Things have been busy, so I’m a bit behind on blogging things. A few things in brief, then the big news. Wednesday night delays Last night saw major delays affecting the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines between about 4pm and 5:30pm, impacting peak hour. This was due to a track fault at Flinders Street, and it ... [More]
The new Clayton station opened this morning, and I went down to take a look. The design is very similar to Noble Park, which opened in February. A ramp just west of the station (and Clayton Road) brings the trains up onto the elevated section. From there, the track is entirely elevated as far as ... [More]
Now that the new Noble Park station (aka “Area 3” of the Caulfield to Dandenong “skyrail”) is open, what of the rest of the project? It’s moving fast. “Area 2” in the Clayton area is coming along, and a rail line closure from the 3rd to the 15th of April will allow construction workers to ... [More]
On Wednesday the State Government announced that the first section of “skyrail”, at Noble Park, will open on Thursday 15th February, along with the new station, following a two week disruption to rail services between Westall and Dandenong. This will mark the removal of three level crossings: at Corrigan, Heatherton and Chandler Roads. Trains will ... [More]
Now that we’ve finished talking about names of yet-to-be-built stations, let’s talk about some recently built ones. Last Saturday a steam train ran to celebrate a year (and a bit) since the new Bentleigh/McKinnon/Ormond stations re-opened, following level crossing removals. K153 leads a Steamrail special into McKinnon pic.twitter.com/6XISB3b2t1 â Metro Man (@The_Rail_Life) November 25, 2017 ... [More]
The other week I noted the current state of level crossing removals across Melbourne, and that Glen Huntly Road / Glenhuntly Station [1] isn’t on the list. This used to be my home station, and with about a million boardings per year [2], it’s the busiest on the Frankston line south of Caulfield, apart from ... [More]
Three years ago in 2014 I attempted to summarise level crossing removals, based on the old 2008 ALCAM list, which is (still) the last public safety evaluation of level crossings in Victoria. Things have moved on a lot since then. Labor was voted in with a policy of grade separating 50 level crossings in 8 ... [More]
The state government announced over the weekend that Edithvale and Bonbeach grade separations on the Frankston line would get rail under road — a little surprising given apparently challenging engineering so close to the beach. No doubt this is politically expedient. For better or worse, that’s how democracy works sometimes, but you have to wonder how ... [More]
Last year, rail under (trench) and rail over (skyrail) options were presented for Cheltenham and Mentone. On Monday the government announced both would be rail under. As expected, the Park Road crossing in Cheltenham (just a stone’s throw from the Charman Road crossing) is being grade separated as well. Latrobe Street, a minor crossing south ... [More]
The rebuilt Ormond, McKinnon and Bentleigh stations opened in August. Following this, the car parks all opened in November. But what about the bike cages? The answer is that they’re still not open. “Parkiteer” Bike cages around the rail network have proved very popular. Some stations have multiple cages. It was a smart move to ... [More]
I was invited by the Level Crossing Removal Authority to look around the Bayswater station grade separation project. This is removing two crossings, either side of the station: Mountain Highway and Scoresby Road. They’re in the final stages of the major works period, with a rail shut down of 37 days almost over, the line ... [More]
The level crossing removals at Ginifer (Furlong Road) and St Albans (Main Road) are nearing completion, and yesterday the new stations opened. Originally the plan had been to remove the St Albans (Main Road) crossing — this was funded by the Coalition government in 2014, for a massive $200 million, recouped from savings during the ... [More]