Victorian Rail & Tram Observations 2025

[BanksfielderIdiot823]

And now, onto 2025.

[VolgrenFTW]

Metro Tunnel signage everywhere at City stations and some places throughout network.
Xtrapolis 2 has touched Victorian railways as it was towed to its facilities from Ballarat.

[Bennett2]

Great to see Metro Tunnel signage rolling out, definitely a sign that we are getting closer to its opening.

[Heihachi_73]

Every window on B2 2049 blocked except one. Funny how you don't have to follow the law when you are the law.
https://redd.it/1j30rw5

Cover your car's rear windows with too many racing stickers, dark tint or reflective one-way windows even though you can see perfectly out of them (but the Authoritah can't see in) and have 120 fps HD dash cams and a giant LCD monitor showing everything, and you'd get booked, your car defected and the government will steal some of your money; if you're the government however, you can cover a vehicle in semi-opaque plastic, which then goes straight to landfill after the for-profit advertising company has made bank, and it's perfectly fine.

[Heihachi_73]

W3 660 has recently resurfaced out of nowhere.

https://old.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comm ... rketplace/

[BanksfielderIdiot823]

Union Station earlier today, fire onboard X'Trap 898M on an inbound run. Apparently, it was an E-bike brought onboard that caught alight.

https://old.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comm ... n_station/
https://old.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comm ... without_a/

[Linto63]

Last locomotive hauled Warrnambool services are to be converted to Vlocity operation with the new timetable effective 14 April. Will leave the three daily Swan Hill services as the only remaining long distance locomotive hauled V/Line services. The only other locomotive hauled service is the 06:07 Geelong - Southern Cross and 16:31 return; this could also be a candidate for conversion.

[Heihachi_73]

2049 vs. car on Bridge Rd this morning. Can we use this as an excuse to put it back in the PTV livery so people can actually see out of the windows?
https://old.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comm ... ork_today/
https://old.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comm ... here_mate/

The crash wouldn't have happened if we hadn't had eighty straight years of carbrain allowing cars to turn across tram tracks every 50 metres. There are no less than eighteen places for cars to turn across "segregated" tram tracks between Church St and Hawthorn Bridge despite having signalised intersections every 400m. Even the Maccas Drive Thru has its own dedicated pair of crossings.

[Heihachi_73]

PT Blitz: More Train Services, Metro Tunnel And Airport Rail
https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/pt-blitz ... rport-rail

Craigieburn and Upfield lines will finally go from every 30 minutes off-peak to every 20, including at night
Sandringham line to be every 10 minutes between peaks
Traralgon V/Line to be every 40 minutes between peaks
Bendigo line will have 6-car VLocity services on weekends (about time)
Former Hillside lines can just buy a car to go with the North East Link we built for them, they're Liberal/Greens/Teal voters anyway - Vic Labor, probably

Quotes attributable to Premier Jacinta Allan
“We’re focused on what matters most. People just want to get to work and get home sooner, and I’m on their side.”

As long as they live near two tram routes or between Footscray, Burnley, Clifton Hill, Caulfield, and the entire Sandringham line for whatever reason (BTW, the Sandringham line's 40-minute Sunday morning timetable still lives on following the timetable change).

[Heihachi_73]

Seniors can now travel on PT throughout the entirety of Victoria for free on weekends. Not pensioners (e.g. DSP/CAR) or concession card holders (e.g. JS/YA), but specifically those with a Seniors card.
https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/free-tra ... everywhere

I'm getting circa 2005 Seniors Sunday Pass Metcard vibes with this one, hopefully history repeats and the discount is extended to all pensioners (the same dark blue plastic Metcard was renamed Sunday Pass) after they find out no-one over 70 is actually travelling by themselves as dragging their family with them across Victoria or even just Melbourne still costs a small fortune. Also, it's a bit hard to catch free PT on weekends if it doesn't even operate on those days e.g. dozens of suburban and regional/rural buses.

Quote attributable to Premier Jacinta Allan
“Costs can add up – especially for seniors – and I’m on their side.”

“That’s why we’re making public transport free on weekends for seniors, saving them more than $360 every year.”

