closed and the old station was demolished.

Traffic controllers stop westbound cars on Centre Road to allow the trucks (with their large turning circle) to turn out of Nicholson Street (north side) and Burgess Street (south side) to turn in and head towards the quarry.

The trucks come through every few minutes on the truck routes. Here a convoy comes through Bentleigh shopping centre, where parking “adjustments” (eg restrictions) have been in place for about a week, as have traffic light modifications to help keep the trucks moving.

Despite the noise and road closures, the workers are getting on well with the locals. This bloke was asking the lady about her garden.

Queuing dump trucks in Burgess Street, south of Bentleigh station. I think if I lived here, I’d have taken the accommodation offer.

Nice to see a Hitachi on the rails again. The view from Brewer Road, south of the three stations, looking north.

On Wednesday night there were plenty of onlookers at Bentleigh. Some parents bring their kids out for an evening walk in their pyjamas to have a look. Buses aren’t currently diverted, but some overnight road closures have occurred.

Looking south from Bentleigh towards Patterson.

Looking north from Bentleigh, as yet another truck passes by.

North side at Bentleigh, where the station will be.

The trucks are having a noise impact along the routes to Dingley:

We cannot sleep with the constant noise of trucks during the night. They need to stop these trucks during the night or reroute to alternate roads on every second night so that we can at least get a decent nights sleep occasionally. One day I was sitting at the East Boundary Rd. / South Rd corner traffic lights and counted 28 trucks going in all directions during a minute duration. It is unbearable! — K Hills

And inevitably, dirt and dust is getting everywhere. The project team has promised they’ll clean up the roads… I wonder if that extends to cleaning cars as well?

But the good news is that progress has been significant. If all goes to schedule, most of the digging should be finished early next week.

Hi @danielbowen in the last 3 days we've carted away about 185,000 tonnes – about the same as the whole volume we took away from Burke Rd

— Level Crossings (@levelcrossings) June 28, 2016

Finally, for all the construction geeks and their kids who love watching this stuff on Youtube, here’s 90 seconds of digging… view it full screen at Youtube to see it in all its glory.

See also:

• LXRA has some good timelapse videos on their Youtube channel.
• The official project information page has maps for the “Parking adjustments” and truck routes.