Inside Anzac and Parkville stations

If you’re on the trains regularly, you’d have seen there’s a lot more advertising for the Metro tunnel recently.

There are posters and banners on stations, and even ads on tram stops, with the messaging clearly emphasising which trains will use the tunnel and where the stations will be.

In summary: Once opened, the Sunbury line will be connected through to the Cranbourne/Pakenham line, via five new stations: Arden, Parkville, State Library, Town Hall, and Anzac.

The project is nearing completion, though there’s still a lot of testing to go before the line opens.

Previously I’d looked at Arden station in 2022 – at that time there was still a lot of construction going on, so it was station-shaped, but mostly just concrete.

Anzac and Parkville are now a lot closer to completion. Thanks to the Metro Tunnel project team, some of us from the PTUA Committee got to take a look last Friday.

Anzac Station

Anzac station is located on St Kilda Road, just south of the Shrine.

Why isn’t the name all capitalised? Possibly they’ve followed the DVA guidelines which suggest not to, except when referring to the actual Australia and New Zealand Army Corps specifically. Otherwise it’s Anzac.

At street level you can see the main entrances at the tram platform stop, as well as entrances on Albert Road to the south, and to the north closer to the Shrine:

The trams have been stopping at the platforms at Anzac station for a while now. Apparently the platforms are designed to cater for up to 4 (big) trams.

It’s unclear whether route 58 will return to its original route along Domain Road. If so, it would actually bypass Anzac station – though they have built platform stops a short walk away – currently used by bus route 605, but not trams. I suspect it’s better to keep tram 58 on its current route along Toorak Road. Opinion from the locals seems to be mixed.

What’s not public yet is the station itself. Behind the hoarding, there are steps and escalators and lifts down to the concourse level.

The concourse has a ticket office, fare gates, toilets, space for food and drink vending machines and a PSO pod.

Some space is allocated for information posters, though I wonder if longer term there’ll also be advertising.

There’s some nice artwork around the concourse level, and some subtle navigational features in the ceiling – red when going towards the exit, white when entering – also used at Parkville.

The concourse level is built so that there’s a handy non-paid area pedestrian route under St Kilda Road, from Albert Road to Domain Road. Handy.

Once through the fare gates, there’s again a mix of lifts, escalators and stairs down to the platforms.

Each of the five stations has two platforms, and they’ve been built 240 metres long to cater for potential future use of 10 car trains. Initially they’ll be served by the 7 car Evolution HCMT fleet, and the platform screen doors (PSDs) are designed to match these.

Screens above the doors, as well as lighting will make it obvious which PSDs are in use, so passengers don’t wait in the wrong place. There’ll also be coloured lights at the PSDs that flash when a train is approaching.

It looks to me like the trains will stop at the front of the platforms, rather than in the middle. (This is on my list of follow-up questions.)

UPDATE: Confirmed, trains will stop at the front of the platform.

Meanwhile, here’s a scoop: there will be rubbish bins on the platforms… just like every other station in Victoria except Southern Cross.

The answer to what everyone’s been wondering: Yes, there are bins in the new Metro Tunnel stations! 🚮♻️ #Melbourne #MetroTunnel #PublicTransport

— Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen.au) 2024-12-07T02:23:41.000Z

There’s some artwork on the platforms to be found, though overall it’s quite utilitarian. The ceilings in particular have a kind of industrial chic. I like it.

The wayfinding is already installed, and mostly it’s pretty clear – though it sounds like they’ve got opportunities to tweak it a bit, which is good. I’m not convinced that it’s 100% spot on just yet.

For instance, will an occasional visitor to the station know that the Shrine or the Myer Music Bowl are reached via the exit to the “Domain Parklands”? I’m not sure.

Of course there’s also the opportunity for temporary signage for special events, such as Anzac Day or the Grand Prix, but there’s any number of public events in that area that will attract occasional users, so they do need to get the regular signage right.

After looking through Anzac, we headed to Parkville. No trains were running, not even testing that day, but they provided a minibus. Which I guess means I’ve caught a rail replacement bus for the Metro tunnel, even before it’s opened!

Parkville Station

If Anzac Station is impressive, Parkville is even more so.

There’s a multitude of entrances, providing good access to both sides of Royal Parade and of Grattan Street, adjacent to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Peter Mac Cancer Centre, nearby tram and bus stops and the University of Melbourne.

The entrances have a mix of lifts and escalators, and all feed into the concourse, which is massive. It runs parallel to the 240 metre platforms below, and seems to be a similar length.

Concourse features are similar to Anzac – ticket machines and office, PSO pod, fare gates, toilets (including a Changing Places accessible toilet outside the paid area) and spots for food/drink vending machines.

It’s deeper underground than Anzac’s concourse, which is probably why they haven’t built stairs. Despite the depth, it has a lot of natural light coming into it. In this respect, both stations feel more open and airy than the City Loop stations.

There are lifts and escalators down to platform level, where similar to Anzac there is a pair of platforms with platform screen doors.

Back on the concourse level, they showed us the toilets (which have walls in very bright yellow) and the western end of the concourse with the exits to the hospitals and the tram stops, the latter with Tram Tracker displays.

(While the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter Mac cancer centre are adjacent to station exits, the Royal Children’s Hospital is roughly a 14 minute walk along Flemington Road, or two stops on the 58 or 59 tram.)

The concourse also has a Myki Quick Top-Up machine, and Myki vending machine already installed; the latter intriguingly already had a receipt in the receipt slot.

One other thing to note: unsurprisingly, despite it being hot outside that day, it was pretty cool in the stations, both on the concourses and on the platforms.

And if you’re wondering, yes the Green Button at Parkville was working:

Will the Metro Tunnel be a winner?

It’s great to see the project coming together, and while there’s still a lot of testing to go, it’s expected to open to the public during 2025.

I haven’t seen Town Hall and State Library stations and their interchanges yet, but Anzac and Parkville stations look good.

How does it compare to Sydney Metro? While the new CBD section of Sydney Metro added capacity by creating a completely new line from the north, Melbourne Metro is a tunnel that connects existing lines, and frees up City Loop capacity. The other work done recently, including new signalling and a new train fleet, is all designed to work with it.

So it should work well.

Sydney Metro has grabbed that city’s attention. People might have come for the spectacular spaces and art, but have returned because it’s a fast frequent well connected train line: running every 4-10 minutes at all times, with the older connecting Sydney Trains lines running at least every 15 minutes at all times. It’s enabled some trips that were difficult before by PT, and sped up others.

Since Sydney Metro Stage 2 opened through the CBD in August, trips on the Metro have jumped from about 90 thousand per weekday to about 200 thousand, while Sydney Trains patronage has remained at roughly 900 thousand per day, though the T1 line dropped by about 40 thousand per day. It’s probably too early to say, but the initial data suggests that the Metro has grown patronage.

Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel can do the same… the infrastructure (at least what I’ve seen) looks really good. Ideally there’d have been an interchange at South Yarra, and upgrades at Caulfield, but apart from that the design is good.

The train service, its frequency and the frequency of the connecting lines… we don’t know yet. If they get it right, our new rail tunnel will be a winner too.

Thanks to the Metro Tunnel project for the tour.