Victorian Rail & Tram Observations 2017

[BroadGauge]

New thread for the new year!

[BroadGauge]

Saw a Comeng train operating today's 14:55 Box Hill - Flinders Street service. Must be due to the number of X'Trapolis sets stuck east of Ringwood during the current shutdown.

Also noticed that the long 65km/hr speed restriction on the up line between Watergardens and Keilor Plains is still in place, has been there for about a month. Hadn't caught the train for a couple of weeks before today.

[Heihachi_73]

Saw an X'Trap stabled at Mordialloc last night which was hiding two Siemens sets from view, and another (or the same?) running empty between platforms 9/10 after I got off my up Frankston at Flinders Street. I was on a 6 car EDI Comeng, but strangely the periscope panel behind the cab was Alstom blue (sans logo of course; it was a 300-series M car, maybe a 340 or 360 number).

[Heihachi_73]

I have had buses U-turn at Nelson Rd, other buses continue down to Elgar Rd and do three lefts around the block, and others go via the freeway and through the EastLink tunnel. I have also seen SmartBuses on a number of runs (all in PTV orange, the only telltale sign being the LED PID unit inside the bus), as well as a few oddball buses such as a couple in National red and yellow (O405/Custom), and the old 1990s Grenda livery (35, B10BLE/CR221L, no air conditioning).

[josh01]

Unless your all unaware Ballarat is going to have its first white night on March the 4th this year .
Is vline going to run extra service to cope with the amount of people going to go to Ballarat ??
Craig would you know if vline going to run all night ??
Cheers Josh

[Craig]

Unless your all unaware Ballarat is going to have its first white night on March the 4th this year .
Is vline going to run extra service to cope with the amount of people going to go to Ballarat ??
Craig would you know if vline going to run all night ??
Cheers Josh

I haven't heard anything yet regarding the level of extra services V/Line will be putting on. Interesting to note this is the same weekend as the Avalon Airshow which is already a busy 3 days for V/Line with plenty of extra trains on the Geelong line.

Kind Regards


Craig

[Heihachi_73]

The first "Lilydale" train from the city (0502) was 15 minutes late this morning, entering Flinders Street station from the west rather than via Richmond. It also stopped at East Richmond for no reason.

[josh01]

Does anyone know if Vline Velocity trains have CCTV in them ????

[BroadGauge]

I was talking to someone before who told me they caught an express rail bus from Burnley to Ringwood today which went via Citylink, Monash Freeway then Eastlink to get to Ringwood, essentially going via Dandenong on the way.

More than slightly indirect route.. perhaps it's quicker than getting through Kew to get on the Eastern Freeway at the Chandler Highway?

[jarf]

More than slightly indirect route.. perhaps it's quicker than getting through Kew to get on the Eastern Freeway at the Chandler Highway?

Google suggested Chandler Highway then the Eastern would've been a minute quicker but 15km shorter. Canterbury Road would've taken the same amount of time and 18km shorter. I imagine the traffic that way would be more unpredictable though.

[Andy O]

I must say, judging by the amount of buses out and about Saturday, this would probably have to be up there with one of the larger weekend shutdowns that I can think of to take place. Thoughts??

[712M]

I must say, judging by the amount of buses out and about Saturday, this would probably have to be up there with one of the larger weekend shutdowns that I can think of to take place. Thoughts??

Comparable ones in recent years have been Footscray/Flemington Racecourse - Sunbury (RRL works, weekday and weekend), Burnley - Glen Waverley (weekday and weekend), Oakleigh - Cranbourne/Pakenham (weekend), North Melbourne - Werribee/Williamstown (weekend) and Parliament - Bell/Heidelberg (weekend). Of course V/Line frequently suspends entire lines for weekend works.

[josh01]

Why is there so much bus replacement on this weekend on the following lines . Cranbourne Pakenham / Frankston / Glen Waverley / Alamain / Belgrave / Lilydale is there enough of buses and drives Ventura going to have a busy weekend

[Heihachi_73]

On the last days/weeks of the Box Hill/Ringwood bustitution (including the Burnley-Ringwood part) I saw buses from Ventura, Quince's, Dyson's and Nuline (and maybe Sita?), including a number of high floor buses. A couple of them from Ventura were still in the National livery. I wouldn't expect a single bus operator to run every rail replacement service across Melbourne at once, no matter how large they are.

[Andy O]

Anyone semi retired, or even after extra cash for that matter would be in there element. Could easily make decent coin if you did both days of the weekend.

[DENAIR]

Kastoria , sita and Dysons were out supplementing Ventura on rail Sat 11th feb

[Roderick Smith]

Roderick.

