I had been going to write a blog post asking people what this thing is, on Little Collins Street. If one looks closely, it has City of Melbourne markings. The City of Melbourne and the Herald Sun have highlighted it overnight: it’s an old entrance to the subway underneath Spencer Street, into the nearby station. ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
Excuse the wobbly phone footage, but I spotted this a few days ago and thought it was worth noting. (You’ll miss little by muting the sound.) This is the corner of Elizabeth Street and Little Collins Street in Central Melbourne, on the eastern side of the intersection. We are looking south along Elizabeth Street. Cars ... [More]
Liberal Caulfield MP David Southwick has a campaign running to get the Glen Huntly level crossing grade separated. I somewhat cringe at the “Blame Labor” rhetoric, but the rest of it I agree with completely. A 2014 report by VicRoads found the Glen Huntly Rd level crossing to be of the highest priority for removal ... [More]
There have been rumblings for a while that some of the level crossing removals might include elevated sections, but finally we have a concrete (pardon the pun) proposal to look at: the crossings along the Dandenong line, known internally as “CD9” or the “Caulfield To Dandenong Nine”. (Sounds like a music group.) It’s become more ... [More]
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How many tracks?
“Skyrail” blog coming in a day or two, but first another related issue to cover: How many tracks is best? Single track can work for very infrequent rail services, but in a suburban setting, with frequent services, causes problems. Witness the Altona Loop — the single track (with passing loops) severely limits the number of ... [More]
You’d always hope that governments aim to minimise spending waste, and part of that is forward planning, so for instance you don’t do upgrades to something that is about to be replaced. Our local station at Bentleigh has received numerous upgrades over the past year or two. Some are part of the $100 million Bayside ... [More]
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Value capture over rail lines
I’m still planning on a blog post about level crossing removals / elevated rail — after digesting all the information released today on the Dandenong line crossings. This is just a quickie to address a specific related topic: Value capture above railway lines, specifically when tracks are dropped below road level, the idea that you ... [More]
V/Line has been a real mess since January. On Thursday 14/1 it was announced a large number of V/Locity carriages were being pulled out of service due to an issue with wheels. The result was lots of cancelled or shorter trains, meaning delays and crowding, particularly in peak hour. Publicly at least, it’s still unclear ... [More]
You’ve probably heard all about this by now. From Facebook: Guys this is the true crime story of the decade: Yesterday a friend told me what might well be the best story I’ve ever heard. She had caught the train in from Frankston. And while she was waiting for the train to come, she noticed ... [More]
Covering the last few weeks, which started off pretty quiet, so let’s see how this goes as a monthly post. But I’ll post on V/Line issues and elevated rail separately. Night Network performance This seems to have been pretty good in the first few weeks. Overnight/early morning services on the 2nd and 3rd of January ... [More]
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Bustitution part 1: is it free, or not?
This week marks the first weekday shutdown of the Frankston line for level crossing removal works. It lasts until Sunday, but there will be a lot more later in the year. And obviously more on various lines as the many level crossing removals take place. Gradually it’ll affect most of Melbourne’s train lines, so I ... [More]
So, now we know which train is which… If you’re a regular on Melbourne’s trains, particularly in the southern and western lines, you’d have noticed the recent changes to seat layouts, but the process of reducing the number of seats on metropolitan trains actually started some time ago, during the huge patronage growth of last ... [More]