New uniforms for most staff, and new automated announcements (“Welcome to Metro”) are the only noticeable changes so far. My train was on time, but others were cancelled according to the upgraded Metro web site. Channels 7, 9 and 10 were all down at Flinders St Station along with The Age Online to interview passengers, ... [More]
Connex took over running the Caulfield and Northern group lines on 18th April 2004, and to mark the occasion they put up a Welcome to Connex banner at Caulfield station. Evidently from day one, things didn’t go entirely to plan. Over the past five years they’ve seen the strain of record numbers of passenger trips, ... [More]
American Express have this advertising campaign going on. Every time I open a newspaper or pass an Amex billboard, I do a double-take. Perhaps this isn’t happening to people who are not called Daniel. Please note: This Daniel does not recommend or endorse American Express products. They’d have to pay me first.
Yesterday’s great website discovery: nearmap.com, which shows high resolution (and recent) satellite pictures of Melbourne and other places — a leapfrog over anything currently on Google Maps. And I discovered that Ormond station has its official three-letter code, OMD, written on the top of it. How odd; I wonder why? View it at nearmap.com Alas, ... [More]
I hate moving house. Glad it’s not me.
The Myki people finally posted some useful information on their web site, just days after the PTUA posted a Myki Q+A. They’ve also posted this gem on the Myki web site: Under Maps / Metro trains, it purports to be a “Metro train zones” map. What an utterly pointless creation. No reference point other than ... [More]
One of the things you really notice as a pedestrian in wet weather is low-hanging branches over the footpaths. I don’t know if the wet weather we’ve been having causes the trees and bushes to put on a growth spurt, or it’s just more noticeable because every time you brush against something lots of water ... [More]
See here’s the thing, Mr Facebook. Just because someone I know on your fine service has managed to resist the temptation to add 300 “friends” (most of whom in reality he barely knows) who can bombard him with requests to play Mafia Wars and Farmville and endless pointless quizzes, doesn’t mean you can rope me ... [More]
Marita’s gone off overseas with Justine to explore San Francisco and surrounds. Management of time is often an issue for me, and I in no way want to say that her presence is a cause of me not getting things done. But I thought that while she’s gone for three weeks, I might have some ... [More]
One of my credit cards expired at the end of last month. It happens to be the one I hang most of my automatic payments off. My ISPs (internet access and web) emailed me to ask for new details. So too did Citylink and the after-school care people, so I updated all of those. The ... [More]
JOHN Brumby has defended ticket changes to public transport that will see commuters paying more for late trains, trams and buses. — Herald Sun Let’s just be absolutely clear about this: IT DOES NOT APPLY TO TRAINS. It’s only an issue for trams and buses. Let’s say you have a ticket that runs out at ... [More]
Here’s what the new platform Passenger Information Display Screens (PIDS in transport lingo) at the inner-city stations look like: They show much the same information as the old screens, but now it’s widescreen, and clearer. (I haven’t checked to see if they still abbreviate Greensborough to “GREENSBORO” when it’s the destination.) If only I could ... [More]
Back when I worked at Hattams (mid 80s to early 90s), we stocked Levi’s jeans, primarily the 555 “red tabs”, but also the 517 “boot cut”. The numbers were Levi’s product codes. The first digit 5 signified they were for adult men’s — my recollection is that the “student” (kids/young men up to a size ... [More]
Yes actually, your bum does look big in that.
I didn’t spot this myself, but apparently Glen Eira is revising its bin charges: 120 litre bin charges are dropping from $138.40 to $120, and 240 litre bins are going up from $151.20 to $240. I switched to a small bin a couple of years ago when I realised my big bin rarely had more ... [More]
The good news is it appears they’ve sped up the response time on the Myki scanners. Looks to be about half-a-second, heaps better than the speed in Bendigo last month. If all the scans are that quick, it should allay fears of long delays due to scanning. (Though getting off trams will still be a ... [More]