My precious Senz umbrella is gone. Left on the train to Frankston on Friday night. We’d had a delicious dinner at Shakahari in Carlton. Good food and laughs galore, and caught a tram back to Flinders Street. The train had just gone — 20 minute wait, so we took a quick walk around Fed Square ... [More]
The July 27th public transport network changes are pretty big. Some of the information is a bit vague, so here are some points I’ve gleaned from looking around, as well as chatting to Transdev, who run a lot of the bus routes that are changing. V/Line The big thing in rail is V/Line trains from ... [More]
Another in my series of old photos from ten years ago… In 2004 the situation with crowded trains hadn’t really hit as a big political problem, which is why it took until 2006 for the government to decide not to scrap all the Hitachi trains after all, but expand the fleet. It was certainly occurring ... [More]
We went to OzComicCon for the first time on Sunday. Here are some photos. It was at the Exhibition Buildings, and pretty much filled the space, both upstairs and downstairs, plus a couple of big tents outside, one of which included the main stage. Parts of it got quite crowded, and it was kind of ... [More]
In the days before home video, we had to resort to other means to re-live movies and TV shows. Novelisations of productions were common. I knew people who had hundreds of Doctor Who novelisations — virtually every story had a book published. I had perhaps a dozen. Other books made it into publication — scripts, ... [More]
As I’ve written already, both the Metro Rail Tunnel and the Melbourne Rail Link provide similar benefits in terms of rail capacity in the central part of Melbourne’s rail network. In those terms, they are roughly equivalent. But MRL does have problems. For example, I think it connects the wrong lines. Connecting lines Both MRL ... [More]
It’s easy when looking at aerial pictures to see the vast amounts of land taken up by freeway interchanges. (Pic: Google Maps) What is sometimes forgotten is the impact at ground level from elevated roadways. Here are some snaps from around South Melbourne — which of course being inner-city, has some of the most valuable ... [More]
Some bits of transport news worth noting today: July: new services The Herald Sun has the scoop on public transport service upgrades from late-July: Work commute eased as new train, tram, bus services announced (a very narrowly focussed headline given the upgrades benefit a lot more than 9-5 workers). Details are still a little sketchy, ... [More]
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Waterproof jackets
My old Snowgum waterproof jacket, which I got about ten years ago, is finally wearing out — self-destructing from the inside, a little like the Snowgum stores themselves. It’s been so handy that I want something similar to replace it: reasonably lightweight (but not flimsy and featherweight) but waterproof (not just water-resistant), that can be ... [More]
Sometime one morning in 1983 (I think) I was walking through Elsternwick Park on my way to the bus stop to go to school (year 7), when I saw a hot air balloon at low altitude. On the basket appeared to be a Penrose triangle — the logo for Infinity Limited, the ABC’s science show ... [More]
This was posted on Facebook by a Melbourne train driver last week. It’s well worth a read. Given he says “please share this” (and other copies doing the rounds are screen dumps, making it difficult to read, especially for those with vision issues), I’m posting the text in full here: I try to keep my ... [More]
I was passed this infographic on public transport from some mob from Ireland called HoogleIt. They seem to be sending it around to various bloggers to get it posted around the place as a promotional tool. Fair enough. It has some interesting factoids on it. Anything about Melbourne in here? Indirectly. The photo illustrating “liveable ... [More]
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Automatic for the people
Those of you who read the blog regularly might know that it started in my university days in 1990, with a twice-weekly email called the “Toxic Custard Workshop Files“. You can still subscribe to it, via YahooGroups — it’s got about 650 members. I never quite imagined when I sent the first edition that it ... [More]
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Derek
I didn’t know him — I think I only met once, when we were kids — but know his brother and mother quite well. I was greatly saddened to hear that this week we lost my cousin to depression. RIP Derek, 1980-2014. Lifeline: 13 11 14. Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636.
I have an electric kettle. It’s pretty fast to boil water, but wow, does it burn up electricity. Here you can see our live electricity meter thingy on the fridge. On the left, a couple of lights are on, as well as the fridge and I think a computer was on as well. On the ... [More]
I was chatting on Friday to a colleague who has just bought a house with her husband. They ended up in an area they are familiar with and like, and as a bonus, she said, it’s in zone 1. I was the same when I bought my house back in 2005 — it wasn’t necessarily ... [More]