Categories
Melbourne Photos

City fog, Monday

It was present over much of the metropolitan area, but here are some pictures of the fog around the city on Monday. William Street: Little William Street: Bourke Street: (Contrast this last one to a similar pic from autumn last year)

Categories
transport

Melbourne PT: an unofficial map of frequent (usable) services

You might recall I did a recent poll on three public transport questions. I posted about the first two here. The third was about frequent network maps. Here’s the thinking: Frequent public transport services are an order of magnitude more useful to people than infrequent ones. Nobody likes to live their life by a timetable,  ... [More]

Categories
News and events transport

Vale Paul Mees, 1961-2013. A great loss.

My time on the PTUA committee only overlapped with Paul’s by about a year or so. I was newsletter editor in his final year as President. But I remembered him from my days as an “ordinary” member in the 90s, and in my time as Prez and afterwards, I encountered him regularly around the traps.  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne Morons on the road

Motorists in pedestrian areas – is there something about No Entry they don’t understand?

Some of those of us who hang around the city are truly amazed at the number of motorists who ignore the “No Entry” and turn ban signs and drive along streets they’re not meant to. So it’s nice to know that — just occasionally — they do get pulled over by the police. Unfortunately others  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Down in the Metro station at midnight

For the first time in many years, I caught the last train home last night. So was it the dark, dingy, delayed and dangerous experience many assume it is? No. 12:06am — Waiting at Flinders Street Quite a few people were on the platform for the last train The train ride itself? Peacefully quiet. Along  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Incident at Glenhuntly

Yesterday morning. The thump at Glenhuntly made me look up. Further up the train carriage, passengers were milling around. One of them had taken a fall — tripped in the doorway, it appeared. It was an old man a senior gentleman. Others helped him up and into a seat. The train doors had shut and  ... [More]

Categories
music

Another old obscure music video clip: Jellyfish “New Mistake” (1993) – and a new one

An obscure music video from 1993, twenty years ago. I caught this video on Rage one night, and got into the band Jellyfish from there. I’m not even sure quite why I like it. The quirky music video (it was never clear enough on VHS, but it is here — all the band’s shots are  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago

Pics from June 2003

Continuing my series of posts of 10-year-old photos… The Railway Museum at North Williamstown is closed currently, due to safety issues. As a kid I’d visited many times, and I was able to take my kids there too. Selfie with the kids, from the top of Heavy Harry. Near the museum, parked in a siding  ... [More]

Categories
transport

One night, three trips, three problems: a #Myki triple-whammy

The other week I experienced a Myki triple-whammy. Three modes, three stuff-ups. Tram (one with all Metcard equipment removed) – at least one reader that was initially out of service… another was running, but was incredibly slow. Bus (ditto; no Metcard equipment on-board) – one reader near the back door not working or switched-off (display  ... [More]

Categories
Retrospectives

25 years on – school reunion

The weather on Friday night wasn’t favourable, but I think we all had a good time at the 25th school reunion in any case. Amusingly, it clashed with the year 9+10 social in the main building. When I first arrived (wearing a black suit) I was asked if I was with Security. It was a  ... [More]

Categories
Retrospectives

Before Facebook and Twitter, we did analogue social networking with paper and pen

Tonight I’m going to a school reunion. Almost unbelievably, it’s 25 years since year 12 in 1988. To mark this occasion I’ve dug out something even older than that. Once upon a time, before Facebook and Twitter, we couldn’t write on each others’ Walls or send a Tweet. On occasion in class, we’d pass a  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Is there enough promotion of the good stuff in PT?

I was pondering awareness of a couple of things, so decided to try a quick online survey. Over about 24 hours it got just over 100 responses… unfortunately unless I pay SurveyMonkey $19 per month, they’ll only tell me about the first 100. I think I’ll just go with those for now. (Some people didn’t  ... [More]