All forms of transport, including gunzelly
“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]
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]
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]
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]
The PTV Night Network (formerly known as Homesafe) kind of sort of started on New Years Eve, with trains, all trams and the new Night Buses running for the first time. For the rest of the weekend, trains, six tram routes and the Night Buses will run, meaning by the end of Sunday, many routes ... [More]
Chadstone Shopping Centre, perpetually in a battle to maintain its status as Australia’s biggest shopping mall, opened a new bus interchange in August. I finally got around to seeing it just before Christmas. My first impressions… The good: All the buses serving Chadstone go to one spot, which is far less dispersed than the old ... [More]
Given in the past it hasn’t eventuated, I was cynical about the predictions of long delays on the Westgate Bridge this week during roadworks. In 2013, closure of the Domain Tunnel didn’t result in gridlock. It seems drivers were adequately forewarned, and didn’t drive, or found alternative routes, and/or used PT instead. But this time, ... [More]