On the train

Yes, still on the Regional Rail Link topic – Ballarat and Bendigo trains now had their own tracks through Footscray to Sunshine, along with their own next train displays located away from the ones showing suburban trains.

But for now Geelong line services were still running along the Werribee line. Here we see a N class locomotive hauled train passing through Williams Landing.

A VLocity train passing through Laverton station.

And another passing through the platforms at South Kensington.

Which then took the crossover at the city end of the station to access the new V/Line tracks towards Southern Cross.

Freight trains

A decade ago Pacific National still had the contract to transport grain by rail to the flour mill at Kensington. Southern Shorthaul Railroad won the contract in November 2017.

Meanwhile down at North Geelong Yard Pacific National was busy scrapping surplus wagons – the bulk of which once transport freight that has been lost to road.

Down around Geelong

The North Geelong B signal box was still hanging around a decade after it had been decommissioned in 2005, and surprisingly it hung around almost a decade longer – eventually being demolished in May 2022.

While down in Grovedale money was getting spent on Baanip Boulevard, with a new bridge being built over the railway to link the Geelong Ring Road to the Surf Coast Highway.

And down at North Shore even the dive of a station was getting some attention – new asphalt!

Ding ding on the trams

Remember the ‘Melbourne Star’ observation wheel? This tram was advertising it, before the operator went broke in 2021.

But a tourist icon that people actually patronised was the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant – it ran until 2018 when their restaurant trams were kicked off the Yarra Trams network due to safety concerns.

Another safety concern that is having to dodge cars to climb onboard tram at South Yarra station. The platform stop there wasn’t opened until 2021.

Another crappy tram stop was the one at La Trobe and Swanston Street – on this December afternoon it was overwhelmed by a crowd of RMIT graduates spilling out onto the road. Platform stops were not provided along La Trobe Street until July 2024.

And continuing on that theme, now we’re at Collins and Queen Street – closed in 2015 following completion of a new platform stop at Collins and William Street.

Another stop to close being the one for southbound route 96 passengers at the corner of Spencer and Flinders Street.

Works about to start on new platform stops at Batman Park a short distance to the south.

A few buses

A decade ago route 400 between Sunshine and Laverton was operated by plain white liveried buses – an artifact of the shared operation of the route between Westrans and Sita. Today the operations are now CDC Melbourne and Transit Systems, and the white buses are gone – they’re mostly PTV orange, with the exception of a few buses still in the old poo brown Sita corporate livery.

Another oddball bus was the British-built Optare Solos used on the SkyBus hotel shuttle service around the Melbourne CBD. Later branded as ‘SkyBus Link’, the service was discontinued in 2020 thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, and never restored.

And the last bus is a Designline ‘bubble’ bus running on route 903 along Bell Street in Coburg.

Stuck in traffic waiting at the level crossing with the Upfield line – which was removed in June 2020.

Ticketing bits

Down in Geelong it was once possible to buy a ‘Short Term Ticket‘ from bus drivers rather than use a Myki card – an option removed in April 2013.

While in the lead up to the November 2014 election both parties promised to cap Melbourne suburban travel to zone 1 prices, and introduce the ‘Free Tram Zone’ in the CBD.

Both starting from 1 January 2015.

But don’t think they’re giving you something for nothing – PTV was simultaneously running yet another fare evasion campaign.

As well as promoting free travel on Christmas Day.

Car parking

What’s a worse use of prime CBD land than a ground level car park? This is the ‘Golden Square’ car park at 217 Lonsdale Street, which is still a car park today.

And this is the ‘Safe City Car Park’ at 132 Little Bourke Street in Chinatown – which has since been turned into a pop up event space.

And finally – a power station

Here we are at the main gate to Anglesea Power Station.

Located in the middle of the Anglesea Heathlands.

Next to a brown coal mine.

Opened back in 1969 to power Alcoa’s Point Henry smelter outside of Geelong, the smelter was closed down in July 2014 but the power station remained open pending a new owner, before it too was shut down in August 2015.

Footnote

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

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Photos from ten years ago: December 2014 appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

A trip to Sydney

I decided to make the trip up to Sydney this month, catching the XPT north from Melbourne.

And being greeted by a light rail vehicle tram as soon as I arrived at Central Station.

I saw a double decker train the next day.

And presumably took some other photos up there, but they weren’t of trains – as I still haven’t uploaded them to my Flickr account.

Then then flew back home to Melbourne – to be greeted by a Myki visitors pack advertisement inside the Qantas terminal.

Along with a SkyBus one.

A decade on and the Myki machines at Melbourne Airport are just as hard to find, and SkyBus is still the only public transport route that runs from the airport to the CBD.

