All forms of transport, including gunzelly
The experiment continues. This time it’s turned out to be short posts, rather than a ream of news. Southland Station delayed Monday 2015-12-21 — Southland construction pushed back into 2016. Completion is now expected in early 2017. The Opposition said the construction should have been at the same time as the North/Mckinnon/Centre level crossing removals, ... [More]
Monday 2015-12-14 — Delays on numerous Metro lines (Frankston, Cranbourne, Pakenham, Craigieburn, Sunbury, Upfield, Werribee, Williamstown) following late-running weekend rail works. If you watch the Brit rail docos, this is the sort of thing they are constantly stressing about, so it’s unfortunate but perhaps not a surprise that it sometimes happens here. Monday 2015-12-14 — ... [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]
Consider this an experiment… a post each weekend summing up a few things from the week. Tuesday 2015-12-08 — Flagstaff station to open on weekends from January. The Victorian Government finally confirmed what we already knew. Not before time. Tuesday 2015-12-08 — Ventura Buses has its Christmas bus out and about again, and a competition ... [More]
One of the things they got right about Myki was designing it to be “open architecture”. This of course came at a cost compared with simply buying an off-the-shelf system, but it does mean that it’s modular — different bits can be improved and upgraded over time without replacing the whole system at enormous cost. ... [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]
I’ve written before in passing about the freight train from Hastings that heads up from Frankston at about 5pm each weekday, clogging up every crossing along the line, until the pinnacle: it crawls across Glen Huntly Road at about 5:45pm, right in the middle of rush hour. As you can see from this video (shot ... [More]
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]
It’s important to have a long-term plan. PTV has one for rail which is published here: PTV Network Development Plan – Metropolitan Rail — I’ve blogged about this plan when it was released. Upgrades such as the Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel and the new fleet of trains tie into this plan, and complement each other: ... [More]
A short trip coming up soon. Two nights away. Up on a Saturday at lunchtime, back on Monday evening. Options for getting to Melbourne airport and back, for the three of us: Train plus Skybus. About 70 minutes each way. Train fares each way $3.76 + 2 x $1.88. Skybus fares each way 3 x ... [More]
Here is about 70 people on a freeway. It was running at more-or-less full speed, though on the verge of getting congested. It was a Saturday, so vehicle occupancies were probably higher than average. And here’s about 70 people in a single train carriage. It wasn’t crowded, though certainly getting there. (The same number would ... [More]