Old photos from July 2010

It’s the end of the month, so time for another in my long-running series of old photos from ten years ago.

The afternoon sun hits a Comeng train at the old Bentleigh station. This was about 8 months after Metro had taken over from Connex. Note the old colours on the train, with logos covered up by temporary stickers.

Andrew Lezala, then CEO of MTM (Metro Trains), addresses an audience of PTUA members. Like most guest speakers at PTUA member meetings, I recall he spoke quite candidly, and was very happy to take questions.

One thing that Metro was trying at the time was despatch paddles on the platforms of the busiest stations. As Marcus Wong notes from his equivalent post of photos from July 2010, these were gone by 2012.
Also note the people reading real books and newspapers while waiting for trains – a rarity nowadays.

A W-class tram on route 30 heads towards St Vincent’s Plaza (away from what had been renamed from Telstra Dome to Etihad Stadium a year earlier). W-class trams no longer run in regular service apart from on the City Circle. Route 30 has recently been phased out (perhaps permanently) in favour of Route 12 running along this section of La Trobe Street.

At the time, both Metcard and Myki readers were fitted inside buses and trams. In the W-class trams, this meant a curious mix of 1950s(ish), 1990s and 2000s technology.

Meanwhile, tacked onto the bottom of train timetable posters was this text about where you could (and couldn’t) use Myki during the rollout. They would become valid on trams and buses late in July 2010.

Southern Cross Station: new platforms 15 and 16 under construction as part of the Regional Rail Link project which would eventually open in 2015. Fortunately, provision for the extra platforms had been included in the design for the station a few years earlier, though platform 16 is outside the glass wall.

I don’t recall why I snapped this. Queen Victoria Market one cold winter’s day.

A crew from ABC Stateline get their photos taken outside Media House, then headquarters of The Age. I’m not sure what the occasion was.
Stateline was phased out less than a year later, in March 2011. Host Josephine Cafagna, in the photo, then became a media adviser for Premier Ted Baillieu.

Then state opposition transport spokesperson Terry Mulder at Parliament talking to media about problems with Myki.

After some major disruptions earlier that week, the State Government made public transport free on 30th July. I blogged about it here. (Me? I’d always prefer the emphasis was on fixing problems rather than providing free rides.)