A remark on social media inspired this: a quick comparison of suburban train punctuality in Australia. We have suburban rail networks in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, and all of them publish monthly punctuality data. So here’s a quick graph comparing them since January last year: Some caveats: Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide consider “on-time” ... [More]
Obviously, travel demand in cities is in turmoil just at the moment, but leaving the 2020-2022 blip aside for a minute, and looking again at pre-COVID travel in cities… As a follow-up to comparing Melbourne’s public transport patronage to Sydney’s, I thought I’d look at all the big capital cities. The five biggest are also ... [More]
There’s a Wikipedia page “Commuter rail in Australia” which has a quick snapshot of the country’s heavy rail systems. (The term “commuter rail” is problematic. In a North American context it often refers to systems that really cater only for peak commuter/work trips. Australian rail systems sit somewhere between here and metro systems, and are ... [More]
Unlike here in Victoria, Transport For NSW regularly releases detailed patronage data. I was wondering how Sydney’s new light rail line (L2, CBD to Randwick, opened mid-December) is performing, so I took a look at the figures. Despite a number of technical problems, the line had than 1.2 million trips in January, which seems not ... [More]
Backdated. Posted 26/5/2018 Last morning in Sydney; almost time to go home. After checking out of the hotel, we headed back to the gallery to see if Sunday morning was a better option for looking at the Archibald Prize finalists than Friday had been. On the walk, the last of the half-marathon runners were coming ... [More]
Backdated. Posted 24/5/2018 Sydney getaway continued. First stop: a bakery in the Queen Victoria Building, the spectacular 19th century shopping arcade, where we grabbed some croissants for breakfast. Then to Town Hall Station to hop on a train to inner-city Redfern. A short walk from Redfern Station is Carriageworks, a former… well, railway carriage workshop, ... [More]
Backdated. Posted 23/5/2018 Hotel buffet breakfast at the Sheraton is an eye-popping $44 per person. This is no big surprise – hotel breakfasts are always expensive. But they’d said at check-in that we had a $50 credit, so that took the cost down to $38 for the two of us, which is probably cheaper than ... [More]
Post backdated. Published 21/5/2018. M wanted to see the Lady And The Unicorn tapestries before they head home to France from their exhibit at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. No big holiday likely this year, so how about we do a short break in Sydney? Booking the flights After looking at frequent flyer ... [More]
Another in my series of photos from ten years ago. I found quite a few this month, and also found one from October 2006 which had been missed, and since added to that post. The Bentleigh Festival. Obviously this spot looks quite different now with the level crossing gone. PT spotters will also notice the ... [More]
Backdated. Posted 17/11/2014. Day 4 — Sunday Not much to report. Breakfast at Darlinghurst’s Jekyll & Hyde — which was a bit meh. M’s order came with unwanted eggs, which I adopted. Afterwards I realised it was one of the breakfast places I’d ruled out because some of its Urbanspoon reviews didn’t sound that great ... [More]
Backdated. Posted on 16/11/2014. Saturday! The weather was warming up — have I mentioned how I’d jetted in on Thursday, a day after a huge storm passed through the city? Good timing (well, luck) is essential to any holiday, even a short one. After breakfasting at The Bunker in Darlinghurst, we caught the train across ... [More]
(Backdated. Posted 14/11/2014.) During the Sydney trip I tried out Opal card, and M got one as well to try. It’s worth remembering that although the system is provided by Cubic, who built London’s Oyster system, its cost is not insubstantial — $1.2 billion over 15 years. It’s not quite as expensive, but is in ... [More]