Trying my best to catch up on my ten year old photo posts… almost all of the photos from these two months are of the level crossing removals which were going full steam ahead in my neighbourhood in Bentleigh.
By July, they had dug out the trench for the new rail line under the roads, and were starting to fill it back in again. Daytime:
Night:
One night I got invited to see the works up close
This view from the Brewer Road bridge from early July shows just how much was going on. (Click to zoom in)
24/7 works resulted in some local businesses, especially food shops, running 24/7 too
In daytime the construction drew considerable numbers of onlookers
At Ormond, they were building the value capture deck, but until late July, nobody knew it was there or what it was.
Working on the signalling
The night before McKinnon station would reopen, they were still putting on finishing touches.
…and it opened on time
…and featured in a video published the same day by local MP Nick Staikos… if you look very carefully you might be able to spot yours truly in it.
Works at Ormond and Bentleigh (shown here) continued:
Not all local businesses were appreciative of the project.
Meanwhile, early works for the Caulfield to Dandenong level crossing removals were getting started.
The fencing along the line was a sign that things were about to change.
This photo from Carnegie shows the change to the overhead wiring, using structures that would fit underneath the soon-to-be-built skyrail.
Elsewhere, life went on. Here’s a view of Market Street, with a train, tram and bus all passing. The safety zone in the foreground has since been removed, along with another stop, but trams still suffer long delays between Flinders Street and Collins Street.
The Melbourne Bike Share scheme ran from 2010 to 2019, arguably killed by the Free Tram Zone. Here’s a helmet dispenser at Southern Cross Station… looking empty.
One reply on “Old photos from July and August 2016”
The delays to the north bound 58 tram is worse than the linked video shows. If it began at the Casino stop, it would show the tram often sitting through a set of red lights where the road turns left from the bridge towards William Street, move forward to the Flinders Street stop, arriving just as the lights there turn red. Then if there is a bus turning right, it will activate its turn arrow before the tram gets the green light. If there is a single car in front of the tram turning from Flinders Land into William Street, there isn’t an arrow to move traffic and the tram to turn, the tram often having to wait for the ‘T light’ after the facing traffic lights turn red. Even if the tram reaches the same lights without traffic in front, the ‘T light’ before the green phase rarely seems to work. It is an absolute disgrace and I think with decent tram priority, three or so minutes could be trimmed from less than a one kilometre of travel.