If you haven’t heard about Friday’s Australian Border Force debacle in Melbourne, here’s the background: Timeline: How Operation Fortitude unravelled It started with their Friday morning statement, which said, among other things: “ABF officers will be positioned at various locations around the CBD speaking with any individual we cross paths with.” The media dutifully reported ... [More]
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If you haven’t heard, the train and tram stoppages for Friday have been cancelled. Say you know which line you want, you’ve found the correct platform, but a train comes in with some obscure station on the destination sign — how do you know if you can catch it? You might have only a few ... [More]
Nothing makes public transport more usable than frequent services, where you don’t need a timetable, you just “turn up and go” — in transport planning circles this is actually known by the TUAG acronym. Regular readers might know: the Frankston and Dandenong lines now have TUAG trains every ten minutes every day for much of ... [More]
It’s the end of the phone call that I remember the most. Before she hung up, she said: “Drive safely”. I’m sure it was a standard line, but I’m equally sure she meant it. She was a nurse; the last thing she’d want having communicated the bad news would be the recipient having a crash ... [More]
I was looking on the State Library’s web site for material related to my local suburb, and found these old real estate ads. This one is from back when Bentleigh was called East Brighton. It’s dated 1885. It’s the area immediately to the east of the railway station, which opened in 1881, and was renamed ... [More]
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Spring is coming
Snapped near my house on Sunday afternoon.
Bernard Salt writing in The Australian today implies that Y2K was a hoax: Do you remember the Y2K bug, the computer programming flaw that threatened to reset the digital world to the year zero at the turn of the century? Hospital life support systems might stop. Planes might lose navigation. Everyoneâs bank accounts might reset ... [More]
Warning! No transport content! If you only want to see transport blog posts, you can use this URL, or sign up to the email alerts! My first recollection of the ABC Shop in Melbourne was a small space in their then Lonsdale Street radio HQ, which was where the County Court is now — on ... [More]
Another in my series of photos from ten years ago: July 2005. A snowman at Lake Mountain — in fact I blogged about this day trip at the time. Hmm, haven’t been to the snow in a few years now. Centre Place, Melbourne. I think I snapped this with an eye to a new banner ... [More]
Abbott and Hockey dislike the aesthetics of windfarms, describing them as “visually awful” and “making a lot of noise”. Funny, I think the same about motorways. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But motorways certainly have problems with noise, with pollution causing health problems, and with the space they take up ... [More]
I’m always interested to see portrayals of public transport in popular culture. I’ve been watching the Netflix series Sense8 — I’m a bit over halfway through it. (And I just realised the Wikipedia article includes spoilers, so watch your step if you’re planning to watch it). It’s pretty good — at least, I’m intrigued enough ... [More]
Outside Australia, numerous public transport smartcard systems have apps that let you instantly check the balance of a card using a phone that uses Near Field Communication (NFC). Most such phones are Android, but the Apple iPhone 6 and later also has it. Because the “master record” for this data is kept on the card ... [More]
I got my hot water heater replaced with a solar boosted unit 7 years ago when the old one died. The tank includes an overflow pipe, out of which small amounts of water sometimes drop. Because it’s only a small amount of water, I made no special arrangements for it. It drops straight onto part ... [More]
Public Transport Victoria (PTV) has some new board members from July 1st, announced by the minister last week, and among them is a new appointment to the role of Community Representative. What is the Community Representative’s role? Unfortunately the legislation is pretty vague about this, simply saying: the Minister must appoint a person who is ... [More]
Science fiction and fantasy conventions used to be a homespun affair, run by the local clubs, featuring broadcasts of rare episodes and out-takes (before it all got released on DVD) and fan films. If there were guest artists, often they would appear only if they happened to be in the country at the time, and ... [More]
I finally took a ride on the Regional Rail Link last night. In summary: Trains from the city to Geelong depart regularly, but from numerous platforms — when I was there in peak, it was 5A, then 7A, 15A, 1, 3A… and when I’d been there at lunchtime, 2B had also been in the mix. ... [More]