The changing railway scene

This month I headed out east to the site of the new Lynbrook station.

Located on the Cranbourne line between Dandenong and Merinda Park, it opened to passengers in April 2012.

I also visited the future site of Williams Landing station.

Back then part of the runway for the former RAAF base was still in place, but housing development was slowly encroaching on it.

Williams Landing station opened in April 2013, while the only sign of the former airfield is the heritage listed aircraft hangars next door.

I also took a look at Middle Footscray before the Regional Rail Link project bulldozed it’s way through the suburb.

The entire north side of Buckley Street was once full of houses.

But it was acquired to make room for the extra tracks.

Once the railway was was complete, the remaining land was sold off, including a section of land that was once a park. Townhouses are currently being built on the site.

Changes were also afoot at Southern Cross Station.

The food court on the mezzanine floor had been boarded up.

And the hoardings advised of ‘Exciting New Retailers’.

As the previously open spaces were replaced by more shops.

My visit to Melbourne Central station wasn’t prompted by pending works, but the scene a decade ago was a little different.

The CRT next train displays were still in place – coloured by line.

As was the ramp between La Trobe Street and the upper level of the underground station concourse.

The CRT screens were eventually replaced by LCD screens in November 2011, while the ramp to La Trobe Street was demolished in 2016 to make way for the Aurora Melbourne Central development.

Ding ding on the trams

September 2011 saw the abolition of ‘secret’ tram route numbers – replaced by the ‘A’ and ‘D’ suffixes for altered routes and depot bound trams.

I also found a broken down D2 class tram at Ascot Vale

The pantograph was damaged, disabling the tram, so mechanics had to cut it off.

Shunt the tram with their heavy recover truck.

Couple up the tram to a working classmate.

Then tow it back to the depot, the combined tram stretching 60 metres.

Something different at Docklands

On 25 September 2011 Searoad Ferries an open day at Waterfront City in Melbourne’s Docklands to show off the newly refurbished Queenscliff-Sorrento car ferry ‘MV Queenscliff’.

They also brought Thomas the Tank Engine along for the ride, on loan from the Bellarine Railway.

While I was in the area, I wandered around heritage listed Shed 20-21 at Victoria Dock.

Constructed in 1926 as a single 396.2 metre long (1300 foot) and 24.5 metre wide (80 foot) cargo shed, it was once a busy wharf, but now lies in the shadows of the Bolte Bridge.

But was now abandoned and neglected, covered in graffiti.

In December 2012 part of the shed roof collapsed, leading to it’s demolition. Ron Barassi Senior Park now occupies the site.

A hole in the Melbourne CBD

A big hole was being created in the middle of Melbourne.

Next door to the Myer store on Bourke Street.

Excavators demolishing the former Lonsdale Street store to make room for the ‘Emporium’ shopping centre.

The complex opened in 2014.

Rubbish in the streets

A decade ago the changeover to digital TV in Australia was well underway, so during hard rubbish season old-fashioned CRT screen TVs lined the streets.

Analog TV in Melbourne held on a little longer, the last transmitter being switched off in December 2013.

Something else that should’ve gone out in hard rubbish was the Melbourne Star Observation Wheel.

Opened in December 2008, two years behind schedule, it closed again 40 days later due to cracks in the wheel. It was decided to tear down the wheel and start over.

The rebuilt wheel reopened in December 2013, providing the finest views of Melbourne’s rail freight terminals, until it’s closure was announced in September 2021, effective immediately.

And everyday things the pandemic took away

Who remembers going to work in an office, and sitting out in the sun for lunch?

Going to live music gigs?

And big theatre crowds?

Thanks to the pandemic we haven’t seen any of that for 18 months, but hopefully things will start getting back to normal soon – so go get vaccinated!

Footnote

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

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Down in Docklands

We start down in the windswept streets of Docklands.

Where I had a look over the last remaining part of Melbourne Yard – the heritage listed No. 2 Goods Shed completed in 1889.

And looked across to 67 Spencer Street – the former Victorian Railways head office.

Then walked home past the ‘Wailing Wall‘.

None of these views are possible today – the Melbourne Quarter development covers the block bounded by Wurundjeri Way and Collins Street, the retained wall partially demolished to provided vehicle access.

Taking off

October 2010 saw me pay a visit to Essendon Airport.

Where the terminal looked much the same as when it served as Melbourne’s international gateway.

But the scene is different today – a $4 million renovation completed in 2019 has converted the main arrival hall into office space.

An even more dramatic transformation was at RAAF Williams in Laverton.

Once empty paddocks between the Princes Freeway.

