Continuing my series of posts of ten year old photos… New Year’s Eve 2005/06 was the second year of all-night trains, and I sampled them for myself. Flinders Street station at about 1am was pretty busy. Still some crowds outside, very much a party atmosphere as I recall. The platforms and trains were pretty packed, ... [More]
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Some blog stats for 2015
Here are a few blog stats from 2015… Posts: 166 — more than I thought, but I suppose there’s been a post every few days. Comments: 1,692 Top ten commenters: Daniel 176 (seems I still like commenting on my own posts) Roger 132 TranzitJim 69 Llib 52 David Stosser 48 Andrew 47 enno 45 John ... [More]
It is a common scam for people to ring you up claiming to be from Microsoft or Telstra (or another major corporation that sounds plausible). They tell you your computer and/or internet connection has a problem, and it needs to be fixed or your internet connection will be cut off, or that something else bad ... [More]
From Friday (January 1st) it seems a bug got into the Siemens train automatic announcements, probably associated with the timetable changes which took effect on that date. Since then, the trains (unless the driver turns off all of the auto announcements) will remind you to “Mind the gap between the train and the platform” with ... [More]
Another from my series of ten year old photos. (Marcus Wong has joined in this game.) Alas, not so many interesting ones from me in December 2005. As noted in this post, on a single day, I received a truly dizzying amount of junk mail (plus two local newspapers). It was what finally prompted me ... [More]
Over the weekend Melbourne went through our biggest heatwave so far this summer, and the first real test of my external blinds, which were fitted to the house early this year. Looking at the two nearest weather stations to me, yesterday the temperature at Melbourne (Olympic Park) peaked at 40.7 at 4:27pm. At Moorabbin Airport ... [More]
I love a bit of local history, even if it’s fairly recent. For my fellow Bentleigh peeps — as part of the level crossing removal project, the old underpass into the station has been partially uncovered. It looks to have been a similar layout to Mckinnon: steps straight to the street, as well as a ... [More]
I’ve touched on this before, but I keep seeing comments about it, so I think it’s worthy of a blog post of its own. Some say that motorists are the primary beneficiaries of grade separation, and that they should be classed as road projects. Certainly motorists gain, but so do others. Here are seven benefits ... [More]
Each time I travel (which isn’t often enough), I note the things that are different, and the things we can learn from. From my most recent short trip to Sydney, here are some notes — not an exhaustive study, but just some observations. Central Station is a rabbit warren compared to Flinders Street Station, though ... [More]
Back in the day I watched the 1998 movie Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and liked it. Then I watched the 2001 TV spin-off Lock Stock which was okay I guess (it was notable for having Martin Freeman in a couple of episodes, in one of his early roles). But what really grabbed me ... [More]
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Transport podcasts
I’ve stopped listening to music while I run, and instead am listening to podcasts, particularly transport-related podcasts, ‘cos obviously that’s a particular interest. And I’m trying to only listen to them while I run, as an incentive to keep running. Here are some I’ve listened to recently: The Conversation: Politics Podcast Jamie Briggs on the ... [More]
Posted 27/11/2015. Back-dated. The third and final day of my obsessively-blogged short trip to Sydney, and it was destined to be pretty geeky. After breakfast and checking out, we caught a train to Penshurst (changing at Wolli Creek, which I assume is a pretty new interchange station), then a walk in the sun to The ... [More]