Their home ground of Kardinia Park in Geelong is right beside the railway.

Grandstands visible from passing trains.

South Geelong station is a short walk to the ground.

With a number of sidings available to park extra trains.

Many Cats fans also catch the train up to Melbourne to see their team play.

V/Line promotes their extra football trains to fans.

Advertisements on the side of trains.

And for previous Geelong Grand Finals, having specially decorated their trains for the occasion.

These extra trains require a lot of planning – in this case, 20 pages of special instructions for railway staff, detailing the timetable of each additional train.

And one extra instruction.

Thanks to Geelong fans’ reputation for walking out early.

Stationmaster Richmond to note the following:

If Geelong wins, no.8295 must be held to depart at 1758 or until patronage is near capacity of set. If Geelong loses train to depart at 17 48.

If Geelong wins, no.8297 must be held at Richmond until patronage is near capacity of set. If Geelong loses train to depart at 17 58.

And with another Grand Final loss, who can blame then?

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Around Geelong

We start down in the Geelong suburb of Waurn Ponds.

Which a decade ago was the southern terminus of the Geelong Ring Road.

But work was underway to extend the freeway over the Waurn Ponds Creek valley.

And up the hill via Anglesea Road.

The nearby streets had bus stops to nowhere.

With new houses stretching as far as the railway line.

Back then only thrice-daily trains to Warrnambool used this line.

But a decade later it is now the site of Waurn Ponds station, terminus of the majority of V/Line services from Melbourne.

The Geelong Football Club made it into the 2009 AFL Grand Final, so V/Line ran special trains from Geelong to the MCG to carry the thousands of fans.

With a special ‘Geelong Cats’ headboard decorating the front of one train.

More construction

The new concourse at North Melbourne station opened in September 2009.

With Connex staff outnumbering the passengers on the first day of operations.

But for the first few weeks passengers still used the old northern entrance, as work on the new station building was still underway.

At Laverton station, the third platform was now starting to look real.

And the lift shafts for the new footbridge towering above the existing footbridge.

The new footbridge at Footscray was also rising at a rapid pace.

Multiple sections of bridge were ready to be lifted into place.

With others awaiting ramps and stairs to be added.

After the turning of the first sod for the Regional Rail Link project in August 2009, work at Southern Cross Station ramped up. The pile driver continued work on the future platform 15 and 16.

And the trackbed north of Latrobe Street was cleared to make room for the new Regional Rail Link tracks.

And some trains

The first of Melbourne’s ‘interim’ order of X’Trapolis trains had arrived at the Newport Workshops in September 2009.

A decade later we’re still ordering more of the aging design, but with no commitment to updating it, Alstom’s Ballarat plant may close down.

A much older train was the Steamrail Victoria special I followed through the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

A decade later, this station at Heatherdale no longer exists – replaced by a rail-under grade separation in 2017.

Neither does the station at Mitcham – replaced in 2014.

Or the rickety footbridge at Ringwood – replaced in 2015.

Another steam train was this Steamrail Victoria special for Ballarat.

I also captured it at North Geelong C.

Where the century-old semaphore signals have only just been replaced.

I also followed the transfer of a V/Line power van from Melbourne to the Ballarat Workshops for refurbishment.

And the return working on a refurbished classmate.

Both vans are used by V/Line on their frequently failing V/Line Albury service.

And finally we end on the derailment of a V/Line train at Stonyford on the Warrnambool line.

On the evening of Saturday 12 September 2009 the train collided with trees lying across the track, felled by strong winds.

Which resulted in the derailment of the locomotives and four of the five passenger cars.

But the presence of a second locomotive on the train may have reduced the impact of the crash – there were only minor injuries to both locomotive drivers and one passenger.

As a result of the crash V/Line has taken a much more aggressive attitude to trees near railway lines.

Footnote

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

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Throughout the AFL season V/Line runs additional trains between Geelong and Melbourne, transporting Cats fans to Etihad Stadium and the MCG.

Geelong made it into both the 2009 AFL Grand Final, so for the occasion V/Line added a special ‘Geelong Cats’ headboard to the front of some trains.

