The Metro app is quite handy for finding out what’s happening on the train network, and can send notifications/alerts to tell you when something’s affecting the line(s) you use regularly. As previously noted, it’s not perfect — the SMS alerts that it replaced were customised to your specific station, so you didn’t have to try ... [More]
Tag: Metro
Today Metro shuts down its SMS Alerts service. It has been running since September 2001, when it was introduced (the day before 9/11), initially for Connex Connector Plus (Connex-only yearly ticketholders) — and back when Connex only covered half the rail network, of course. It spread to all customers and all lines later, along with ... [More]
Mr Lezala also took a swipe at the State Government for failing to invest properly in signalling. “We have new signalling systems here … with no redundancy in them so when we get a thunderstorm it fails – brand new systems – because we didn’t have enough money to build redundancy in,” he told a ... [More]
Parkiteer is a good programme… from my observations, more and more people are using it for secure bike parking at stations. But how many errors can you spot in this bike cage map that has been appearing in MX for the past few weeks? “Glen Waverly” spelt wrong “Glen Waverly” in the wrong spot — ... [More]
The Siemens train seats are notorious for showing the dirt. At one stage a multi-coloured design similar to the Comeng fleet seats was tried, but now Metro have introduced a new design which is supposedly more vandalproof (and uses their corporate design, not Connex’s). It’s on one 3-car Siemens set so far (for the gunzels, ... [More]
As if disrupted trains weren’t enough, now we have Metro apostrophe crimes. (from Channel 10 news 25/6/2012: Commute derailed) Metro was already having a bad Monday morning peak with the inner part of the Sandringham line suspended due to a maintenance train derailing overnight. Things didn’t improve when at about 7:15 the outer section of ... [More]
Sorry, I meant to post this ages ago. I went along to the official opening of Lynbrook station in April; there was a big turn out from the community, including local councillors and a couple of MPs, as well as media. And a sausage sizzle! I had an interesting talk to the architect, who said ... [More]
Seems the stuff in today’s Age to do with moving train driver changeovers out of Flinders Street is a bit controversial. I don’t particularly want to discuss it in the myriad of places I’ve seen people (mostly train drivers, I suspect) leave me comments about it, so I’ll do so here instead. From the article: ... [More]
The Herald Sun reports today that Metro punctuality figures have improved markedly in the last 12 months, including the figure on the Frankston line jumping from 68.4% to 87.1%. Certainly this is due to some changes in the way the trains are run. The question is, are these changes good, or bad? Good: Departing platform ... [More]
My cousin Justin’s move to Melbourne gives me an opportunity to see the public transport network from the perspective of a brand new user. He’s pretty well travelled, having spent extensive time in Europe recently, mostly based in London, but with plenty of travel to other cities. So he’s used PT systems in many other ... [More]
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Idiot of the day
About an hour ago at Highett station: the train to Frankston had just left, and a city-bound train was approaching. This idiot cyclist rode across in front of the city-bound train. The train driver tooted his horn loud and long. The cyclist entered the station, and appeared to want to catch the train — I’d ... [More]
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Possible 2021 Metro timetables
They really don’t like talking about this stuff, but if you’ve been wondering what your future train service might look like, check this: (View it bigger) This map is based on an appendix tucked-away in the Rowville rail study documents, and shows a proposed operating plan once Regional Rail Link and a handful of other ... [More]