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.

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To make room for these new stops, the road on either side has been reduced to a single lane.

These narrow lanes are quite the hazard for clue challenged motorists to negotiate, going by the damage seen at some of the stops.

They also cause difficulties for long vehicles attempting to turn left into from side streets into Elizabeth – I found this bus run into trouble while operating a route 19 tram replacement service, a few weeks after the new stops had opened.

With the tram stop to his left and traffic light posts to his left, the corner was too tight to get a normal bus around, forcing the driver to reverse.

The next bus driver took the corner wider, but still got stuck.

With a third bus driver finally making it around by driving over the tram tracks in Bourke Street.

Eventually the buses avoided the traffic lane altogether, and took to the tram tracks.

Eventually somebody in a position of responsibility realised long vehicles had no chance of making left turns into Elizabeth Street, so ‘No left turn all vehicles over 8.8m long‘ signs were erected on the side streets leading towards the tram stops.

Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to have fixed the problem – many long vehicles still try and fail to navigate the sharp turn.

Footnote

Wondering where the 8.8 metre figure comes from? The Australian Standard for Parking Facilities
AS 2890.1-2004 (Standards Australia 2004) has the following categories of vehicles to consider when designing roads:

• Passenger vehicle (5.2 m)
• Service vehicle (8.8 m)
• Single unit truck/bus (12.5 m)
• Long rigid bus (14.5 m)
• Articulated bus (19 m)
• Prime mover and semi-trailer (19 m)
• Prime mover and long semi-trailer (25 m)
• B-double (25 m)
• B-double (26 m)
• B-triple (35.4 m, was formerly 36.5 m)
• A-double (Type I road train) (36.2 m)
• A-triple (Type II road train) (53.4 m)

Looks like whoever designed the tram stops along Elizabeth Street decided that service vehicles should be able to make the turn, but not buses or semi-trailers.

Further reading

• Austroads Design Vehicles and Turning Path Templates Guide

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The stops

Currently Yarra Trams is rebuilding the tram stops at the south end of Elizabeth Street, replacing the former ‘safety zones’ with new platform stops that occupy a full city block each.

Once the work is completed later this month, the list of stops used by route 59 trams along Elizabeth Street and Flemington Road will be as follows:

• Stop 1: Flinders Street
• Collins Street
• Stop 2: Collins Street
• Bourke Street
• Stop 3: Bourke Street
• Lonsdale Street
• Little Lonsdale Street
• Stop 5: La Trobe Street
• A’Beckett Street
• Franklin Street
• Therry Street
• Stop 7: Queen Victoria Market (Victoria Street)
• Queensberry Street
• Stop 9: Haymarket (Royal Parade)
• Haymarket roundabout
• Stop 14: Grattan Street
• Royal Melbourne Hospital entrance
• Stop 15: Park Drive
• Stop 16: Gatehouse Street
• Royal Children’s Hospital entrance
• Stop 19: Royal Children’s Hospital (Abbotsford Street)
• Stop 20: Melrose Street
• Stop 21: Racecourse Road

All up that is 12 tram stops, as well as 21 sets of traffic lights. Note how the stop numbers jump around!

To explain the gaps in tram stop numbers, I consulted the Edition 27 of the Melway (dated 2000) which gave me the following list of tram stops.

• Stop 1: Flinders Street (Flinders Lane)
• Stop 2: Collins Street
• Little Collins Street
• Stop 3: Bourke Street
• Little Bourke Street
• Stop 4: Lonsdale Street
• Little Lonsdale Street
• Stop 5: La Trobe Street
• A’Beckett Street
• Stop 6: Franklin Street
• Therry Street
• Stop 7: Queen Victoria Market (Victoria Street)
• Stop 8: Queensberry Street
• Stop 9: Haymarket (Royal Parade)
• Stop 13: Peel Street (southbound only)
• Stop 14: Grattan Street
• Royal Melbourne Hospital entrance
• Stop 15: Park Drive
• Stop 16: Gatehouse Street
• Stop 17: Royal Children’s Hospital
• Stop 19: Abbotsford Street Interchange
• Stop 20: Melrose Street
• Stop 21: Racecourse Road

So a decade ago there were five more tram stops and three fewer sets of traffic lights encountered by route 57 trams.

What happened?

Some inconsistencies in tram stop numbering can be easily explained: stops 10, 11 and 12 never existed, the gap due to route 55 joining route 59 at Peel Street. Stop 18 is also missing from the 2000 list: presumably it was eliminated before that time.

Stop 4 at Lonsdale Street is a victim of the present program of work on Elizabeth Street,due to it being a short walk from the new stops a block south at Bourke and Little Bourke Street, or a block north at Little Lonsdale and Lonsdale Street. A side effect is the removal of the interchange between Elizabeth Street trams and the SmartBus services towards Doncaster – the same change was made to Swanston Street last year.

Further along the line, we start to find large gaps between tram stops. The removal of stop 6 at Franklin Street a more difficult one to justify, forcing passengers to walk two blocks north to the Queen Victoria Market, or two blocks south to La Trobe Street. The original safety zones at the site were located a reasonable distance from the neighbouring stops: presumably building a platform stop there was canned as traffic lanes would be lost.