Melbourne Central

I also went on a tour of the Melbourne Central Tower this month, where we got to look out over the roof of Melbourne Central Shopping Centre, towards Myer House and Emporium.

But unfortunately we only got to look down on the glass cone, not look inside like some previous tours did.

Technology

It seems like an everyday scene now, but a decade ago seeing an entire tram full of passengers absorbed in their smartphones was still novel.

But Telstra was still behind the times – rollout out their ‘Telstra Air’ wifi hotspots to payphones, despite almost everyone having stacks of mobile data to use on their phone.

The Wi-Fi network is still in place today, but free since 2023.

Trams

‘Safety’ zone trams stops were still common place in the Melbourne CBD a decade ago – this one was on Collins Street at William Street.

This particular tram stop was replaced by a platform stop in June 2015, with the last safety zones in the CBD upgraded in July 2024. As for the rest of the tram network – the December 2022 deadline to make all tram stops accessible has been and gone, with hundreds still non compliant.

Meanwhile Yarra Trams was coming up with crackpot schemes like a coffee stall taking up precious space for passengers at the Flinders and Swanston Street stop.

Luckily that idea got kicked out very quickly.

A handful of 1970s-era Z1 class trams were also still kicking around the network, with their crappy little sliding windows and only two doors per side – despite having supposed to have been retired a decade earlier in favour of the incoming low floor C and D class trams, but kept on due to increasing patronage.

This particular tram – Z3.86 – was eventually retired in August 2015, following the delivery of the new E class trams.

A different flavour of stupidity are people who drive down Swanston Street – this driver managed to break down in the middle of the tram stop, and drum up help from passersby to get clear of the tracks.

While this confused country bumpkin headed up Swanston Street in their LandCruiser got pulled up by an unmarked police car, and got sent on their way.

And a decade on – nothing much has really changed.

V/Line trains

Here we see an original liveried VLocity train departing Richmond station for the city.

These days the entire VLocity fleet is in the PTV purple livery, the open air ramps at Richmond station are now roofed over, and Eureka Tower has been usurped by Australia 108 as the tallest building in Australia.

Down in Geelong I photographed a 6-car V/Line train approaching the brand new terminus station of Waurn Ponds.

Opened in October 2014, Waurn Ponds gained a second platform in 2022, and the 8 kilometers of track between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds has just been duplicated.

And a V/Line train in are more shocking condition was VLocity set VL12.

Involved in a collision on the Werribee line in August 2014 where a V/Line train passed a signal at stop and crashed into the rear of a Metro train, it had to be dragged to the workshops at Bendigo to be repaired.

The collision resulted in Metro trains rewriting the rules around passing a signal at stop, while VLocity VL12 reentered service in March 2015 as the only 2-car VLocity set to ever wear the PTV livery.

A load of rubbish

After the removal of rubbish bins from Melbourne stations due to the “increased terror alert level”, they all got dumped in a pile at Flinders Street Station.

And the average passenger responded as you might expect – like a filthy pig just leaving their rubbish on the ground.

The bins were eventually returned in March 2015, with the exception of the private management at Southern Cross Station, who still refuse to place any rubbish bins on their platforms.

A different kind of rubbish

It was the leadup to the 2014 State Election, and the Napthine Government was ramped up their ‘Moving Victoria’ campaign, promoting their unfundedthe Melbourne Rail Link project.

Conceived as an alternative to the Metro Tunnel, the Melbourne Rail Link tunnel would have run between South Yarra and Southern Cross, serving new stations at Domain and Fishermans Bend – instead of Arden and Parkville, who would be stuck using buses and trams.

But as you might have guessed, the Melbourne Rail Link project went nowhere, construction of the Metro Tunnel started a few years later and is almost finished, work on the Melbourne Airport Rail project has been stop-start, and a rail link to Fishermans Bend is as far away as ever.

And another piece of pork barrelling I photographed was this Denis Napthine’s $115 million dollar train on the Frankston line – or what the government called the ‘Bayside Rail Project’.

Announced in May 2013, the Bayside Rail Project was promoted as bringing the newest trains in Melbourne – the X’Trapolis – to the Frankston line.

However these trains accelerate faster than anything else in the Melbourne fleet, putting them at risk of beating the boom barriers at level crossings, but because of the upcoming election, it was decided in October 2014, to just run a single X’Trapolis train on the line each morning, but with a speed restrictor on the throttle and two drivers in the cab.

Following changes to level crossing timings on the line in August 2016, the restriction on X’Trapolis trains was removed, allowing any X’Trapolis set to run revenue services to Frankston, and more amazingly a decade later, the bulk of the level crossings on the Frankston line don’t even exist anymore.

