Act 1: He went to stand between the carriages for a smoke. (It was a Hitachi. Very retro.) It should be pointed out that this doesn’t stop the smoke smell drifting through the carriages, though obviously it’s better than doing it in the carriage. Apart from the fact that smoking anywhere is dangerous for your ... [More]
Forgot to review the Star Trek movie. In summary: great stuff, really enjoyable. (And still chuckling over The Onion’s take on it.) How is it that Rivers in Victoria have 7 retail outlets, but 31 clearance centres? For those of you who want to browse PT timetables online while out and about, bookmark this in ... [More]
The issue of new trams being too long for some tram platform stops was highlighted in The Age the other day, and on ABC Radio’s AM. But having got all the information about it now, I don’t see why it’s a problem. From the document specifying the new order of trams: Optimal operation of the ... [More]
I have a vague feeling I might have posted something like this in the past, but I can’t find it, so here it is again. For those of you who don’t read the Victorian Fares and Ticketing Manual for fun, here are some rules about Metcard ticketing that you may not know about. These rules ... [More]
An article the other day revealed the latest passenger counts on trains show that overcrowding during peak hour has dropped slightly. I don’t have those figures to hand, but I do have these graphs from 2007 handy, and I thought it might be interesting for people to see how the various lines compare. Patronage has ... [More]
I don’t have a post for you this morning, so here’s something I prepared earlier. This morning I had a chat to the people at 3CR about PT issues, and it reminded me of this recording from Joy FM back in April. I think they’d been intending to post the podcast themselves, but haven’t… so ... [More]
The big announcement may well come in the next few days: who will take over running Melbourne’s trams and trains from November? Anybody want to put their predictions on the table? Leave a comment! Your choices: Trains: Connex (Veolia, incumbent) or MTM (Hong Kong MTR consortium) or Keolis Trams: Yarra Trams (TransdevTSL, incumbent) or Keolis ... [More]
When I visited Phoenix, Arizona in 1996, it appeared to be the archetypal car-dominated city. I was told pretty much the only PT was buses once an hour. The freeways were packed at rush hour. Nobody walked anywhere. The downtown area was (especially on weekends) so deserted that they had to have signs saying “Welcome ... [More]
I tried Myki for myself on Saturday in Geelong. Bought one for the promotional price of $5 in the special Myki Shop in Ryrie Street and hopped on a bus to the station. (HQ available if you click through) Some brief notes on it: It worked as advertised. Took $1.80 from my initial $5 balance ... [More]
When I was a kid, my dad would take us to Camberwell Civic Centre every April or so, to see the huge model train exhibition they had there. We’d wander around for a couple of hours and I would dream that one day I’d have a really big, detailed train set. Early on I had ... [More]