On Monday 24 April 2023 the new elevated station at Deer Park opened as part of the Mt Derrimut Road level crossing removal project, so I headed out there to take a look.
Taking a look around
The new station has two side platforms, flanking a pair of tracks.
The station itself is located on a reinforced earth embankment.
With a pedestrian underpass running through the middle.
Shelter for passengers follows the current woeful standards – a little over 60% on the citybound platform.
And stuff all on the outbound platform 2.
The approach at the city end is a now standard U-trough viaduct.
Made up of two parallel single track viaducts.
But the crossing of Mt Derrimut Road itself is a pair of single track steel spans.
Each track has a walkway on either side.
An emergency detraining walkway along the inner flange, and a maintenance walkway along the outer edge.
The walls of the U-trough combined with noise walls hide trains from down below.
And the unfinished bits
The decision was made to open the new station at Deer Park immediately after work had been completed to connect the new elevated track into the existing rail corridor, so that station building was nowhere near complete.
Passengers required to follow a convoluted route through the construction site to access trains.
The permanent ramp is currently the only way to access platform 1.
The lift incomplete, as with the rest of the station buildings.
And the set of stairs had random bits of paving removed – a victim of poor installation?
While passengers accessing platform 2 had a long walk through the construction site.
Facing multiple blind corners.
Passing under the tracks.
And then up a flight of temporary steps built of scaffolding.
Until they finally emerge on platform 2.
There is a lift shaft in place at platform 2, but it was nowhere near completed.
The reason – it was located on the alignment used by trains serving the old ground level station.
Hence couldn’t be constructed until the old station was closed.
The ‘Accessible shuttle’
With no lift or ramp allowing access to platform 2, V/Line was forced to provide an accessible shuttle to allow passengers from Deer Park to access train services.
Dysons were providing low floor buses to run the service.
With a wheelchair accessible maxi taxi also on standby.
But these shuttles has been implemented in one of the most bizarre ways possible – by backtracking halfway across the western suburbs!
If travelling on a Geelong Line train, passengers are advised to get off at Tarneit, then travel back to Deer Park on either the next train or an accessible shuttle bus.
If travelling on a Ballarat Line train, passengers are advised to get off at Caroline Springs, then travel back to Deer Park on either the next train or an accessible shuttle bus.
The weekday 4:17pm, 4:39pm, 4:58pm, 5:18pm, 5:38pm and 5:58pm Southern Cross to Ballarat trains do not stop at Caroline Springs so passengers should exit the train at Rockbank then travel back to Deer Park on an accessible shuttle bus.
The weekday 6:18pm Southern Cross to Ballarat train does not stop at either Caroline Springs or Rockbank. The next stop after Deer Park is Melton. Passengers on this service should exit the train at Melton, then travel back to Deer Park on an accessible shuttle bus.
A far more logical solution would have been to have passengers leave the train at Sunshine station, and travel via Forrest Street and Tilburn Road to Deer Park – a 6 kilometre, 10 minute drive, compared to the twice as long trip to Tarneit.
The only possible reason I can find for V/Line’s bizarre choice of alternate transport – ticketing laws are actually written in such a way that exiting at V/Line train at Sunshine is illegal.
With Authorised Officers even staking out Sunshine platform 4 to catch passengers trying to do just that.
No lighting
For some reason permanent lighting had yet to be installed across much of the station.
Temporary lighting having been installed across the platform and ramp at platform 1.
But for some reason the less finished platform 2 had permanent light fixtures installed.
The new station also had security staff keeping watch over both platforms at night, so possibly the installation of CCTV systems had also been cut in the rush to get the station opened.
No Myki equipment
Myki equipment was another victim of the hurried construction timeline.
‘Free travel from Deer Park station until 7 May 2023’ flyers being handed out by staff to intending passengers, permitting them to travel from the station while there was nowhere to touch on or topup Myki cards.
The Bunnings Warehouse special
For some reason the new Deer Park station is covered with these cheap looking steel bench seats.
I found them on the ramp to platform 1.
Midway along the convoluted walkway through the construction zone.
I also found a big pile of them sitting in the middle of the old station site.
Turns out they are Marquee brand ‘Steel Park Benches’ that are sold by Bunnings Warehouse!
Surely sourcing some proper bench seats should have been part of the project plan?
One highlight – bike parking
Surprisingly the new Parkiteer cage at Deer Park was open for use – just without a locking door to secure bikes inside.
But unfortunately it’s hidden down a walkway that weaves through the construction site.
So I also found bikes locked up the first piece of fence the owner could find.
And finally – platform screwups
The new platforms at Deer Park are longer than a 6-car VLocity train, with plenty of empty platform beyond the back of the train.
But it turns out they aren’t actually long enough for the 9-car trains currently used on services to Wyndham Vale to stop at.
The new platforms are only 215 metres long – half a carriage (10 metres) too short!
What makes this omission even worse is that V/Line just completed a week long shutdown of the Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo lines to extend the 190 metre platforms at Sunshine to 225 metres long.
And adding to the comedy of errors – some V/Line trains aren’t allowed to stop at the new station!