V/Line also timetabled trains direct to Richmond for easy access to the MCG, and the reverse after the game. These operational changes required 20 pages of special instructions for railway staff, detailing the timetable of each of the additional trains, and the rolling stock reallocations required to free up the trains that would be used.

They also included a special instruction tailored to Geelong supporters, known for walking out at three quarter time if their team is losing – trains depart early if the Cats are down.

Are there any other teams where the supporters beat the traffic by walking out?

A footnote on football crowds

The MCG is served by Richmond and Jolimont stations but crowding is a problem – as Daniel Bowen explains.

Compare this to Olympic Park in Sydney.

Which has a station specially designed for sporting crowds.

Olympic Park station is located on a single track balloon loop spur line, but features two tracks and four platform faces.

Ordinarily, the centre island platform is used for both boarding and alighting, but this changes when the station is operating in major event mode. In this mode, the centre island platform is used by alighting passengers and the two side platforms are brought into use for boarding passengers.

But the brand new Perth Stadium shows what how it is done.

Diagram by WA Department of Sport and Recreation

With six platform faces across three island platforms, departing passengers are segregated by destination, and two stabling yards are located nearby, allowing up to 23 six-car trains to hit the tracks as soon as patrons start to walk out of the ground.

Footnote

Continuing on the Perth theme, here is the ‘New Perth Stadium’ transport project definition plan.

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It seems that every month sees me start in Geelong, where this time around I photographed a boring blue bus at Geelong station.

The ‘GTS’ stood for Geelong Transit System and was the operating brand for public transport in Geelong between 1983 until 2000, when it was replaced by a mishmash of bus operator branding. Today no sign of it remains, Myki being the ticketing system, and the Public Transport Victoria livery has been applied to buses.

I also took at look at progress on the Geelong Ring Road through the Barrabool Hills.

Barrabool Road had been slewed to one side, allowing construction of the bridge over the future freeway to be carried out without interference with traffic.

Excavation work on the long cutting towards Waurn Ponds was well underway.

As was the massive climb uphill from the Barwon River.

Another ongoing theme is the decline of rail freight – I found a rake of redundant superphosphate hopper wagons in storage at North Geelong Yard.

As well as a rake of much older cement hoppers.

Both were destined for the scrap yard – the superphosphate traffic was completely lost to rail in the early 2000s, but cement traffic was still barley holding on but in smaller volumes, hence the retirement of older wagons.

But there was one new traffic that rail won – the transport of containerised mineral sands from the Iluka Resources processing plant outside Hamilton to the Port of Melbourne for export.

The service was run by small operator El Zorro, with the transport of the mineral sands between mine and processing plant also moving to rail in 2011.

And another success was the transport of Geelong football fans to Melbourne, where they would see the Cats get thrashed by Hawthorn in the 2008 AFL Grand Final.

A number of special 8 car trains ran between Geelong and Richmond during the finals seasons, with one of the trains on grand final day wearing a special ‘Geelong Cats’ headboard on the lead locomotive.

Up in Melbourne I took a walk through Flinders Street Station, where Connex had opened a new customer information booth on the main concourse.

The booth still exists today, just rebranded for Metro Trains Melbourne.

I also photographed the ‘split flap’ Solari boards hidden on the main concourse, which once listed train departures for each line.

Installed in the 1990s, the screens were decommissioned in 2007 but remained in place for a few years, hidden by advertising.

Over at Southern Cross Station I followed a speedy piece of construction – a new loading ramp at the north end of platform 1.

Built to enable the provision of motorail services on The Overland between Melbourne and Adelaide, two weeks later it was virtually complete.

The first cars were loaded onto The Overland in February 2009, but today the ramp stands unused – the motorail service was withdrawn in November 2015.

Finally, we end this month with a trip to Ballarat.

In the small township of Millbrook I came across a level crossing on Old Melbourne Road, protected by bells and lights but no boom barriers.

VicTrack funded a upgrade of this level crossing during the 2012/13 financial year, but the railway line is due to be closed in a year or two time, made redundant by the Ballarat Line Upgrade.