February 23 2017 Melbourne's relationship with our trams is completely irrational .
Catch a route 11 tram to the end of the line in Preston and you will find JS Grey Reserve, a nice if unremarkable neighbourhood park. There is plenty of grassy open space on which to fling a frisbee, trees for shade, kids' playground, a barbecue, even a small rose garden.
It's well used by locals, but in recent months they've watched on as a big chunk of it has disappeared behind temporary fencing and a hulking grey electrical substation has been built. Preston folk are not the only ones who have had to give up a bit of public space in recent times for new tram infrastructure.
Though trams have always been a big deal in Melbourne, this is arguably more true than ever now. Photo: Joe Armao, Fairfax Media.
About a dozen new substations have gone up across inner Melbourne, and while there is nothing pretty about them, and some communities have complained, it's clear the city needs them. They pump extra juice into the tram network, which is required to power the 70 large new E-Class trams that are being rolled into service at the rate of one a month.
The E-Class are the part of an investment of almost $1.4 billion in boosting the capacity of the tram system, without which Melbourne's public transport network would not have a hope of keeping up with the runaway pace of population growth. Melbourne's tram patronage surged 12 per cent to carry more than 200 million people last year, a figure that puts them in the same ballpark as the city's trains (which carried 233 million), and closer to becoming the backbone of the city's public transport system.
Though trams have always been a big deal in Melbourne, this is arguably more true than ever now. The city would grind to a halt without them. And yet it's hard to shake the feeling that Melbourne still doesn't truly respect its trams.
We love them, but as a sort of feelgood city mascot; rattly old things shuttling tourists around the Hoddle Grid or as pieces of art soaring above a full MCG stadium.
We are less sold on giving them the priority they need to move hundreds of thousands of people efficiently around the city each day, even as apartment buildings sprout like mushrooms along many of our tram corridors, a result of a planning policy that is explicit about building dense housing in public transport-rich areas. And yet despite the huge investment in trams, the city is still failing to put them to their best use to relieve road congestion that gets inexorably worse each year.
Consider this irrationality. About 200,000 passengers a day catch a tram along St Kilda Road. That's about as many people as drive over the West Gate Bridge each day.
If there's an accident on the bridge and the freeway is blocked for a few hours, politicians and commentators line up to argue that we urgently need to spend a lazy $18 billion on another east-west freeway. And yet the city's busiest tram corridor doesn't even have enough separation with general traffic to stop a delivery van driver shutting the whole thing down by doing an ill-timed U-turn in front of a moving tram.
This lack of separation means tram-on-car bingles happen two or three times a day on average. This causes serious tram delays and in too many cases, serious injuries for passengers on board.
Melbourne's tram network is unique. It's the world's biggest, and almost 80 per cent of it is along roads it shares with other traffic This makes it more like a slow streetcar system than an efficient light rail network. But the sheer weight of numbers demands Melbourne's trams be given light rail-style priority.
On inner-city streets such as Smith Street, Nicholson Street and Bridge Road, trams move more people than cars do.
Yarra Trams just had its best month ever for on-time running in January, when 87.8 per cent of trams ran on time. It's reasonable to assume the holiday drop-off in traffic contributed to this good result, but the city should be aiming for a similar result every month.
No smart city should be content to let a tram with 200 passengers on board crawl along at 10 km/h among a row of cars that each have one person inside. There are two main ways this can change: more traffic light priority, which should be straightforward, and less on-street parking on busy tram routes, which is trickier.
The issue of on-street parking has held back efforts to improve tram priority in Melbourne. The route 96 project, an attempt to turn the busy tram route into an end-to-end light rail, began in 2013 and still there is not a single platform tram stop between the East Brunswick terminus and the CBD.
Much of the delay has come down to resistance from traders, who fear loss of on-street parking will kill their businesses. This is understandable. Streets are fragile ecosystems with two essential functions. They are places to shop, eat and drink as well as thoroughfares. So where parking is removed so trams can get a better run, alternatives such as off-street parking should be investigated.
But traders, and the rest of us for that matter, must also realise that Melbourne has grown past the point where we should all expect to be able to get a rock star park outside the shopfront door. It's only fair given residents of Preston and elsewhere have already given up some of their much-loved parks to keep the city moving.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/melbou ... uiwgl.html

[pakenhamtrain]

With problems on the Sandringham line today 3 car trains were used between the city and Elsternwick.

[pakenhamtrain]

From what I can tell the hydraulic lifts at Flagstaff(Concourse/Street Level) and Parliament(Concourse/Street Level) are now machine room less models. I'm guessing the same was done to the concourse/platforms lift.
All 3 I suspect have been completely replaced. New motors, new controllers, new position indicators, new buttons & new interiors to bring them up to Metro standard. Should lead to a more reliable lift given the old ones were the original ones from when the loop opened.

[krustyklo]

Came across this Vicroads map consulting on a proposed addition of a lane each way to Plenty Rd between McKimmies Rd and Bush Blvd, apparently funded, as is a further widening from Bush Blvd to Bridge Inn Rd.
Relevant points to the 86 tram is that:

• The scheme will have passive provision to allow for the tram line to be extended in the future.
• As part of the works the terminus outside RMIT is to be reconstructed by the PTV to a two road terminus either side of an island platform. Presumably this is both to use the works to prepare the terminus for a future extension at a time when the intersection is being reconstructed anyway, and also to deal with trams having to wait outside the stop for many minutes for the previous tram to depart, meaning unwary passengers who don't have the local knowledge to get off at the previous stop waste many minutes twiddling their thumbs unless the driver is kind enough to take the risk in letting them off onto the median strip to walk up onto the platform stop and thus to the lights.

Link to the map: https://vicroads.mysocialpinpoint.com/plentyroad#/

[Heihachi_73]

There was a Comeng stabled at Macleod yesterday, all trains running to and from Hurstbridge/Eltham were the usual X'Traps.

[Roderick Smith]

170406Th Melbourne 'Herald Sun' - public transport.

Roderick.

[Roderick Smith]

170408Sa Melbourne 'Herald Sun' - train to fun run.


Roderick.

[Heihachi_73]

Spotted a Comeng (1094T) at Camberwell on an Alamein shuttle yesterday morning - it was stabled at Camberwell the night before. Most likely the same set that was on the Hurstbridge line the other day.

[Heihachi_73]

B2 2023 had a sleepover at Kew Depot last night.