Have you ever wondered what lurks inside the blue and white buildings that have appeared at most railway stations across Melbourne? They are used by Protective Services Officers once they start duty at 6 PM every night, and cost a shitload of money to build.
A look inside
This presentation from the ‘Department of Transport Planning and Local Infrastructure’ (DTPLI) given an inventory of what is inside the average Protective Services Officer office.
First off they have a desk and a phone for completing paperwork.
And a kitchenette.
So PSOs posted to the middle of nowhere can have a warm cup of tea on a cold Melbourne night?
Then to the side, an internal door leading to what is officially known as the ‘handover room’.
In reality the ‘handover room’ is a holding cell where Protective Services Officers lock up the people they arrest, until a sworn Victoria Police officer is able to attend. They are easy to spot from the outside – the same style of ‘NO ENTRY’ sign appears on each one.
Now I’ve just got to travel around Melbourne and collect them all!
They can try and hide them by painting them different colours.
By cladding them in weatherboards and adding a gabled roof to the top, when a railway station is heritage listed.
Retrofitting them into existing heritage structures.
Or inside 1980s brown brick abominations.
But if you know what to look for, they stand out like dogs balls.
Construction cost
Originally $17 million was allocated in May 2012 to fund the construction of facilities for Protective Services Officers at 66 railway stations around the network, at an average of $268,000 per station.
The 2013 budget allocated an extra $67 million in funding to build another 149 structures, with the average cost rising to $455,000 per station.
$2.5 million has also been allocated each year in cleaning expenses – around $12,000 per pod per year, and the toilets aren’t even open for the public!
And graffiti removal
Turns out putting a symbol of ‘The Man’ at every railway station attracts vandals – according to The Age around 20 of them are graffitied every month.
On the nickname
I’m a fan of the ‘Baillieu Box’ nickname – it commemorates Ted Baillieu, the former Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu who decided that putting two ‘almost’ police officers on every railway station after 6 PM would win votes for the Liberal Party.
Isn’t it ridiculous that Fire Hydrant doors do not have to be painted red. So many inside shopping malls are painted the same colour as the surroundings. Or should I say camouflaged.
Overheard a guy chatting with some PSOs a few months back while waiting for my ride at the station. The kitchenette in there is not just for cups of tea, but because if you work over 5 hours you have to have a meal break, and they need to have somewhere to heat up food since at most stations you probably can’t go buy some after 6pm at night. I also can’t tihnk of them as anything but the “Baillieu Box” moniker they were given on twitter!
Most stations, especially those that already have PSOs, are near shopping strips and thus often multiple takeaway outlets. That does however require leaving the station and eating lots of takeaway often involves unhealthy food, which is not good.
For a PSO a railway station is their workplace, so providing some kind of meal facility isn’t negotiable:
http://www.ohsrep.org.au/faqs/workplace-and-amenities/dining-facilities-what-must-employers-provide
For comparison, you don’t see offices in the Melbourne CBD omitting a tea room just because they are surrounded by food courts, cafes and take away shops.
Good point.
I wish I was the contractor to build them. You can build a 40-square, double storey house from a custom plan, with multiple bathrooms and an enormous kitchen, for about $400,000. A pod the size of a large caravan should be achievable for less than $90,000 from scratch. Let alone if you’re working to a cookie-cutter design.
$268,000 to $455,000 per station does sound overinflated compared to building a house, when most PSO pods could just be a demountable site hut. Apparently part of it the cost is due to the effort needed to install power, water and sewage to a site in the middle of a railway station platforms while working around operating trains, but even then it doesn’t seem to add up.
My favourite is the one at Moreland station. They seem to have converted the old waiting room area into the PSO hangout. The only time you see them appear is to fine somebody for smoking on an empty platform before running back to their little cubby to escape the cold.
Spot on. Apart from the bit about the waiting room. That still exists but remains locked 24 hours a day, presumably because cleaning it costs money. However, They can afford to have a mint condition hideaway that gets $12,000 worth of cleaning a year.
So, is the toilet in the ‘handover room’ & what does that holding cell look like?
I believe only some PSO pods have a toilet inside the building – at stations where toilets already exist, those are used instead.
As for the ‘handover room’ I don’t have a photo of the inside (any volunteers…) but I’m guessing it would be similar to a prison cell.
What annoys me is that they build these expensive things, the necessity of which is questionable, yet they don’t build public toilets at those same stations. In one case at Keon Park station on the South Morang line they actually demolished existing public toilets and built a bloody PSO pod in its place. It’s a joke
It is even worse when public toilets still exist but are kept locked up, yet nobody PSOs the keys to unlock them for passengers:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-south/psos-might-be-the-answer-to-opening-chelsea-stations-locked-toilet/story-fngnvli9-1227359096555
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