And a third kind of rubbish

For decades this ancient advertisement for Medibank Private faced passengers at Melbourne Central platform 1.

But 2014 saw this billboard finally removed from the platform wall, replaced by the ‘Xtrack TV’ digital screens with their insipid loop of advertisements – with audio soundtrack.

And Medibank Private – it’s still just as useless as the rest of the Australian private health insurance system.

Footnote

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

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Photos from ten years ago: November 2014 appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Trains

I’ve been posting about progress on Regional Rail Link for a few years now, and finally it’s the big day – VLocity VL09 was the first “proper” test train to run along the new tracks from Deer Park towards West Werribee.

However it wasn’t the actual first train to use the line – a few months earlier a super heavy “consolidation train” spent a few days driving back and forth along the line, simulating the load of multiple passenger trains in order to bed down the brand new track.

Also this month the brand new station at Waurn Ponds in Geelong’s southern suburbs opened.

But it was a bare bones operation, with just a single platform, and a short siding down the line to allow terminating trains to shunt clear of services continuing to Warrnambool.

Nearby Baanip Boulevard was also under construction – a link between the recently completed Geelong Ring Road and the Surfcoast Highway.

Since then Waurn Ponds gained a second platform in 2022, the short holding siding has been replaced by a six road train stabling yard past the cement works, and 8 kilometers of track between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds has been duplicated.

Terrorism scaremongering

A decade ago the government decided to ratchet up the National Terrorism Threat Level from medium to high, and in return the City Loop railway stations were blanketed in ‘If you see something, say something’ scaremongering.

We also lost our rubbish bins at railway stations, and the recent installed lockers at Flinders Street Station were shut down.

The bins eventually returned but now see through, with the exception of Southern Cross Station, which still lacks them.

And things that are gone

A decade ago the LED matrix next train displays were still a common sight outside of the CBD.

Since 2018 the majority of them have been replaced by modern LCD screens.

Next up, we have an Alstom Comeng arrives into an almost new West Footscray platform 1 with an up Sunbury service.

Now numbered platform 2, a third turnback platform has since been constructed as part of the Metro Tunnel project.

And finally, the view onboard an EDI Comeng train.

The windbreakers and 15 seats around the doors of each carriage were removed in 2015, to make more room for standing passengers.

Trams

I headed out to Victoria Gardens in Richmond to check out the new route 12 terminus – opened in July 2014 after route 112 from West Preston to St Kilda was split into route 11 from West Preston to Victoria Harbour, and route 12 from St Kilda to Victoria Gardens.

Also ongoing was the rebuilding of recently completed tram stops in the Melbourne CBD so their platform heights met new standards.

And in Ascot Vale I revisited a tram stop that landed me in the newspaper for tracking the ongoing procession of motorists who crashed into it.

Buses

A decade ago Sita was still running clapped out high floor buses on services around Sunshine, complete with paper destination signs as they didn’t want spend the money updating the old fashioned destination blind.

While a much more salubrious bus service was the privately operated ‘SuitJet’ express bus to the Melbourne CBD.

Launched in August 2014 with services from Point Cook, Eltham, Doreen, Mernda and Templestowe, there were few takers for the $30 return fare, and the service shut down a few weeks later.

And something else

Something that always intrigued me was the handful of houses left standing in the middle of the Victoria University car park in Footscray.

I eventually got around to writing about them in 2018, only for the State Government to announce in 2019 that the new Footscray Hospital would be built on the site. Today the houses are gone, replaced by a 10-storey glass and concrete tower.

Footnote

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

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Photos from ten years ago: October 2014 appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Regional Rail Link

Progress on the Regional Rail Link project has been a theme in recent months, and this is the same – plenty of work at Footscray station, along with a clear view back to the Melbourne CBD.

With a major shutdown of the suburban lines coming up to install new bridges over the railway line between Footscray and Middle Footscray.

Excavators and dump trucks rolling in a few days later to widen the cutting.

And to demolish West Footscray station to make room for extra tracks.

The ‘West Footscray’ station signage being unceremoniously thrown into the bin of scrap metal, rather than sold off to collectors.

Trams

The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant was still running around Melbourne.

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

As were the maroon liveried City Circle Trams.

2013 also saw the launch of Melbourne Art Trams – a revival of the Transporting Art project which ran from 1978 to 1993.

The brand new E class trams were finally running around the network, but still on test.

As were the upgraded ‘W8’ class trams for use on the City Circle – I found this one at the route 82 terminus at Footscray.

Clueless drivers

It takes some skill, but some motorist managed to impale their car onto the tram stop safety zone prow at Newmarket station.

