With all the excitement of the holiday in July, I never got around to posting my regular collection of ten year old photos, so here’s a bumper edition covering July and August 2014. (In fact there’s a couple from June as well that I missed last time.)
Here’s the Queens Bridge Street bus and tram stop outside the Casino, before they built the platforms.
These traffic lights for southbound traffic on Swanston Street at La Trobe Street always struck me as overly complicated. They still seem to be in place, so hopefully inattentive motorists can figure them out.
In July 2014, the State Election was fast approaching. Here’s Labor’s Nick Staikos and Jill Hennessy (then Shadow Transport Minister) at a forum in Bentleigh. I recall they asked if I wanted to speak and I bumbled through with a lame joke and some thoughts about the state of the PT network.
In this next photo from August, Jill Hennessy joined Greg Barber (Greens), Terry Mulder (Coalition) and Robert Doyle (Lord Mayor of Melbourne) at a Metropolitan Transport Forum public meeting to discuss transport issues. Once in government, Hennessy became Health Minister, with the transport portfolio going to Jacinta Allan.
The Coalition Napthine government was pushing hard on the East West Link, though they spent most of their effort pushing the first stage on the eastern side, which would not have included a river crossing.
At Sunshine, the Regional Rail Link (RRL) project was underway. It opened in mid-2015.
PTUA got a tour of the RRL project. Here’s Paul Westcott (PTUA Geelong Branch) looking very relaxed, with Tony Morton (PTUA President) and Corey Hannett (then RRL Authority head) at Wyndham Vale station.
…and here’s me, in a bad selfie on the tour.
An ad on a train… for Melbourne Airport parking.
A poster advising of Degrave (sic) Street subway opening times. The Metro Tunnel (scheduled to open 2025) will use the subway for the direct connection between Flinders Street Station and the new Town Hall station. Hopefully that means the subway will finally be open full time.
An article from MX about then Yarra Trams CEO Clement Michel getting into an altercation over music being played on a tram.
A reminder of the importance of an accessible tram network: a wheelchair user and a family with a double-pram on a C-class tram. Neither would be able to board the high floor trams… of which there are still many.
Flinders Street Station… in Lego! This was in the Myer toy department.
More ads on trains, this one for the Zone 1 and 2 fare cap that had been announced by the Coalition government, and immediately matched by Labor, locking it in for January 2015 no matter who won the election. It had some interesting effects on patronage.
…and this one, a little more speculative, promoting the Coalition’s version of the Airport rail link. Still waiting for that one.
An election flyer for the Coalition about Southland station, which had been promised by both sides during the 2010 election. It took until 2014 for funding to be provided, and the station eventually opened under Labor in 2017.
Another project planned by the Coalition was level crossing removals along the Dandenong line. This one showed a plan for Clayton, to put the rail line under the road.
Likewise they had similar plans for Carnegie. Clayton and Carnegie and seven other crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong all eventually got built as elevated rail.
Speaking of which, here’s the old Murrumbeena station, one evening in August 2014.
A poster advertising On The Spot Penalty Fares – despite the name, they were a version of a ticket fine where you paid immediately, but then waived all rights to appeal – which you may not have been aware of. This made them somewhat problematic. After a change in government they were removed from 2017.
Clearly some could see the irony of being able to pay a fine on-the-spot but not buy a ticket.
Classic PTV promotion: advertise the new stuff, not the big picture. This upgrade added frequent trains on weekdays interpeak. They were already running on weekends too – I’d suggest the message should have been about the overall service, to encourage more use every day.
Seen in MX (and I think deliberately posed this way by me): an ad for the ill-fated SuitJet premium bus service. Charging a $15 each way fare, they aimed to coax people away from crowded (but frequent) peak hour trains onto luxury coach which was spacious, but only ran once-per-day.
Finally: now gone but not forgotten, the Red Engine cafes once adorned almost every platform at Flinders Street station. Apart from platform 1, they’ve all been removed since, to make way for lifts to connect to the Degraves Street subway for the Metro Tunnel project.
PS. If you’re wondering about the mysterious thing I saw on eBay, I’ll post about that soon.
8 replies on “Old photos from July and August 2014”
That $75 fare evader fine (if you could pay on the spot) had to be one of the most socially inequitable ideas any government has ever introduced. If you can afford to pay the $75 fine you effectively got a huge discount. If you couldn’t afford to you had to pay the full rate. On top of that, I’m guessing a fair number that couldn’t afford the higher rate had extra penalty payments added on top of that, perpetuating a debt spiral.
Shameful.
Some real gems in that collection. Thanks Daniel.
The concept design for Koornang road elevation looks like a 2 year old drew it. It’s a worry if this is all the Transport dept could come up with.
I’m pleased you did post this selection. Some are very interesting.
The Latrobe Street traffic lights are clear to me and should be to anyone who knows they can’t drive straight ahead because there isn’t a road. But what is the single light that sits above the rest? Was or is it a right turn white light for trams? To get the green arrow for trams to turn right, drivers had to press a button on the traffic light post. I’ll find out about that.
I should remember Michel being punched but I don’t. Maybe I was overseas. Nor can I remember SuitJet.
I doubt in my lifetime I will see a train running to the airport. Now I am thinking not even in your lifetime. Given how slow it will be, I wonder if it is worth the cost.
They have ‘pay now’ fines still in Berlin. I know because I accidentally bought a children’s ticket two years ago got stung. No mercy shown in Germany, even for tourists, certainly an experience!
@ Andrew Cee:
https://imgur.com/a/ruAIdHH
it appears to be a white arrow, i presume to tell tram drivers that the points are set to turn right rather than go straight ahead.
My former workmate agrees with your point that the lights at Latrobe and Swanston Streets are confusing. He also agreed the top single light is a right turn white tram arrow light, activated by the push button at the stop.
Can’t wait for the Degraves subway to be open once again. I find it the fastest way to change platforms.
East-West link was super dodgy and none of the documents were in the proper document management system when I worked at a government planning department where they should have been!