Christmas Day and New Years Eve

Travel on trains, trams and buses has been free in Victoria on Christmas Day and New Years Eve for many years.

The first reference I can find is in 1999, followed by Christmas Day 2004, an ING Direct sponsorship for New Years Eve 2004, and an expansion to V/Line in 2006. 2007 marked straight straight years of free travel, and in 2009 the practice was written into the new train contract.

2008: Connex screw up

On 6 November 2008 an electrical fault brought the Melbourne train network to a halt in the middle of peak hour, resulting in Oaks Day race patrons spilling out onto the tracks.

The Age photo

With embattled Melbourne rail operator Connex then in the process of trying to keep it’s $600 million-a-year contract to run the network, they issued a desperate mea culpa, and offered free travel to anyone with a ticket to the Stakes Day race meeting held on 8 November 2008.

2009: Summer heat cripples the rail network

In January 2009 a heatwave hit Melbourne, crippling a railway network held together with duct tape and bubble gum, and leading to a week of service cancellations – culminating in 200 trains cancelled on Wednesday 28th, over 300 services on Thursday 29th, and 284 on Friday 30th. The state government’s solution – declaring 30 January 2009 a day of free travel.

2010: New rail operator, same problems

Metro Trains Melbourne might taken over from Connex as the operator of trains in Melbourne, but the network was still falling apart – an example being 27 July 2010 when a faulty overhead wire cut power between Southern Cross and Flinders Street stations, severely limiting the amount of trains that could move through that section, and causing crowds across the network.

As a result the state government decided that Friday 30 July 2010 would be a day of free travel across Melbourne.

2016: now V/Line screws up

In January 2016 V/Line discovered major issues with their fleet of VLocity trains, resulting in dozens of cancelled services each day, and the crush loading of the trains that are running. Here is a selection of photos from the period.

To compensate for the disruptions to services, in V/Line declared free travel on all services from January 23 to 31, but with no resolution in sight, it was extended another week until February 7.

2018: buying votes in south-east Melbourne

In the lead up to the 2018 state election, Premier Daniel Andrews announced free travel on replacement buses for passengers on the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Gippsland lines during first three weeks of December, while works were completed on the ‘Skyrail’ level crossing removal project.

Passengers given given ‘free travel tokens’ to identify themselves to station staff.

2019: pissed off Gippsland passengers

Level crossing removals followed by Metro Tunnel works and signalling upgrades in suburban Melbourne saw V/Line passengers from Gippsland put onto buses for months on end, so to ease the pain the government gave them free travel on the replacement buses in January 2019, April 2019, July 2019 and January 2020.

2023: we forgot to install the ticketing equipment

In April 2023 a brand new station opened at Deer Park following the removal of the level crossing, but one thing was missing – the Myki equipment!

And their solution – hand out ‘Free travel from Deer Park station until 7 May 2023’ flyers to every passenger using the station, with a second bath of flyers printed up before the Myki equipment was finally switched on from Tuesday 23 May.

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The story starts in November 2010, when the Coalition promised to build a new railway station at Epsom if they won the 2010 state election.

Train station for Epsom planned
Lauren Henry
November 11, 2010

The Coalition plan to build a new train station at Epsom, if they are elected at the state election. Coalition spokesman for transport Terry Mulder, in Epsom this morning, said the station would include a 160 metre platform, 100 sealed car parks and 95 train services. Mr Mulder said the Epsom Station would be built by 2013.

Mr Mulder said the Coalition would also employ staff for a renovated Eaglehawk station, and provide more train services and 100 sealed car parks. He said both Epsom and Eaglehawk upgraded facilities would cost $6 million, plus $2 million for more train services and $250,000 for boom gates.

I saw the proposal as an half-witted brain fart trotted out as an election stunt, with no thought given to how the new station would be served with trains, yet alone fit into the existing V/Line rail network.

The problems with Epsom

Epsom is located on the existing V/Line serivce to Echuca, which only receives one train each way Monday-Friday, and two trains on Saturdays and Sundays – a railway station is useless if no trains serve it! A problem then, but surmountable if the existing Bendigo services were extended north by one station to serve Epsom.

However, building a station at Epsom had an extra sting in the tail – the existing station at Eaglehawk, a northern Bendigo suburb on the line towards Swan Hill.

At the time of Epsom station being proposed, Eaglehawk only received a token train service – the twice daily Swan Hill train stopped there on the way through, as well as a handful of Bendigo trains extended one station to the north.

You might naively ask:

Why not alternate existing Bendigo services to terminate at either Eaglehawk or Epsom. Both stations would still get a reasonable service without requiring any extra infrastructure south of Bendigo.

Here is a hypothetical example of a Bendigo resident catching the train to Melbourne:

Bendigo to Epsom is about 7 km by road, as is Bendigo to Eaglehawk and Epsom to Eaglehawk.

Imagine you drove to Eaglehawk station to catch a train into Melbourne for a day out. You have lunch, do some shopping, then decide to come home. Lets check the timetable to see what train we can catch:

Lets catch the 1515 you say. That goes to Bendigo. OH WAIT! It goes to Epsom, and our car is at Eaglehawk. I’ve got to wait an hour until the 1615.

This leaves us at the crux of the matter – you can’t serve two places with a single train!

Jarrett Walker, transit planning consultant and author of ‘Human Transit’, has this to say about how transit is like a river:

We should suspicious whenever we see a branch drawn as though one line can effortlessly divide into two equal lines. Often, such a branch will be called an extension, a very slightly misleading word because it suggests that an existing, known quantity of service is being extended. In fact, a branch always means one of three things.

