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Photos from ten years ago

Old photos from September 2012

Another in my series of photos from ten years earlier. Ventura’s Oakleigh depot full of buses, having a nice rest on a Sunday, despite heavy passenger demand and crowding. Since then, most buses running PTV routes have been put into PTV liveries. What happens when you run a red light but don’t make it across.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

PT to the Melbourne Show

The trains are great. Perhaps unsurprisingly the buses are meh. But it’s the trams that are a real disappointment.

Categories
transport

Myki, iPhone and payment cards

What’s going on with iPhone and Myki?

Categories
transport

Station shelter: mind the gaps

Am I miscounting? Is there really only one station with all-over platform shelter?

Categories
transport

Heading to Heathcote

We’ve got family in Heathcote, so I visit there a few times a year. The town is about 110 kilometres north of Melbourne and has a population of just under 3000. So what are the current and past public transport options in a town like this? Have you ever noticed how the main freeways out  ... [More]

Categories
transport

SRL: all or nothing?

Suburban Rail Loop was first announced by State Labor ahead of the 2018 election. They romped it in, and the conclusion was that the project had widespread support in the electorate. Despite the cost, it was genuinely seen as a big thinking, city-shaping project. Last week the Coalition announced they’d put the project on hold  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago

Old photos from August 2012

2022 State Election politics has just hotted up on the transport front, and I’ll try and do a blog post on that soon, but in the meantime, here’s another in my series of ten year old photos: this time, August 2012. Multilingual rhinos! The “Melbourne Visitor Shuttle” bus, eventually scrapped in 2017 – it could  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Train seat covers

The past week has been a blur and I haven’t had time to post here, so here’s a quick one: On Wednesday I was on ABC Radio Melbourne, talking about train seat covers. Why train seat covers? It was inspired by a Reddit post that noticed the Siemens train seats have lots of station names  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Were there more trains 100 years ago? (Part three)

I’m not sure why it’s taken so long to get back to this, but here’s the third post comparing old (1924 and 1974) vs current train timetables. Parts one and two covered the western and northwestern lines. Going clockwise the next lines are the red ones on the rail map: the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Glen Huntly tram derailment

The Glen Huntly level crossings are being grade separated, but the tram/train crossing looks like it’ll continue to cause problems until it’s gone next year. On Monday during evening peak, an outbound route 67 tram came off the rails at the crossing. This used to be my neighbourhood, and I don’t live far away, so  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Future of the FTZ

Instead of a long rambling blog post today, you can read this from me in The Age: One reason this is being raised now is that problems around slow Myki readers and card availability (and other issues) are likely to be resolved under the new Myki contract. On the point that the FTZ encourages driving:  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago

Old photos from July 2012

Another in my series of old photos from ten years ago. In July 2012 we were visiting my aunt in Perth – which was a lot of fun. Here’s that quintessential Perth railway view – a train heading down the freeway past the stopped traffic. (But remember, freeways are not a great spot for passenger  ... [More]