A decade later the airfield is gone, turned into the suburb of Williams Landing.

Big road spending

Work on the $371 million West Gate Bridge Strengthening project was well underway, with scaffolding covering the bridge while work was completed to add a fifth traffic lane in each direction.

Another road project was the $48.5 million Kororoit Creek Road duplication, which removed a level crossing on the Werribee line.

And Laverton station received yet another car park extension, taking it all the way to the Princes Freeway overpass.

At the rate the car park is being extended, it will soon join up with Aircraft station!

New trains

Delivery of more X’Trapolis trains was starting to ramp up during 2010, the imported body shells waiting outside the Alstom plant in Ballarat awaiting final fitout.

And a new stabling yard had just opened at Newport to park all of these extra trains.

A decade later the new HCMT fleet is being built at Newport, the Alstom Ballarat plant mothballed due to with no work, the workers redeployed to the V/Line maintenance workshops down the road.

Forgotten heritage

I made my way up to the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre.

Where I found a tine capsule from the 1980s.

Buffet carriage ‘Tanjil’.

The carriage remains in storage today, awaiting a future restoration to service.

Meanwhile in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, the Preston Workshops was a dumping ground for retired W class trams.

But the scene today is different – in 2014 the old trams were moved out and given away to new homes, making way for the ‘New Preston Depot‘ that opened in 2016 for the fleet of brand new E class trams.

Meanwhile Flinders Street Station was a dank and crumbing place.

The only upside being a dance party happening in the Campbell Arcade subway.

A decade later the tiles have finally been fixed, part of the $100 million Flinders Street Station upgrade project, but for the Campbell Arcade the future is not as rosy – half the shops are due to be bulldozed by the Metro Tunnel project to provided a connection to the new Town Hall station.

And things that never change

Promotional crap blocking access to Melbourne Central Station.

It just keeps on happening.

Footnote

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

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In the city

Trams on Swanston Street still stopped in the middle of the road, leaving anyone with limited mobility out in the cold.

The current platform stops were completed between May 2011 and July 2012.

At Richmond station, additional next train displayed were installed at the city end, each hiding beneath their own private section of roof.

Passengers had to wait until 2015 to gain their own shelters, installed at a cost of $7.28 million.

And at Southern Cross Station work on the new platform 15 and 16 was still crawling along.

They eventually opened in December 2013.

While over at the entrance to the country platforms, Myki readers had been installed.

Myki eventually replaced paper V/Line tickets in February 2014.

As part of the rollout the ‘Myki Discovery Centre‘ at Southern Cross was refitted as a customer service centre.

But it is worth remembering that Metcard wasn’t perfect – the gates needed regular clearing to ensure they read magnetic stripe tickets reliably.

Out in nowhere land

Out the back of Docklands, I explored the disused railway sidings that once served the port.

Including an abandoned passenger carriage.

Wegmann carriage OWA91 was originally built for the Commonwealth Railways in 1952, passing through a number of owners before arriving in Melbourne in 2006. There it remained until September 2017, when it was destroyed by fire in arson attack.

But beside the Maribyrnong River at Footscray something new was taking shape – the Heavenly Queen Temple.

The main hall opened to the public in 2015, with further halls still under construction today.

Changed scenes in Footscray

At Footscray station, the new footbridge was finally completed.

Nearby I found an old Darrell Lea sign hand painted on the shops over the railway line at Nicholson Street.

And at West Footscray station I found a V/Line train headed for the city, crawling along behind a stopping all stations suburban train.

None of which exist today, Regional Rail Link having completely transformed the area.

To make room for the extra V/Line tracks, the footbridge at Footscray station was partially demolished in 2013, the shops on the Nicholson Street bridge were removed, and a massive new station at West Footscray was built on a new site.

Thankfully for Deer Park the $5 million upgrade to the station platform and car park didn’t go to waste.

New timetables introduced following the completion of Regional Rail Link saw the station get three to four trains an hour, instead of the train every two hours it used to see.

And the police state

In the streets of Footscray I found a Victoria Police CCTV van.

It entered service in 2008, until an officer tried to drive it under a low bridge, destroying the cameras on the roof!

Footnote

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

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A different skyline

The skyline west end of the Melbourne CBD was much emptier.

Melbourne Star observation wheel still in pieces.

Nothing behind Southern Cross Station.

Or Docklands Stadium.

Worries of flammable cladding yet to come.

The asbestos filled Spencer Street Power Station was gone, with a display suite for the ‘Upper West Side’ development occupying the site.

The $550 million development was completed in 2016, with 2,207 apartments across four towers.

