Melbourne’s most confusing train timetable

Interesting, can computers calculate the new timetables? As for East Richmond, what’s even the point of this station?

Confusion should be somewhat less, with information being provided. Namely, having passenger information displays at railway stations of which list every stop of which the train is going to use.

In some cases, knowing that about the next one or two trains after that, could also be handy to have and know about.

Having said that, do we really need to have that many stopping patterns through Camberwell?

We really do not need Belgrave/Lilydale trains stop at East Richmond, and I am all for them running express to Box Hill all day long, with Blackburn shorts being all day, every day too.

As for Dandenong corridor trains now stopping at Malvern, I fail to see how this is an improvement to services. Having Gippsland trains stop at Oakliegh for Chadestone, and Narre Warren for Fountain Gate, that would be a major step forward. But, Malvern?????

The part you left out, which makes it all less confusing, is that in these peak times all stations box hill inward are running 3 platforms – 1 stopping all stations, 1 the express variations, and 1 trains going against the peak. It’s usually a 5-15 minute wait between stopping all stations services, which is much more often than other lines, and is 5-10 minutes between different express services, which service the most popular stations

As Malvern is my local station I wholeheartedly welcome the extra options – though recognise probably a bit strange. Like you say Daniel, the Frankston express outbound PM does not stop at Malvern, that would make things incredibly convenient for me, but no reason for it to stop as its not a huge wait these days for a stopping all to Moorabbin (? I think)

I wish there were more up expresses through the underused middle suburbs at night, but that would require (shock horror) More Trains More Often™ instead of two trains per hour. If you see more than two people get on a Flinders Street train at either Laburnum, Mont Albert, Surrey Hills, Chatham, Canterbury, or East Camberwell after 10PM, buy a TattsLotto ticket. Most of the time the only signs of life between Box Hill and Camberwell are PSOs and pigeons. Auburn and Hawthorn are also 50/50, with the entire station either being completely devoid of passengers or two to five people at the most.

The one which takes the cake for the most confusing stopping pattern is the 8PM up express from Belgrave. It gets to Ringwood at 8:32, then runs express to Blackburn (the only up train which does this), Box Hill and Camberwell, then inexplicably stops all stations except East Richmond after that. Most up expresses are all stations to Box Hill, then express to Camberwell, Glenferrie (not always) and Richmond, with the odd train also stopping at Surrey Hills. Annoyingly, an up Lilydale stopper is timetabled at Ringwood just two minutes after the express, leaving no way to transfer between the stopper and the express, unless of course the express is late and/or both trains are sharing the island platform with the doors open (occasionally I’ve seen drivers changing between trains though). Miss both and there’s a 30 minute wait for the 9:04 as the up Lilydale is the last frequent train for the day. That particular up Lilydale also used to be a 3-carriage train until recently, as did several of the down Ringwood “filler” trains from the city. It took a decade for Metro to understand that trains should not be standing room only at Flinders Street and crush-loaded by Southern Cross at 10PM, never mind the City Loop stations and Richmond. Speaking of those Ringwood trains, if you need to go further east, you’ve got a 15 minute wait at the station for the next train from Flinders Street, as no shuttle is provided.

On the weekend and the umpteen public holidays Melbourne has, the stopping pattern is simple. All stations except East Richmond, meaning that it takes an hour to get to and from the city from what used to be called Zone 3. Night Network goes one step further and stops at East Richmond too, covering the service gap when the little A class trams on the 70 and 78 are in bed asleep.

They need to quadruplicate the line from Burnley to Blackburn or Ringwood, signalled with the fast tracks on the outside and the stopping tracks on the inside. This simplifies construction as there are no new platforms that need to be built (although Laburnum station would need to be reconfigured as a single island platform). All of the grade separations should have been designed with this in mind.

With four tracks we can easily operate a tiered service, with all stops trains to Blackburn and Ringwood, and expresses to Belgrave and Lilydale that only stop at Richmond, Camberwell, Box Hill and Blackburn. Alamein lines could operate as a shuttle outside the peak, and stop at all stations. This reduces the stopping patterns from 13 to 2 or 3, and these could be run with a clock face schedule at every 15 minutes, doubling in the peak.