On the shores of Lake Wendouree is the Ballarat Tramway Museum, where I photographed tram 33 departing the St Aidans Drive terminus.

While a short distance away I paid a visit to the future Wendouree station site.

The railway past the station was still being used by trains to Ararat, so the tracks were slewed away from the platform, allowing construction to be completed without delaying V/Line services.

I also had a look at the Alstom workshops at North Ballarat, where the sidings were full of abandoned trains.

I found Comeng carriages 1109T and 533M showing plenty of accident damage; as well as classmate 671M stored in a stripped condition, minus windows, doors, cab front and who knows what else.

Comeng carriage 671M was eventually made part of a new MFB training facility at Craigieburn in 2014, while 1109T and 533M were scrapped in 2010.

I also found Hitachi carriages 204M and 203M.

Both scrapped in 2010.

But there was also signs of new life – Hitachi carriage 225M was under refurbishment.

It reentered service soon after, remaining in service until 2014.

Along with a number of Great Southern Rail carriages being upgraded for use on the Indian Pacific and The Ghan services.

They also saw use on the ultra expensive Southern Spirit service that operated between 2010 and 2012.

But we end some something I just stumbled upon – the abandoned Joe White Maltings factory at Wendouree.

The factory itself had already been demolished, with the silos meeting the same fate in 2010. Houses now occupy the site.

Footnote

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

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Plenty of trains again this month – starting with a 8-car long V/Line special departing Geelong, loaded with cats fans headed for the MCG.

There were also a number of special tour trains running. I captured Steamrail Victoria running a diesel-hauled school holiday special train from Melbourne to Geelong.

The Seymour Railway Heritage Centre also visited town, with a train south to Warrnambool.

And even a train operated by the New South Wales Rail Transport Museum, who took their ‘Southern Auroa’ consist from NSW through to the western Victoria city of Ararat.

I also captured some more everyday workings, like this Warrnambool bound V/Line service in the southern Geelong suburb of Grovedale.

Along with a Waurn Ponds cement train.

And this Genesee & Wyoming Australia operated grain train.

Something unexpected was this power failure at Geelong station, which shut down V/Line rail services.

Trains could still keep keep on running, thanks to the redundant power supplies that feed the railway signals, but the lack of station lighting was considered a safety hazard for passengers.

Finally I paid a visit to the tin shed at Avalon that passes for an airport. The air traffic control is located opposite the terminal.

With passengers using portable stairs to access the aircraft.

Footnote

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

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Yes, I’m talking about you, Frank Costa, the Geelong businessman who made money out of selling fruit, and is now president of the Geelong Football Club.

I wan to kick him in the groin, steal his money, and then relocate the Geelong Football Club somewhere useful, like Antarctica or Upper Mongolia.

Why? Let me begin…

I was headed home from work today, when I though "why is there so much friggin’ traffic?" – there were cars queuing THROUGH roundabouts. I do to the top of the hill at MacKillop Street when I saw why, Geelong was playing at home, and the crowds had just left the stadium. The traffic at the Fyans Street roundabout was banked back to the railway – about 500 metres.

There was no way I was going to wait in that, so I made a turn down a side street, and there was still queues, so I made another turn, and STILL MORE QUEUES! I decided to travel via the Breakwater Bridge, it isn’t the shortest path home, but is shouldn’t be banned up. BUT IT WAS!

So I decided to drop into Robo’s place until the traffic died down. It was just around the corner, I we are all headed over there tonight anyway.

And I have MORE reasons why Frank Costa sucks.

He talked the City Of Greater Geelong into giving the football club $26 million dollars in order to build a new grandstand at Kardinia Park, and it is only used 8 days per year. Yes, the Geelong council would have wasted the money WITHOUT spending it on the football club, but it is the principal that counts…

And finally, the construction of the stadium closed half of Moorabool Street for 18 months, reducing it to 1 + 2 lanes, and very narrow ones at that. Not to mention that infernal 40km/h hour speed limit.

Do you know how much of my time this one guy has wasted…

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