Spotted the Chrysler PT Cruiser Police Car in Collins Street yesterday. Some kind of initiative to help the police reach out to youth. Despite my joking on seeing it (“That’ll get the glue-sniffers and vandals’ attention! Hey kids! Stop spraypainting and check out our cool car!”) hopefully it does have a positive effect. It is ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
The marks on the road were a rather obvious reminder of last night’s apparently spectacular tram mishap outside Glenhuntly Station. Two scores in the road, about ooh 4 foot 8 and a half inches apart, veering away from the tracks at the catch points, across most of the railway crossing, then back onto the tracks. ... [More]
Ten points to the train driver the other night who announced something along the lines of: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Tonight we’ll be remembering the Thunderbirds. Shortly we’ll be touching down at the planet South Yarra, where voyagers for Sandringham galaxy can change. Then we’ll be travelling at warp speed, express to Caulfield, before ... [More]
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Here is my station
On this day 150 years ago, at 12:20pm, Australia’s first train service departed Flinders Street Station bound for Port Melbourne. With that in mind, here is my local railway station. This picture was taken on Friday morning. I actually use various stations around here depending on precisely where I’m going that day, but this is ... [More]
Dear PHL970, You know where you exit off the Westgate Freeway, onto Kingsway? Well you know how there are three lanes turning into Kingsway? You know how there are solid lines there leading from the freeway exit, around the corner into Kingsway? Well the general idea is that you follow the lines. So if you’re ... [More]
I’m not much of a gunzel really. The world of gunzelism is something that can range from mild interest in things railed through to knowing everything but everything there is to know about every tramway and rail carriage and engine ever in service (and quite a few that never were). In conversation some months ago, ... [More]
It’s breakfast time for the birds on platform 3.
Turned on my phone at 7am. Beep beep, beep beep. 9:01 train cancelled. Connex apologises for any inconvenience. (Is it really a sincere apology if it was typed by a programmer into the automated alerts system, and it’s just the computer repeating it ad nauseum ever after?) So it was no surprise when I got ... [More]
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The terrorists who weren’t
More teenage funsters on the train this morning. What is this, the school holidays? They got into the rear cab of the train, and apparently found the button to work the microphone, if nothing else. A very half-hearted attempt to do the impersonate-the-terrorists bit. Too much swearing to be plausible. Rather than “You f—ing motherf—ers, ... [More]
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Flinders Street skylarking
In the train at Flinders Street platform 6 on Tuesday afternoon. Two teenage boys are skylarking. “I got stuck on a train once”, says one as they joke, walking through the carriage. The other sits down. They are headed elsewhere, but the train is going nowhere for now. The first stands outside, pushes the door ... [More]
SMS used to be exciting. It could be a greeting from my jetsetting sister, anywhere in the world… or my mate the tour guide, also in exotic places. It’s lost its mystique. Particularly on weekdays, it’s no fun anymore. Here’s why. I know it’s optional, in these dark days certainly useful, and it’s all part ... [More]
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Transport karma
Guess who left the car window ajar overnight? Yup. Fortunately it didn’t rain much this morning. On the bright side, I managed to do a bit of time-travelling on the way home today. Something like this: 16:50. Get to Flinders Street, just miss 16:49 Mordialloc train leaving. 16:52. Deftly leap aboard an Alamein train direct ... [More]