And over at Spotswood, VicTrack had started cleaning up a similarly contaminated railway yard.

The soil contaminated with arsenic, copper, lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons was entombed beneath a concrete slab, at what is now a rail freight depot for Sadleirs Transport.

The former Royal Dental Hospital had also been turned into a big hole.

The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre was built on the site, opening in 2016.

But the Royal Women’s Hospital was still there.

It lay empty for another decade, until recently demolished for a $425 million University of Melbourne expansion.

Transport

On 6 June 2010 the ribbon was cut on a brand new railway station – Coolaroo on the Craigieburn line, between Broadmeadows and Roxburgh Park.

With then-Premier John Brumby and Minister for Public Transport Martin Pakula in attendance.

Over at Southern Cross Station the platforms were covered in artificial grass.

As part of Dairy Farmers’ “City to Country” campaign for yoghurt.

2010 saw new trains finally arriving on the Melbourne rail network to address peak time crowding, but there was nowhere to park them at night.

So a $12 million stabling yard at Newport was under construction.

But even bigger money was also being spent on road projects – work was underway on the $371 million West Gate Bridge Strengthening project.

With a web of scaffolding erected beneath the bridge.

The work reinforced the bridge to carry five lanes in each direction, following the narrowing of traffic lanes from 3.5m to 3.1m wide, with a 0.5m shoulder.

And a holiday related footnote

I headed over to South Australia on holiday.

Where I found The Overland passing through Mount Lofty.

Making a trip down to Victor Harbor for the horse tramway.

And the SteamRanger tourist railway.

And going for a ride on their clapped out diesel suburban trains.

But the South Australian Government was busy spruiking their upcoming public transport investments.

Footnote

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

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Remember Connex and Metcards? Here we see the ticket gates at Glenferrie station.

Down at North Melbourne station the new concourse at the city end was almost complete. This massive steel deck was required to protect the gas mains underneath from the heavy crane used to remove the last bits of formwork.

Down the line at Footscray station, rail replacement buses were running, thanks to a damaged section of overhead wiring on the track towards Newport – all thanks to a scrote who threw a chair over the edge of the station footbridge.

Note the lack of low floor buses – you can blame Sita Buslines for that.

The footbridge in question was still the rickety timber and tin structure dating back to the 1900s.

But the bridge’s days were numbered.

With construction on the $14.7 million dollar replacement about to start.

Another upgrade was the introduction of ‘Parkiteer‘ bike cages around the network.

Launched in February 2008, initially $1 million in funding was allocated for the installation of up to 20 bike cages.

But $1 million is a drop in the ocean in the money spent on railway station car parks.

In 2009 the massive car park at Laverton station was undergoing yet another expansion – stretching halfway to Aircraft station.

By 2014 the car park was rated the ‘worst in Melbourne for finding a space‘, with local residents getting sick and tired of motorists from elsewhere clogging their suburb, but the 2018 State Election saw the promise of still more parking spaces made by the Andrews Government.

July 2009 also saw me take a wander around the back blocks of Docklands.

There were plenty of abandoned railway tracks running around the wharves – this is now the corner of Collins and Bourke Street.

While the other end was shed 21 – since demolished, erasing the last trace of Victoria Dock.

Closer to North Melbourne station was the former ‘Hump’ at Melbourne Yard.

Opened in 1968, the yard was used to sort freight wagons. Each wagon would be pushed to the top of the ‘hump’ and then released, being allowed to roll into a destination track.

The entire yard was controlled by a primitive computer, with remote controlled brakes and points ensuring that each wagon ended up on the correct train.

But by the time of my visit the yard was long closed – the last train passed over the top in 1987.

The bulk of the yard was demolished in 1997 to make way for the Docklands Stadium, but the ‘hump’ crest lasted until 2010, when it was demolished to make room for the new Regional Rail Link tracks.

I also swung past the Melbourne Steel Terminal, used to tranship freight for the BlueScope Steel plant on the Stony Point line at Hastings.

Located in the middle of the ‘E’ Gate urban renewal precinct, the freight terminal was closed in 2015 and cleared of tracks soon after.

But all of those plans have come to naught – the land has been handed over to Transurban for city access ramps connecting to the West Gate ‘Tunnel’.

And finally, we end down on the outskirts of Geelong, where the railway towards Warrnambool passed through anonymous empty paddocks.

But in 2013 this spot was chosen as the site of the new ‘Grovedale’ station, which opened to passengers as ‘Waurn Ponds’ on October 2014.

Footnote

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

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On the bus

The Fishermans Bend urban renewal area has been divided into four precincts.

