Waking up in Geelong

Another instalment in my photos from ten years ago series – this time it is August 2013.

Regional Rail Link

Work on the Regional Rail Link project was continuing, with the new track connections to the North Melbourne flyover taking shape to separate V/Line and suburban trains.

The launching truss was also in place at the new Maribyrnong River bridge.

Forming a third pair of tracks between North Melbourne and Footscray.

Including a flyover outside Footscray to swap the position of the V/Line and Werribee line track pairs.

At Footscray station work continued on the expanded station concourse.

With two new platforms being built on the north side of the station, to allow V/Line and suburban trains to be separated.

The bridge at the west end of the station was also being widened for the extra pair of tracks.

As well through the cutting towards Middle Footscray.

The first stage of Regional Rail Link between the city and Footscray opened in July 2014, with the project completed in June 2015.

Car parking – cheap at twice the price

At North Williamstown station a $530,000 car park upgrade had just been completed.

The gravel forecourt being turned into an asphalt car park with 50 spaces.

Another screw up by V/Line

In mid-2013 V/Line discovered cracked bogies beneath their fleet of 1950s-era locomotive hauled carriages, which also happened to be the only wheelchair accessible carriages in their long distance fleet.

A total of 22 carriages were impacted by the bogie cracks, with 13 returned to service by June 2014 when new bogies were sourced, the last finally fixed by the end of 2016. Fast forward to today, and the carriages are now retired.

Touring Melbourne’s train control centre

I somehow managed to wrangle a tour of ‘Metrol‘ – Melbourne’s train control centre.

Inside train controllers were busy directing trains across the network.

Each controller being responsible for one part of the network.

With an array of screens showing the location of trains, and a control panel to set which route they would take.

And next door was the shiny new Train Control and Monitoring System room – ready to go, but not yet in everyday use.

But there was one low tech system still in use – stringline graphs.

Depicting the timetabled services running on each line, the hand drawn annotations show where ad-hoc changes needed to be made following delays and disruptions.

Buses

On Queens Bridge I found a Melbourne Free Visitor Shuttle bus.

A victim of competition from the Free Tram Zone, the City of Melbourne finally killed off the service in August 2017.

Trams

A decade ago there were still no platform tram stops on Elizabeth Street.

They were finally built in late-2013.

And the B1 class ‘light rail vehicles’ were still in service.

They were eventually withdrawn in 2016, following a farewell tour.

The clunky old Z1 class trams were also still kicking around.

They were also withdrawn in 2016, having also had their own farewell tour.

And finally, the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant was still trunding around the streets of Melbourne.

The service last ran in October 2018, when Yarra Trams banned the fleet of the network citing safety concerns.

Stupid motorists

I found this old man driving down through the tram stop on Swanston Street – did he think his beat up Mercedes Benz was a bike?

While this motorist figured they could actually take their Toorak Tractor off road, and decided that instead of squeezing out of the bike line, driving off the edge would be quicker.

And the cost of living

A decade ago you could travel anywhere in Melbourne on a weekend for just $3.50.

But fast forward to today – public transport fares are now $10 a day, which on weekends is discounted to ‘just’ $7.20.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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