Upon advice of V/Line Network Engineering, Sprinter railcars will NOT be permitted to stop at Deer Park station. Any Sprinter railcars will be required to run express through Deer Park station.
The operating restriction will apply until further advised due to clearance issues between the Sprinter railcar and the new platform when the doors are in the open position.
The reason – Sprinter railcars have outward plug doors that are lower than the floor level of the train, increasing the risk of getting stuck on a higher than normal platform.
What a comedy of errors!
As I understand it, Sprinters are no longer used on these lines, so perhaps that’s not a problem.
The platform length however…
Correct – over the past few years Sprinters have occasionally been a last minute substitution on services to Melton, but it’s not a timetabled thing.
From what I’ve heard, the platform hasn’t been extended out yet due to the property nearby has some housing under construction at the backyard. They would need a small part of the back of the properties on Railway parade to be acquired to extend out the platforms.
This would be the development in question, on the north-west side of the station.
I don’t see how you’d squeeze a platform extension into that space.
Do Vlocity trains have selective door opening capacity? That would enable a 9 car train to stop here with (say) the first or last door remaining closed.
The High Capacity Metro Trains have this capability as a safety fallback.
https://wongm.com/2021/01/tracking-high-capacity-metro-train-rollout/
But I don’t believe the VLocity trains have it.
Someone just got off the V/Line train at Sunshine, happens on my morning trip to Geelong every now and then.
And still a bumpy journey on the east side of the elevation. Just going over that now. Bump!
Did they not follow ‘cut once, measure twice!’?
And the platform extension at Sunshine – looks to be slightly higher than the existing platform.
Are the platforms at Deer Park a standard width? – they look pretty narrow.
The new platform extensions at Sunshine are about ~100mm higher than the existing ones – the story I heard is that they’ve changed the ‘standard’ height, and this is the new version.
Enjoyed your post about the new Deer Park Station. I think the reason the shuttles won’t go from Sunshine is because they have closed the roads Mt Derrimut Rd and Tilburn Rd so they cannot get through this way until they reopen on the 2nd of June.
Closed for a month from May 1 until June 2 to rebuild an intersection is quite a long time!
https://brimbanknorthwest.starweekly.com.au/news/works-ramp-up-on-level-crossing-removal/
But if they had’ve included a second entrance into the temporary bus interchange and car park on the Orica site from Tilburn Road, they could’ve made it work.
Buses are being allowed through. Theoretically only public buses, but they have been letting local private school buses through as well.
So no excuses on the part of V/Line then!
I have been on route 420 a couple of times in both directions, and buses are allowed through (400, 420 and 422), but there is a section in which only one bus is allowed at any time, which means that if one bus is in the section, then no other buses would be allowed until the first bus leaves because there is only one lane open.
It seems like Deer Park may have benefitted from having a split transfer to the new station, like Tottenham did when it was grade separated in the early 1980s. And/or being built as an island platform, so none of the platform access was where the existing track was.
The new layout as built places the tracks as far north as they could fit within the rail reserve, placing the station buildings platform onto land that would otherwise be just car park.
So it they had’ve built an elevated island platform instead, it would’ve probably infringed on both the low level up track, and most of the old island platform.
That does make an island platform significantly more difficult. Space for the future second track pair would probably also have been a significant consideration.
The side platform design rather than the previous island also removes an easy transfer between Geelong and Ballarat lines.
The new Greensborough and Montmorency stations also suffer from inadequate shelter.
Inadequate shelter has been an issue for virtually every station built in the past 15 years.
https://wongm.com/2015/08/useless-shelters-at-melbourne-railway-stations/
What a mess. After god knows how many level crossing removals this is the best they can do? Excellent work in exposing their sloppy work.
I’d give them a pass for the lack of lift, ramps and stairs to platform 2 given the site constraints and passing trains – but everything else is just sloppy given the space available!
[…] station at Deer Park opened as part of the Mt Derrimut Road level crossing removal project, but it wasn’t quite quite done – Myki ticketing equipment and accessible access skipped in the rush to get the station […]
Why is it illegal to get off at Sunshine?
It’s due to V/Line’s set down / pick up restrictions – from here:
https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/assets/default-site/footer/legal-and-policies/victorian-fares-and-ticketing-manual/ed1999063c/PTV_Victorian-Fares-and-Ticketing-Manual_Update2019.pdf
The restrictions were on the books back when V/Line only accepted paper tickets, but with the rollout of Myki that made suburban and country tickets the same, they added this specific rule to make otherwise valid tickets invalid if you used “wrong” stop, so they could fine you for doing it.
[…] incomplete station opened to passengers in April […]
[…] the weekend a year blog post of mine got a mention in the Herald Sun – the subject being the new railway station at Deer Park and the platforms not quite long enough to fit a nine car V/Line […]
[…] it’s still a mystery why, as first noticed by Marcus Wong, at the brand new Deer Park station, they were built to 215m, not the shorter standard of 160-180m, […]
[…] level crossing removal works at Deer Park station regularly closing the Geelong and Ballarat lines, V/Line took the opportunity to finally extend the […]