I’ve been pretty busy and missed my usual posting of ten year old photos from January, so here’s two months in one hit.
January 2015, two months after Labor got into power pledging they would remove the level crossing at Bentleigh and rebuild the station – but the previous project to upgrade the crossing was still underway. Within 18 months it would all be ripped out, along with numerous other upgrades.
In a similar vein: upgrades to the bike lanes in William Street. At least these lasted a few years longer. This upgrade was completely rebuilt to provide tram platform stops and protected bike lanes – completed in February 2021.
This was probably the best calendar I ever owned: I’ve long been interested in typefaces, and this was gloriously geeky. It probably didn’t sell well – I’ve never seen another edition.
The Free Tram Zone was only a few weeks old, and already the crowding seemed worse.
The screens on the platform at Flinders Street station, before the advent of colour!
Me filming on a train, for this blog post highlighting poor track quality.
I went past my old school, Melbourne High. That shiny glass block built behind it really does spoil the view.
Speaking of school, for some reason I snapped a pic of booklet for the ill-fated Ultranet system. It was meant to be a statewide school education portal, though by 2015 it had already been scrapped. My recollection is a private service called Compass filled some/most of the void (at least at my kids’ school). No wonder government IT projects have a poor reputation.
This is a younger me (with full head of hair), taking my own photo to update my old blog banner.
This made me laugh: someone wasn’t inspired by this motivational poster and left it out on hard rubbish.
Wrestling with the (then newish, I think?) self-service checkout at a supermarket, back when they looked very Windows-like.
PTV put out some advertising encouraging use of public transport to local secondary schools. I think this might have been distributed with the local paper. These days I guess they’d have to do this type of promotion direct via schools, or online.
Remember when Siemens trains had virtually nowhere to hold onto? Thankfully a new layout was being introduced, which largely fixed this.
I’m not actually sure who took this photo, but it was for the PT To Parliament event – a number of PTUA and Public Transport Not Traffic (related campaign) people are in attendance (including myself), along with numerous Members of Parliament. Then Transport Minister now Premier Jacinta Allan is front row, third from left.
4 replies on “Old photos from Jan and Feb 2015”
The Abbotts bread was so expensive back then. I remember buying it only if was discounted.
The self checkout says No cash, with I guess the covered over word being ‘out’, but there is still a button to pay buy cash. Very confusing.
Ah yes, I remember that blog header.
I remember the hands on the roof. One of my tenants complained last week about the strap handles on D class trams sliding backwards and forwards. D class trams are really due for an upgrade…better aircon, external LED lighting, more readable destinations and better internal PIDs. The next stop request recorded red lights in the PIDs is barely visible now.
Pretty sure Ultranet ended up being the subject of an IBAC investigation, with some Dept of Ed officials having adverse findings.
Tim: You are right, some VERY adverse findings!
“A former deputy secretary of the Department of Education and Training, Darrell Fraser, was today convicted and sentenced at Melbourne’s County Court following an investigation by Victoria’s anti-corruption agency, IBAC.” (from IBAC media release 24 July 2020)
(for me at least) those old displays at Flinders St. were so much easier to read :-(