What's the matter Labor? Losing your traditional voter base to The Greens, Teals and even far-right nutjobs and desperately need to farm votes from elderly Liberal voters before they kick the bucket? While the Liberals left us in the 1950s for far too long, you're leaving us in the 1990s which isn't much better (Sunday timetables became irrelevant the day Sunday trading commenced in 1996, yet they still exist in Victoria).

Pity you're not on "our" side. Signed, Victorians under the age of 70 who will probably turn 70 before any decent PT reform happens (I'm guessing between 2040 and 2055).

[Heihachi_73]

Are internal tram maps outsourced to China these days?

https://redd.it/1la1o5k
"South Mebourne Beach"

Quite fitting for the error to be on a B class as well, as the B class route stickers on the 75 also have "Rochmond Town Hall" to go with it, as well as "Berkely Street" and "Kooyogkoot Road", yet on the 70 which is printed on the same sticker, there are no spelling errors despite sharing two stops (Berkeley and Kooyongkoot) and stopping outside Richmond station. The 70 does not go without fault though, as according to the sticker the 70 teleports to St Kilda on its way between Burnley and Camberwell.

[Heihachi_73]

Citadis 3026 came a cropper yesterday, derailing over the points on High St/Cotham Rd. Not surprised considering how bad the tram tracks are throughout Melbourne, both the tram and train network have suffered from decades of negligence.

Ironically it was featured on the ABC as a side topic to the CDC bus strike.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-16/ ... /105420180

On the train side, the tracks at Jordanville station are so old that the metal base plates holding the rails have rusted away and crumbled to dust, every second wooden sleeper has rotted away or broken, and only a handful of concrete sleepers are holding the rails in gauge (observed from platform 1). Meanwhile the Alamein line is using underweight 94 lb (47 kg/m) rails which are pushing 80 years old (some of which has actually been replaced with "new" OneSteel 47 kg/m with a date stamp of 2009), while Metro has seemingly stopped installing new 60 kg/m rails on main lines and has gone back to the old 53 kg/m size (more cost cutting), at least from my observation of the down local near Camberwell/Canterbury.

The rail grinder is running all over the place shaving down the rails even more and to force the rails to make that annoying racket and to induce microscopic cracks into the rails (helped by the harmonic vibrations of the trains going over them) so PTV/Metro can be given yet another blank cheque to replace the rails again (look for the yellow scribbles on the sides and/or the temporary fishplates) once they inevitably fail decades before their time (even rails that were manufactured in the 2010s and even 2020s are starting to fail e.g. either side of post-LXRP Mitcham station, not helped by a complete lack of flange lubricators on the curves; said devices were also removed from Laburnum causing the rails to go to s&#t there in an instant too - there's an abandoned grease pot dumped near the down end of platform 2). Some of the skyrail sections didn't even last a week before having the rails scrubbed to death by the grinder. I'm sometimes even seeing wooden sleepers being replaced with wooden sleepers these days, never mind all the mud holes after the sleepers or rails do end up being replaced.

[Aurora]

Derailment:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict ... 5meyq.html

[Heihachi_73]

If anyone was wondering, 1627T on an up Mernda service ended up in the dirt just before the Hurstbridge line junction with its bogie swivelling around and presumably doing some decent damage to the underside of the carriage, as well as taking out a 100-year-old stanchion, the overhead wire and its pantograph in the process. 853M and 854M were subsequently coupled back to back and dragged off by a P class, while damaged 1627T took a scenic tour of Melbourne on the back of a truck.

This section is well overdue for a complete track renewal, the rails must be older than King Charles going by all the closely-spaced rail joints in lieu of continuously welded rail.

[Heihachi_73]

232 doing an A1 job at remodeling a car which failed to do a hook turn in Collins St yesterday. Even the smallest rhino is more than a match for a car.

https://redd.it/1nwkxor

[Heihachi_73]

B2 2112 vs. Camry on Friday afternoon.

https://redd.it/1oemug7

[Heihachi_73]

Rode the Glen Waverley line yesterday to be greeted by Ms. Metro's deflated twin:

"Now arriving at..." (45 record at 33 rpm) "Mouuunt Wayyyverrrley"