But this motorist went one better, taking out the entire tram stop.

At last one service disruption Yarra Trams could not be blamed for was this one on Maribyrnong Road, Ascot Vale – strong winds tore the roof off an apartment block, which then landed on the tramway overhead, stopping trams.

New tram tracks

For a few days route 19, 57 and 59 terminated at a temporary crossover north of La Trobe Street.

So that the tram tracks along Elizabeth Street could be dug up.

And new tracks laid.

Ready for the constructor of long awaited platform tram stops.

And then work stopped – two weeks later, the trams stops were still not ready for use.

With work on the fencing being dragged out.

With the tram stops still unfinished at the end of the month.

Buses

On my lunch break I found a Melbourne Visitor Shuttle bus – a victim of competition from the Free Tram Zone, the City of Melbourne finally killed off the service in August 2017.

Transdev was also making their brand more visible in Melbourne, having taken over the operations of National Bus Company and Melbourne Bus Link the month before.

And the other bits

With the Spring Racing Carnival upon us, it’s time for more gambling advertising – this time it was bookmaker ‘Bet365’.

Out at Melbourne Airport the 1970s water tower was still in place outside the Terminal 4 construction site, but was soon gone, deconstructed piece by piece.

Also gone is Melbourne Bike Share – the service was wound up in November 2019.

On Ballarat Road in Footscray I found this still functioning neon sign at Douglas’s Service Station.

And something new for the time – my first sighting of a 1AA-1AA series registration plate, which had been launched in August 2013 along with the ‘Vic – Stay Alert Stay Alive’ slogan.

The new number sequence is estimated to be provide enough combinations to last for 50 years, but the slogan was dumped for ‘Victoria – The Education State’ in October 2015.

And a steam train

I made the trip out up north to Castlemaine on a Steamrail Victoria special.

The selling point being the side trip along the Victorian Goldfields Railway.

Where the train would stop in the middle of nowhere to let passengers exit.

Then line up in the forest.

To photograph the train passing us by.

Known as a ‘photo line’ it has been a traditional part of steam train excursions in Victoria since the 1960s, when esteemed tour organiser Eldon Hogan would bark directions to waiting photographers with his Hogaphone.

Footnote

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

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Photos from ten years ago: October 2013 appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Regional Rail Link

We start the month like many others, with progress on the Regional Rail Link project through Melbourne’s west.

The old West Footscray station was still in place beneath ‘Mount Mistake‘.

But the new station to the west was well underway.

Being constructed clear of the existing tracks to avoid disruption to Sunbury line services.

Down the line at Sunshine similar thoughtful works were underway – the level crossing at Anderson Road had been relocated clear of the grade separation works.

So that the future rail bridge could be constructed clear of the tracks, and slid into place when complete.

Meanwhile on the greenfield section of the route, the new Tarneit station had everything in place except for tracks!

Ballan Road had a road bridge passing over an incomplete rail cutting.

Wyndham Vale had pedestrian bridge ready to cross a future four track, four platform station.

And Manor Junction had a massive flyover in place over the Geelong line tracks, but with nothing connecting at either end.

Other train bits

One evening I passed through Newmarket station and found it in the dark – a tree took out the mains power supply to the station.

So somewhat surprisingly, electricians were sent out to connect a generator to the switchboard.

After sitting empty for a decade, in 2013 work finally started on the office towers above the west end of Southern Cross Station.

699 Bourke Street at the north end was first to be completed in 2015, followed by 664 Collins Street at the south end in 2019.

I also paid a visit to Dandenong South, where I found something different sitting dumped beside the tracks.

Comeng carriages 305M, 1003T and 306M stored in the Membreys Transport yard, after being damaged in the November 2012 level crossing crash at Abbotts Road in Dandenong South.

Ding ding

Preparation for the introduction of the new E class trams was underway on route 96, with the inaccessible safety zones along Nicholson Street being extended so the rear doors of the longer trams would not overhang into traffic.

This interim fix remained in place until 2018, when they were finally replaced by accessible platform stops.

And the other bits

On Swanston Street in the CBD I found the Victoria Police bicycle squad on patrol.

But they didn’t seem to be making much of a difference to the dingbats driving down the bike lanes.

Out at Maribyrnong a brand new two-storey Bunnings Warehouse opened – the $45 million store being located around the corner from the old one at Highpoint, and at more than 17,000 square metres, was three times the size of the old one.

And around the corner at West Footscray another Bunnings Warehouse was being constructed – on the former Southern Can Company factory site, with the front office block retained, but the warehouse being being demolished to make way for a hardware store with basement car park.

Footnote

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

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Photos from ten years ago: September 2013 appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.