To the surprise of many, the state government yesterday announced a major $2 billion upgrade of the Dandenong/Pakenham/Cranbourne lines — they’re saying it’ll be enough to boost capacity by about 30%. The government’s press release is here, or you can watch a video: What’s included? 25 new high-capacity “next-generation” trains. They’ve been talking about this ... [More]
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Your guide to meat
M+J were clearing out some old cook books, and found this gem. It’s not dated, but it does have a decimal price, so it must be post-February 1966. Perhaps not far after though, judging from the style. Much of it is in black and white, but here are a few choice colour pages… And one ... [More]
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Safety around trams
This short safety video was produced for the new “GoldLinq” light rail system on the Gold Coast, which opens this year… but the tips in it are just as relevant for Melbourne. Of course for our local ads, we’ve got skateboarding rhinos. PS. In light of two newspaper polls over the weekend (they’re like trams/buses, ... [More]
Hearing the news of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine has an added dimension for someone who grew up in East St Kilda. Lots of street names in the area come from the Crimean War — from the British forces, names of battles (which in turn are mostly named after locations), and even Florence Nightingale is ... [More]
OK, so you’ve seen a big problem, and since you carry a very capable camera in your phone everywhere you go, you’ve decided you want to get footage of it so the world can find out about it. Great! This really helps activists, and can get problems fixed. When you’re filming or snapping photos, here ... [More]
There seems to be a little confusion over the various names of the Metro rail tunnel — for instance the name Metro One pops up regularly, especially out of the City Of Melbourne. The confusion is not surprising, as the name and design of the tunnel has changed a bit over the years. Origins The ... [More]
From next Saturday, 1st of March, smoking will be banned from the entirety of all railway stations and tram platform stops. The new arrangements will extend the existing smoke-free zones, which currently only include covered areas of railway platforms and inside covered tram and bus shelters. âExtending smoke-free areas is good news for public transport ... [More]
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Names from the past
The neurosurgeon attacked at Footscray Hospital was Dr Michael Wong, aged 43. I went to school with a Michael Wong; presumably he’d be 43. Digging around, I haven’t found any other detail to confirm or deny it’s the same bloke (there are tons of Michael Wongs, even just in Melbourne, and my usual method of ... [More]
There’s been some speculation about who is running the SpringStSource Twitter account and web site. The web domain name is registered through WhoIsGuard, a Panama-based service specifically for hiding details of people who want to remain anonymous. It’s not hard to see whoever is behind it is well and truly on the side of the ... [More]
For this month, I don’t have very many great photos of interest, but here goes… We must have been on the way to Marita’s house in Footscray. This is the Footscray Road intersection with Citylink, back when there was a level crossing underneath the tollway, where slow freight trains used to run in and out ... [More]
The Public Transport Not Traffic campaign held their PT To Parliament event on Thursday morning. Locals were encouraged to invite their local MPs to catch public transport with them into Parliament House, and discuss PT issues with them along the way. My local MP, Elizabeth Miller, was sadly unavailable. So we invited ALP opposition candidate ... [More]
A while back I had a read through the PTV rail network plan looking to summarise their view on the rollout of high capacity (in-cab) signalling. Sorry this post has been so long in coming. This short (three minute) video explains it nicely, but one analogy is that the current system is like driving around ... [More]