Waking up in Geelong

On Thursday the 22nd I went up to Ballarat. Why?

Well, V/Line was putting their new VLocity trains into revenue service for the first time, and I wanted to go for spin in one.

I caught the train up to Melbourne, as the first train was rumoured to arrive at around 11:30 at Southern Cross Station. (aka – The Station Formerly Known As Spencer Street…)

It didn’t turn up.

Turns out the first train left Melbourne at around 9:30 in the morning for Ballarat, and returned to Melbourne just before 2:00 in the afternoon.

However, the next Ballarat train at 2:08pm was going to be a VLocity, so I got on board.

And here we are, the train at Ballarat Station, about an hour and a half later.

And back again at Southern Cross, after catching the 4:29 train back to Melbourne.

Unfortunately, the train was only allowed to get up to 130km/h, even though it can do up to 160km/h. It’s because it has just been introduced into service.

And the good bit – NEW TRAIN SMELL!

Footnote

• My full set of photos from the day

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