With permits already granted for high rise development across much of the Montague Precinct.

But no plans have been made to improve public transport.

With four bus routes the only link between Fishermans Bend and the Melbourne CBD:

• 235 – City – Fishermans Bend via Williamstown Road
• 237 – City – Fishermans Bend via Lorimer Street
• 234 – Garden City – City (Queen Victoria Market)
• 236 – Garden City – Queen Victoria Market via City

Routes 235 and 237 depart from outside Southern Cross Station.

But no facilities are provided for waiting passengers.

Not even a token bus shelter.

These buses travel along Collins Street.

Where they get stuck in traffic.

Behind queues of single occupant cars.

While being overtaken by trams, which have their own dedicated tracks.

But still the passengers pile onboard buses in spite of the shabby service.

Can you imagine how many more people would leave their car at home if the bus service was improved?

So what to do?

A tram bridge between Docklands and Fishermans Bend is a frequent idea that does the rounds – through it won’t be cheap.

But in the meantime, a bus shelter at Southern Cross Station won’t break the bank.

And what about some real bus priority.

Route 234 and 236 share the tram tracks along Queensbridge Street.

So why can’t the same thing happen along the Docklands end of Collins Street?

Footnote

Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning Victoria animation showing approved developments in the Fishermans Bend urban renewal area.

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Port Phillip Council launched their version of the idea back in 2014, with The Age writing at the time:

Designs have emerged of an inner city council’s plan for a new bridge for trams over the Yarra River at Docklands.

The Port Phillip Council design, which would cost around $350 million to build, would include a drawbridge so that boats using a Docklands marina could get in and out.

The tram bridge design has been widely circulated within state and local government circles, and Port Phillip’s detailed plan for it and the Fishermans Bend area has been leaked to Fairfax Media.

An engineering expert said the design would be difficult to build, because of overhead wires and the need for a tram to always be ‘‘earthed’’ for power reasons.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle isn’t an engineer, but felt that he could still have an opinion on whether the structure could be built.

‘‘That is horrible.’’

‘‘That design is the epitome of ugliness; it desecrates the Yarra and it desecrates Yarra’s Edge,’’ he said of the area of Docklands closest to the West Gate Freeway on the banks of the river.

He said the proposed tram line, which would need to rise up to two or three levels in order to continue over the West Gate Freeway and reach Fishermans Bend, would ‘‘divide a community at Yarra’s Edge’’.

The proposed tram line would also ‘‘ruin the only bit of open space that’s there’’.

“From an engineering point of view, we don’t believe it can be built, he said.

‘‘Creating a tram-way in the air to divide a community like Yarra’s Edge’’ was a terrible idea, he said.

While an actual engineer approached to comment on the proposal was a little more open minded.

Engineering expert Martin Baggott, who formerly worked at engineers GHD specialising in rail design, said the drawbridge proposed as part of the plan was possible but had serious challenges.

‘‘It’s not easy because of the overhead wire. That could be surmountable, but the real problem is the return current,’’ he said.

He said there were very few international examples of drawbridges for trams – he pointed to a drawbridge with a train in Malaysia, while others have raised tram bridges in Europe as examples of comparable designs.

Mr Baggott said such a drawbridge posed ‘‘considerable engineering difficulties. It’s not impossible, but there are some pretty hard parts to it’’.

Mr Baggott said that, if the tram line did need to rise, it would not be a big issue. ‘‘Trams can get over considerable inclines,’’ he said, pointing to a tram overpass that was once on King Street that was relatively steep.

So where else can you find tramways crossing opening bridges?

Some overseas examples

I went digging for overseas examples of trams crossing movable bridges, with the Galata Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey being my first find.

Overhead lines aren’t an issue at all – metal structures either side of the opening span provides a secure location for the overhead wires to be terminated.

Photo by Roger W Haworth, via Wikimedia Commons

Trams cross the gap without any trouble, with the pantograph following the solid metal bars either side of the air gap.

Photo by Roger W Haworth, via Wikimedia Commons

In the USA, San Francisco’s ‘T Third Street’ light rail line crosses the Islais Creek Channel with a bascule bridge.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The Netherlands also have a number of tramways crossing movable bridges – the Kattensloot Bridge in Amsterdam is one, and the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam is another.

Photo by Ziko van Dijk, via Wikimedia Commons

And not quite a tram, but I found a photo of this rolling lift railway bridge over the Hunte river in Oldenburg, Germany – again, overhead wires are no problem.

Photo by Jacek Rużyczka, via Wikimedia Commons

I’m sure there are plenty more examples of electrified railways and tramways crossing movable bridges to be found across the world.

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