Prior to the 1990s, suburban trains had two staff members: a driver and a guard. The purpose of the driver is obvious. The guard… less so. The primary role of the guard was similar to those still used on trains in Brisbane and Sydney: verify the train was safe to depart, and in the case ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
If you improve a product, and want it to sell well, you need to make people aware of it. When they launched trains every 10 minutes between the City and Ringwood, Dandenong and Frankston last year on weekends, there was an initial bit of publicity via the media, but very little else. Metro did some ... [More]
Another Myki stuff-up has been found. Myki cards have a four year lifespan. With many cards bought in Geelong in late-2008 and early-2009 now expiring, a number of users are getting replacement cards. Some are going back to the original retail outlets, post offices in Geelong and Corio, and buying new cards (the cost of ... [More]
Happy Australia Day. While I cringe at the “bogan display” in the supermarket selling Australian flag caps, t-shirts, capes, stubby-holders and so on, I quite like the (in comparison understated) flags that have appeared on the trams during the week. My recollection growing up is of small flags in this position on the W-class trams, ... [More]
PTV yesterday released the results of the October 2012 train load surveys. These are primarily to measure how crowded trains are, against the 798 benchmark (which is not a capacity figure). Overall most lines are improving or about the same, the exception being the Dandenong and Werribee lines, both of which are becoming more crowded. ... [More]
In discussion the other week, the topic of what they should fix with Myki came up. You know, ignoring the imagined problems. But first I want to mention the known bugs… that is, leaving aside “by-design” flaws and issues such as bus/tram incorrect zone detection hopefully likely to be resolved by the end of Myki’s ... [More]
Categories
White tracks
Near Flinders Street Station, some tracks have been painted white. Looks odd, doesn’t it. Apparently it’s to reduce heat, and thus reduce the possibility of track buckling and other problems. Update: See this web page: Solacoat/Coolshield Reducing Temperature of Railway Tracks
Before you go looking for it, be sure to read the updates at the bottom. The gigantic transport mural was perhaps one of the best features of the old Spencer Street station. By Harold Freedman, it depicts the first century of Victoria’s transport — from 1835 to 1935. It was commissioned by the state government ... [More]
It’s not refundable, but you can now “return” unwanted Myki cards — apparently they’re donated to charity (though it’s not clear if this means the cards themselves, or the balance from them). I wonder how many get handed in? Of course, people who host visitors can always keep the cards to share/give to others. (Tipoff: ... [More]
Metro missed its performance target in December, issuing an intriguingly vague statement which initially did not mention the compensation payable nor link to the form required. It’s since been modified to include those. Generally speaking if you have a Pass of 28 days or longer, and travel on trains more than 10 times in that ... [More]
This is Footscray railway station’s William Cooper bridge, pictured just after it opened in 2010. It’s almost brand new. Preparatory work on replacing the old bridge had began in April 2009, with the first bridge spans put into place in around August 2009. It was opened in April 2010, at a cost of $15 million. ... [More]
As seen at google.co.uk on Wednesday. Very cool. (Large version found via the Going Underground blog) Note the subtle shading of fare zones, which reflects how they look on the official maps. It’s been claimed in the past that in Melbourne we couldn’t adopt an existing smartcard ticket system like Oyster because Melbourne had specific ... [More]
The Sydney Monorail will finish operation at the end of June. It’s been interesting to see speculation on whether it would be purchased and moved to another site, such as elsewhere in Sydney or interstate. What this speculation appears to have missed is the important fact that the hardware is not in good shape. Last ... [More]
Our state government in the past has cited New York City zero-tolerance policies introduced by Rudolph Giuliani as inspiration for measures like Protective Service Officers, which will eventually see two armed guards on every metropolitan railway station after 6pm: Mr Ryan said he was intent on establishing a Giuliani-style zero tolerance approach in Victoria, and ... [More]
I didn’t think I’d write two Myki blog posts in one day, but… Let me briefly go through the mistakes in this opinion article from The Age today then I’ll get to the real point of this post. ”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, goes the old adage. The claim in government circles is ... [More]
What if to get a Slurpie at 7-11, you first had to buy a voucher from a tram conductor? Some would argue the situation now, where no tickets can be bought on trams, and Myki cards have to be bought and pre-loaded (at 7-11 or elsewhere) is equally silly. In fact, if you look at ... [More]