I’ve managed to completely avoid the topic of COVID-19 over the past few months, so here goes – a quick collection of coronavirus related public transport observations.
Changes
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work from home since March, but I ventured back in early April to pick up some stuff from the office – where I found the Melbourne CBD virtually empty.
Normally parked cars at Tottenham station overflow into the neighbouring grassy patch, turning it into a mud hole, but it’s now empty with everyone staying home.
At railway stations coronavirus posters have replaced the usual promotions.
Encouraging social distancing on escalators.
Victorian Government announcements on repeat.
Recorded by Philip Mallis
And cash payments stopped at the ticket office.
Trams have blocked the front row of seats out of use, to shield drivers.
Already on buses, now also trams. #shunthefrontrow pic.twitter.com/1yq3wv8XDg
— Tony Morton (@tonybmorton) March 23, 2020
With Transdev Melbourne taking it one step further – asking passengers to use the rear door to enter and exit the bus.
But V/Line replacement road coaches make do with a government health warning sticky taped to the door.
And the same
Back in early April SkyBus was still serving Melbourne Airport – the passenger on the top deck of this service wearing a mask.
As was the City Circle tram around the Melbourne CBD.
Authorised Officers were still roaming the rail network.
Freight trains have also kept moving.
Transport steel, containers, grain, and everything else that usually moves by rail.
So what have I been up to?
If you’re a regular visitor to my photo gallery you might have noticed I been uploading a lot less photos recently – this graph really shows the decline.
The last time I uploaded so few photos was when I went overseas!
But luckily for you I haven’t been wasting the Coronavirus lockdown – I’ve been still regularly updating this blog, along with my Hong Kong transport and European rail spinoffs, and slowly uploading my backlog of non-train photos to Flickr.
You can head over to https://www.patreon.com/wongm to get a sneak peek at what’s coming soon on my blogs.
Footnote
Daniel Bowen has written more about COVID-19 and Melbourne transport on his blog.
Oh Marcus, I only read your site cause it was the only site I could find with no mention of the virus and now you’ve ruined it!
I’m back to normal programming next week!
[…] flies when you have to stay home, but it’s been a few months since my last round of COVID-19 related public transport observations. So here goes another […]