Big Switch: the first week

Some observations from the first week of full Metro Tunnel operation.

First, let’s summarise the changes:

• Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham line trains moved out of the City Loop and instead now run through Melbourne CBD in the Metro Tunnel, via new stations at Town Hall (next to Flinders Street) and State Library (next to Melbourne Central)
• Frankston line moved from running direct to Flinders Street, to the City Loop, running anticlockwise
• Werribee line continues to run direct to Flinders Street, terminates there. (Later it will connect through to the Sandringham line)

So how did it go?

On Sunday morning the switch officially started when the first trains through the tunnel ran at about 7:30am, the first regular (non Night Network) services on Sunday morning.

For day one the line colours had been swapped over on screens, and some maps in trains were updated, though this might take a while to be completed.

As I explored, I spotted Metro and DPT senior management having a look around the city stations keeping an eye on things. They said it had run pretty smoothly with only minor problems but that the real challenge would be peak hour – on Monday but even more so on Tuesday given larger numbers of people commute to CBD workplace mid week.

Also saw some people from the Department of Transport and Planning keeping an eye on things.

I noticed a fault which at first looked like an issue with Platform Screen Doors but was actually was the PSDs detecting that an arriving train had a couple of faulty doors. Clever.

There were disruptions on Sunday night, with tunnel trains terminating at Hawksburn for a while.

On Monday the first peak hour test.

Some delays during morning peak at Arden station apparently due to platform screen door issues.

At least three cancellations on the Frankston line which affected people changing from the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines to City Loop at Caulfield/Malvern – which in the first few days has been a lot of people.

There did appear to be a number of passengers unaware of the changes or who did not understand where the Metro tunnel runs. Understandable – not everybody feels the need to closely watch these projects.

Some people seemed to think:

• it bypasses the CBD completely (is it possible that some people have conflated the Metro Tunnel with the Suburban Rail Loop?)
• it doesn’t stop anywhere near Flinders Street or Melbourne Central stations (the two CBD stops are underneath those stations)
• it’s best to change at Caulfield or Footscray rather than change in the City (sometimes not correct)

Tuesday. Oh dear. Several trespasser incidents didn’t faze them too much, but in the evening peak a train brought down power cables near Armadale. Two trains were stuck between stations with people having to wait hours to be evacuated.

The State Government announced they’d refund fares for those people… but only if they apply for it. Ridiculous. Get your data wrangling wizards to figure out who was likely to have been on the two trains, and credit the money back.

In any case, the tunnel was closed for the rest of the night, with passengers packing onto other lines.

On Wednesday morning, some hangovers from the night before – quitr a few cancellations due to “train sets are out of position”.

Wednesday evening saw a train fault cause issues, and fire brigade request at Town Hall in the evening.

The rest of the week, a smattering of delays from fire brigade requests, track and equipment faults, trespassers. (As I write this on Saturday, there’s a police request at West Footscray causing minor delays.)

So for a first week, quite a few issues, a mix of internal and external factors.

No wonder some mornings they had buses on standby at strategic locations.

Observations

A lot of new signage has been switched on, for instance in the Campbell arcade showing which station and platforms you should go to for which lines.

I assume the clock for Pakenham and Cranbourne is destined to be stuck showing this. The Flinders Street clocks used to be updated regularly to reflect line changes… but now we seem to be stuck with 1995 heritage.

On the screens inside the station the line is relegated to one corner of one screen. Sunbury line people might take a bit of time to get used to looking for Blue instead of Yellow.

The newly opened entrance to Town Hall station on Swanston Street was up and running but still partially boarded up so it’s not looking its best.

Peak hour at Town Hall is so busy that they’ve been switching all three escalators from the middle-north of the platform towards Collins Street to Up. (Lifts and other escalators were available for people heading down).

There’s extra zebra crossings at the Town Hall tram stop in Collins Street, and even crowd management in the morning peak. (I’m told it’s been extremely busy at times, though not in this pic.)

Speaking of crowds, as predicted, Caulfield station has become very congested at peak times with lots of people changing trains. (This is not helped by Google Maps recommending overly complex journeys when a change at one of the City stations is probably easier.)

Malvern too, to an extent, helping to share the load, but the inconsistency of peak Frankston expresses stopping here in AM but not in PM is not ideal. (That line probably needs a further boost to cope with the crowding. Obviously there’s a long list of lines needing various upgrades.)

This is good: on the tunnel platforms they’ve modified the screens at the non-operational doors (for future longer trains) to make it clearer you need to move up the platform.

People have noticed the long dwell times. I’m told they’ve been conservative in some cases, and it’s a difficult balancing act given the line shares with V/Line at both ends, but I hope this’ll be reviewed and revised once things settle down.

I am not totally convinced the naming and the signage for the lines and stations is as intuitive as possible. It’s probably adding to the confusion for passengers.

Telling them their train runs to a destination they’re unsure of, through the Metro Tunnel (for which they don’t know the route) and via Town Hall and State Library (which they’ve never been to) and not even mentioning City in there at all, isn’t as helpful as it could be.

A lot of the signage emphasises directions to a specific station, not to a specific line, which again, is confusing for people whose lines have moved to a new station.

And then there’s the whole debate about whether the new stations are really part of the old stations or not, and whether the lines need better names.

But I need to think about this a bit more. Something for a follow-up post.

Options for passengers

Passengers are starting to find their way around the reconfigured network. Plenty are grumpy about losing their One Seat Journey and having to change their usual commute. This does always happen to an extent when these types of changes come in, but hopefully people will get used to it in the coming weeks.

If this is you, do try the different options. Personally I always like to consider how to get to my destination, rather than my old station. I used to use Flagstaff to get to Bourke Street – when my trains stopped going there, I found walking from Flinders Street was almost as fast. Now they’ve switched back, I’m trying Flagstaff again, but also trying walking from Town Hall.

With various incidents, it’s been a somewhat rocky start to the new tunnel, but hopefully no more major issues in the near future.

Once peak hours settle down, the next big test will be events: the footy resumes next month, but there are also Ed Sheeran concerts at Marvel Stadium in late Feb.

I’ll be watching with interest.