A look at the history of roads, streets, highways, freeways, bridges and tunnels of Melbourne and beyond.
Roads and Freeways
Those new travel time signs around Melbourne
September 14th, 2021
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One things I’ve noticed in the past year or so around Melbourne is a plague of variable message sign trailers parked beside main roads. Each one offers travel times to a single random suburban destination, via two different routes. So what gives? The example I found was on Anderson Road in Sunshine, and offered travel […]
Photos from ten years ago: August 2011
August 31st, 2021
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Another instalment in my photos from ten years ago series – this time it is August 2011. Trains This month ten years ago I went for a trip around the Melbourne suburbs in a restored Diesel Electric Rail Motor operated by DERMPAV We headed out to Upfield, Alamein and Belgrave, with a lunch stop at […]
How long does it take to build a pedestrian crossing?
February 9th, 2021
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One might think building a pedestrian crossing would be pretty easy, but for set of traffic lights in Sunshine, it was anything but. The background The story starts at Sunshine station, upgraded in 2014. But for pedestrians crossing Hampshire Road they still needed to dodge four lanes of traffic at a roundabout. Google Street View […]
A history of ‘Mount Mistake’ in Footscray
November 10th, 2020
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Next to the Western Oval in Footscray is ‘Mount Mistake’ – a massive tangle of road overpasses that carries Geelong Road over the railway lines at West Footscray station. This is the tale of how the bridge came to be, and how it gained the nickname. Taking a quick tour Mount Mistake is a tangle […]
Off to work at the Sunshine Harvester Factory
October 6th, 2020
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For decades the Sunshine Harvester factory dominated Melbourne’s west. Established in 1904 as the Braybrook Implement Works, in 1906 industrialist H.V. McKay moved his Sunshine Harvester Works to the new township, expanding it to become the largest manufacturing plant in Australia. SLV photo H2016.33/103 Around the factory In the early years employees had to trudge […]
