In this blog post I hope to address a few myths around Melbourne’s rail system that I’m seeing floating around. The Loop tunnels have hardly any trains! I’ve heard from a couple of sources in the past week (one on mainstream radio) the claim that nothing needs to be done about rail capacity in the ... [More]
Tag: London
15 years ago I got back from my first trip to Europe. Here, finally, are the video highlights. Daniel’s 1998 Europe trip highlights from Daniel Bowen on Vimeo. Includes England (south-east, London, and York), Scotland (Edinburgh, Inverness, Plockton), Brussels, Bruges, Amsterdam. Worth noting… The blog posts written at the time are available here: Europe 1998. ... [More]
Terrible scenes in England. What started peacefully seems to have descended into pure opportunism from troublemakers. Did anybody see it coming? Well check this fascinating article from The Guardian, a week ago: Farewell youth clubs, hello street life – and gang warfare With budget cuts leading to the loss of facilities that kept many inner-city ... [More]
Categories
Cinderella and the ghost station
I did a double-take last night when a Cranbourne train was announced as running “express from Dandenong to Merinda Park”, not just on the automatic announcement, but also on the screen. There is no station between Dandenong and Merinda Park. There eventually will be, at Lynbrook, but construction hasn’t even begun yet. In fact tenders ... [More]
Categories
Melbourne becomes a big city
When I first visited London in the 90s I was staggered by the scale of it. Not so much physical size, but the mass of people. I remember being at Piccadilly Circus on a Sunday and there were just swarms of people, heading in all directions. I felt like a small town hick who had ... [More]
Categories
Travelling dream
Strange dream last night, with a surprising amount of detail. Marita and I were travelling in Scotland. After visiting a remote village, we had to climb by a kind of rope-ladder thing back up to the railway station (which was on a very high metal bridge). After getting on the train, it continued towards the ... [More]