I haven’t been to one of Steamrail’s open days before, but went along with my sister, her kids, and some friends. I was most amused to find my nephew Leo happily shouting out engine numbers as they steamed past. I might have to get him an anorak and clipboard for his next birthday. On a ... [More]
The train to Pakenham on a recent Saturday afternoon, about 5pm: Finally this looks to be fixed, at least on the Frankston, Dandenong and Ringwood lines, with trains to run every 10 minutes between 10am and 7pm on weekends. This is genuinely good news, and although the extra padding going into the timetable is a ... [More]
I’ve droned on and on about the importance of frequency in public transport services. I recently pondered why Metro don’t promote their every-10-minutes service from Newport via the City to Frankston. Some of the operators do understand that waiting time is critical, and do advertise when they put on extra services, and/or run frequent services. ... [More]
Sometimes it seems there are way more trains running in the counter-peak direction than the peak… particularly towards the end of the morning peak, and before the evening peak. This is because there’s little train stabling in the central city area, so most trains have to be sent back to the burbs between the peaks. ... [More]
These anonymous flyers appear to have popped up overnight (at least I didn’t spot them yesterday) around Bentleigh station. (Note another similar pink one in the background on the small pole opposite.) I might note that since the 2010 timetable was introduced (and the tweaks in 2011), the morning commute is slower, but I for ... [More]
I’ve long thought the signage on Comeng and Hitachi trains about walking between the carriages was unclear. Going back a while, they talked about using them for “communication” but not “travel” — confusing to most. Recently they’ve said “Please do not travel on platform between carriages”, which implies people should not use those doors to ... [More]
If there’s anything that gunzels get excited about, it’s a parallel run — two trains running in parallel. It must take an enormous amount of work to organise such a thing: running two heritage trains on two tracks in the same direction (only possible in specific locations), and having them overtake each other repeatedly so ... [More]
(I’m at home today awaiting two tradesmen, so I’ve been a little creative.) Here’s what I can’t figure out: since late-2010, the Frankston line has run every ten minutes between the peaks. In 2011 they tidied this up and made all those trains run direct to Flinders Street, and then through to Newport, with alternating ... [More]
This afternoon I heard steam train whistles, and after some digging, discovered it was R-class R707 headed down to Frankston, and that it would be coming back a little later. Happy to take a break from the sorting out of paperwork that I’d been doing, I took a punt at the time it would pass ... [More]
It was bound to happen once they started putting advertising on the sides of trains: Coke ads. Given trains are seen not just by passengers but also by motorists and pedestrians at level crossings, it could be quite lucrative for Metro. One can only hope the money goes into better services. My guess is we ... [More]
Sometimes when the media or politicians want to highlight what they see as massive government waste (particularly in the transport arena, but also in other areas), they compare it to how many extra trains could have been bought instead. While it may seem a little myopic, I think overall it’s a good thing. It’s a ... [More]
Murrumbeena/Carnegie, 2003-2005 The move to Carnegie in 2003 gave me two local stations, because the house was almost equidistant between them. It was slightly closer to Murrumbeena, so I usually used that. But Carnegie had better access to shops, so that got used sometimes too. I’ve mentioned Murrumbeena already. Carnegie hasn’t changed much recently, but ... [More]