Competing demands on road space also killed stop 8 at Queensberry Street: it was removed as part of the VicRoads managed rebuilding of the Haymarket roundabout. The rebuilding of the Haymarket roundabout was also responsible for the two new sets of traffic lights: one at the entry to the central island, and a separate out-of-phase set on the exit.

Another oddity in tram stop spacing is between Park Drive and the Abbotsford Street Interchange, and is a result of the rebuilding of the Royal Children’s Hospital: stop 17 outside the former entrance was removed a few years ago, replaced by an upgraded platform stop down the road at stop 19. For the similar reasons stop 16 at Gatehouse Street is probably on death row: still just a safety zone with Flemington Road’s right turns lanes adjacent, there isn’t enough room to build a new platform here.

So trams are now faster eh?

One would think by removing stops, trams would now being able to travel faster along Elizabeth Street and Racecourse Road. On that front, you are wrong: every single set of traffic lights along the way appears to be configured to do the opposite. Here is an example at the removed Franklin Street tram stop:

If it isn’t bad enough for to roll up to a set of traffic lights and need to wait, this tram copped it even worse – the traffic lights change to red right in front of it.

The most obvious fix is traffic light priority – but we’ve been asking for that for a long time.

Further reading

• Myth: The purpose of tram priority is to stop trams running late from the PTUA
• Myth: Tram passengers benefit from fewer tram stops from the PTUA
• Observational analysis of tram delays in inner Melbourne from the PTUA

Notes

Stop 1 is the Sir Robert Risson terminus: rebuilding of this stop is still to come.

Stops 2, 3 and 5 have been just rebuilt as platform stops.

Stop 4 at Lonsdale Street is about to closed.

Stop 6 at Franklin Street has been eliminated, forcing passengers to walk north to the Queen Victoria Market, or south to La Trobe Street.

Stop 7 at the Queen Victoria Market was rebuilt as a platform stop in 2007.

Stop 8 at Queensberry Street was removed in 2011 as part of the rebuilding of the Haymarket roundabout, forcing passengers to walk a block north to Royal Parade, or south to the Queen Victoria Market.

Stop 9 was rebuilt as a platform stop at the same time two sets of traffic lights replaced the Haymarket roundabout.

Stop 13 at Peel Street also also removed as part of the rebuilding of the Haymarket roundabout.

Stop 14 at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and stop 15 at Park Drive were rebuilt as platform stops around 2008.

Stop 16 at Gatehouse Street still remains as a safety zone, but is probably on the kill list due to the proximity of the Park Drive stop.

Stop 17 at the Royal Children’s Hospital was removed in 2011, at the same time as the new platform being opened at stop 19.

Stop 20 at Melrose Street is still a safety zone, and will require road lanes to be removed if a platform stop was built.

Stop 21 at Racecourse Road is also a safety zone, and would probably get killed off due to the proximity of the existing platform at stop 22, Boundary Road.

Footnote

Between writing this piece and publishing it, Yarra Trams have announced the death of stop 21 at Racecourse Road:

Since the introduction of Stop 21 Flemington Road and Racecourse Road, safety requirements for tram stops have changed.

Yarra Trams is committed to ensuring the safety of its passengers.

A recent review by Yarra Trams has concluded that this stop should be closed permanently in both directions, effective from Sunday, 24 November 2013.

Routes 57 and 59 – Stop 21 Racecourse Road and Flemington Road will close permanently in both directions.

Passengers can catch trams from Stop 20 Melrose Street and Stop 22 Flemington Road.

Another one bites the dust.

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Located next door to the Myer Emporium on the south-east corner of Elizabeth and Lonsdale Streets, across from St Francis’ Church, the site was originally occupied by a four storey stone building. This photo from the State Library of Victoria dates from 1959, and shows the view east down Lonsdale Street.

Plans for Myer House were floated in the 1970s, with this artists impression dating from 1973 – thiss time we are looking south down Elizabeth Street.

Work started soon after, with this 1975 photo by Wolfgang Sievers showing construction well underway, with the stone coloured concrete cladding moving slowly up the tower.

This undated photo by Jeffery Coles shows the building after it was completed, showing the “M” logo atop the stark white tower, and the “Myer House” lettering on the brown granite podium walls. Back at ground level the shopping arcade was managed by Myer, with a doorway linking it to their adjacent Lonsdale Street department store, and a vehicle ramp descended from Lonsdale Street into a loading dock for the store.

By the time the late 1990s had rolled around Myer had moved out of their namesake building, with their store support offices having to the upper levels of the Lonsdale Street department store building, as well as the Coles Myer “deathstar” on Toorak Road at Tooronga.

With the building otherwise empty the building was sold off, with the new owner converting the office building into an apartment tower by Q4 of 2002 for Somerset Serviced Residences. From the exterior not much changed:

• The outside was painted dark grey with light beige stripes down each corner,
• Small balconies were cut into the eastern and western faces of the tower,
• A third level of carparking was added above the previous upper level deck.

Meanwhile the bland building still dominates Elizabeth Street.

Another decade on and Myer has now completely withdrawn from the city block, having sold the Lonsdale Street building and moved their department store into a refurbished building on Bourke Street. All that will remain of the heritage listed Lonsdale Street store will be the facades on Lonsdale and Little Bourke Streets, with the new owners Colonial First State Global Asset Management currently bulldozing the rest of the block to build a new shopping complex called “The Emporium”.

The demolition job is a story for another day…

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