Next time you turn up to a Melbourne railway station, only to discover that buses are replacing trains for level crossing removal works, and the bus stop is an epic walk away, just remember that it doesn’t have to be that way – once upon a time public transport operators actually used to put some effort into making the interchange between bus and train easy.
Today we look at the Middleborough Road Project of 2007, which isolated the Lilydale and Belgrave lines for six weeks while a new rail cutting was excavated under Middleborough Road at Box Hill.
Trying to catch a bus at Box Hill
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of trying to catch a bus at Box Hill station, you know how convoluted the route is – first a set of escalators to exit the platform.
Then futz around with the ticket gates.
Dodge clueless shoppers inside Box Hill Central shopping centre.
Then take a vertigo inducing trip up another set of escalators into the middle of the shopping centre atrium.
And you’re finally there.
So what did the Middleborough Road Project do?
Then-rail operator Connex still called in the buses.
Up to 48 buses will run in peak periods between Box Hill and Blackburn.
The trip between Blackburn and Box Hill should take no longer than 17 minutes, including time to board and disembark, and walk between the bus and the train.
During peak periods and throughout the day on weekdays, a continuous shuttle bus service will operate between Box Hill and Blackburn. Buses will depart as soon as they are full and return as soon as the passengers on board have disembarked.
After 9pm on weekdays and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, buses will operate to a set timetable. This will correspond to the temporary timetables for train services.
But built two temporary bus interchanges for them to operate from.
Blackburn
Buses will depart a temporary bus interchange just to the north of the station. Up to eight buses can stop in this interchange which will be built over an existing small car park and on the station side of Railway Road.
An extra DDA compliant crossing point is being built to the west of the station to accommodate passenger movement to and from the buses. This walkway will cross from the end of platforms 1 and 2, north to temporary bus interchange. It will not extend southwards to South Parade.
In addition, a number of gateways will be made in the fence separating platform 3 (which is the northern-most platform) and the adjacent temporary bus interchange in the car park.
Box Hill
A temporary bus interchange will be built next to the station, under Box Hill Central. The railway tracks, which are not in use during the shutdown, will be covered and the interchange built over them.
The interchange will have capacity for up to eight buses at a time to load/unload.
A pedestrian bridge, with stairs, will link platforms 2/3, with the bus interchange.
And how it worked
The interchange at Box Hill was the most impressive, with concrete being laid right over the top of the railway tracks, but in a way that trains could still run.
So after the railway was shut down, buses could drive right in along the tracks.
Stopping at a temporary bus interchange built on the tracks beneath the shopping centre.
Passengers being able to connect to trains on platforms 2 and 3 using a temporary footbridge over the bus roadway.
Buses then headed for Blackburn along the railway tracks.
Exiting onto Whitehorse Road via a ramp at Linsley Street.
And today?
2023 saw buses replace trains between Camberwell and Box Hill for level crossing removal works at Mont Albert Road, Mont Albert and Union Road, Surrey Hills – so how much effort was put into the replacement buses for that project?
At Camberwell station passengers had a short walk from the platforms to a shelter on Cookson Street to wait for buses.
With traffic controllers guiding buses out onto Burke Road.
But at the Box Hill end passengers got nothing – having to fight their way out of the station and along the Market Street mall to Whitehorse Road, where the buses would stop outside the shops.
In all an incredible contrast to the world of 2007 – we now grade separate dozens of level crossings each year without blinking, but put almost zero effort into making life easy for the passengers having their travel disrupted.
Further reading
- Vicsig page on the Middleborough Road Project
- Connex page on the Middleborough Road Project
- Forgotten lessons from rail replacement buses by me, and
- A look at the longest railway line closures in Melbourne, also by me.
I hope PTV get your emails!
They could do with the lessons from here as well!
https://wongm.com/2019/04/forgotten-rail-replacement-bus-lessons-melbourne/
That Middleborough Rd grade separation was the pre-LXRP Proof-of-concept prototype trial run.
The actual first target for a LX removal was Springvale Rd at Nunawading, but given how significant that arterial was, they didn’t want to risk screwing it up first try on such a busy corridor. So they selected Middleborough Rd (still in needing of grade separation and curve easing) as a bit of a prototype project and trial run to practice with the sort of fast-moving occupation and bus replacement they needed for Springvale Rd.
Springvale Rd LX removal happened in 2009-10, as did Springvale, Sunshine and Mitcham (all in 2014) before the now-successful program got rebranded as LXRP in 2015.
Maybe they expected 6 weeks of mainline shutdown to be more reputationally damaging than it ended up being, hence why they went to such effort? Now that some sort of a shutdown happens every other week, maybe the thinking is that we’re so used to it that such inconvenience doesn’t actually result in reputational damage. If so, that is a shame.
Thanks for the background info – the choice of Middleborough Road did seem odd given that it was a relatively minor road compared to others in the area.
A unique, likely once in a lifetime arrangement; even the last major shut when they built Union station operational trains was on the “wrong side” although with having just one operating platform was less than ideal that that and lack of swift hop on and off for drivers meant rarely on time running (story for another time).
Depending on what’s installed for the SRL project it will be the only reason for major long disruption at Box Hill; would see one of two things, trains terminate at UNN and BBN or finally fable platform 1 being made operational along with platform 4 with the centre platform closed in order for digging the subject connection to the new SRL platforms.
It looks like SRL will be a big box over on Whitehorse Road, so they won’t be an impact on the existing rail network.