Either:

• points beyond the branching point have less frequent service or
• one of the branches operates as a shuttle, requiring a connection, or
• in a few rare cases, the train itself comes apart, with some cars proceeding along one branch and some along the other.

Across Victoria, examples of all three branching strategies can be found:

• Beyond Ringwood station, services alternate between Lilydale and Belgrave,
• Off-peak Alamein services operate as a shuttle, connecting to mainline services at Camberwell,
• Ararat and Maryborough services split at Ballarat, and continue as separate trains.

For anyone who has had to use the above services, you already know they are sub-optimal solutions.

Note that in the latter case, V/Line doesn’t allow passengers to stay on board while trains are joined and split – everyone gets turfed out onto the platform for a couple of minutes, even in the middle of a bitterly cold Ballarat winter!

Making stupid ideas reality

In May 2013 it was announced that Epsom station would go ahead.

Epsom to receive a railway station in 2015
Blair Thomson
May 7, 2013

A new train station will be built and operational at Epsom in two years. The $9-million station was announced in today’s state budget and aims to improve public transport access in North Bendigo. Local rail services will also undergo a shake-up, with Epsom and Eaglehawk to become terminuses for some services.

Construction started in mid-2014:

Epsom station on track
Hannah Knight
June 17, 2014

Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder has turned the first sod on the new Epsom Train Station project.

With the official opening of Epsom station held on October 11, 2014.

Epsom train station officially opens
Hannah Carrodus
October 11, 2014

Minister for Public Transport Terry Mulder said the $7.76 million Epsom and Eaglehawk Rail Improvements were a great example of the wider benefits a station can bring to a regional growth area.

“Tomorrow, we’ll see this is not just a $7.76 million investment in a station; we’ll see this is a $7.76 million investment in the people of Greater Bendigo,” Mr Mulder said.

Liberal candidate for Bendigo East Greg Bickley said that people in the growing Epsom area were looking forward to using the new station when services begin tomorrow.

“Four months ago work started on this project, and now we’re just one day from being able to jump on a train,” Mr Bickley said.

“The community has rallied behind the new station, and I’m sure there will be a few very excited people ready to make the historic 10.10am trip to Bendigo and on to Melbourne tomorrow morning.”

Mr Mulder said that there would be four trains a day stopping at Epsom, with two services heading to Melbourne and two services coming from Melbourne.

Turns out two trains each way per day to Epsom wasn’t enough to entice local residents to get out of their cars.

Empty Epsom has Jacinta Allan seeing red
Adam Holmes
November 4, 2014

Just three weeks after it opened, each of the 100 car parks at Epsom Railway Station were empty halfway through a Monday morning.

Member for Bendigo East Jacinta Allan stood in the middle of the bitumen expanse to highlight a perceived lack of interest in the rail service.

One train leaves Epsom at 8.25am for Bendigo, and another arrives at 5.29pm.

Ms Allan said to have a successful rail service, people needed a reason to make it a regular part of their lives.

“We know that if you provide the service, people will use it from the get-go,” she said.

“We want people to choose to travel by rail. We need to give them that option.

“It’s not a service that people are using because it doesn’t meet their needs.”

I could have told you that before you spent $7.76 million on the station!

Doubling down on stupid

Just to prove that both sides of politics can come up with stupid ideas, in the lead up to the 2014 state election Labor also came up with their own half-baked scheme.

Labor pledges $2m for a Bendigo rail service
Tom Cowie
October 30, 2014

Bendigo could one day have its own local commuter train service if Labor wins the state election. But the state government says the promise is uncosted and won’t deliver any new trains.

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews has pledged $2 million to set up a Bendigo Metro Rail taskforce, which would advise the government on the feasibility of trains running solely in the goldfields city.

Following their election win the study has commenced, with the Bendigo Metro Rail fact sheet having this to say:

Bendigo Metro Rail aims to deliver a commuter train service for Bendigo, with an increased number of services running from Epsom, Eaglehawk and Kangaroo Flat to Bendigo.

Bendigo Metro Rail aims to reduce local traffic and allow people to commute to work, school, TAFE and university via rail.

Presumably the theory behind Bendigo Metro Rail is that just because the city already has a two railway lines running through it, running more trains along them will magically make people leave their cars at home.

Unfortunately, this neglects one important point: a rail service is useless if both your origin AND destination are both found on it.

Bendigo is a small enough place that you can drive from one end of town to the other in 20 minutes: you’re going to have to be running those trains pretty bloody often in order to provide competitive door-to-door travel times, and if the only way to the station is by driving, the war is already lost.

Further reading

I found this interesting paper, titled Developing business cases for regional rail stations: a Victorian case study.

August 2015 update

In August 2015 the Bendigo Metro Rail Community Consultative Taskforce released their report – the Bendigo Advertiser detailed their recommendations:

• Stage 1: five return train services per day to Epsom and Eaglehawk, along with including Kangaroo Flat on every trip between Bendigo and Melbourne.
• Stage 2: further services to Epsom, Eaglehawk, Bendigo and Kangaroo Flat, as well as station upgrades and connectivity with walking and cycling paths.
• Stage 3: 20 minute peak and 40 minute off-peak services between Bendigo and Kangaroo Flat, with alternating services to Epsom and Eaglehawk at peak times.

Note the useless 40 minute off-peak frequency – if you missed one train, you could drive to the other end of Bendigo and back, and still get done before the next train!

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