Trains

You can find pages and pages of posts about trains here: if that isn’t enough, there is plenty more beyond this site!

How can you rescue a disabled suburban train?

Most of the time electric trains are pretty mechanically simple – a pantograph on the roof is used to collect electricity from the overhead wires, which is then used to power the train. But what happens if something goes wrong with the overhead, destroying the pantograph? A few weeks ago Metro Trains Melbourne had this […]

So why is the City Loop inefficient?

As the new Metro Tunnel in Melbourne approaches completion, the inefficiencies of the existing City Loop have began to get more attention, with a project called the ‘City Loop Reconfiguration’ involving two short tunnel connections flagged as a way to fix them. So why is the City Loop inefficient to start with, and how can […]

Photos from ten years ago: February 2014

Another instalment in my photos from ten years ago series – this time it is February 2014. Trams We start off with me being featured in The Age on the subject of a tram stop in Ascot Vale that kept being hit by motorists. Also on the tram front, I spotted Victoria Police offices pulling […]

Farewell to V/Line’s H type carriage sets

On Friday 2 February 2024 V/Line retired the last of their ‘H’ type carriage sets that dated back to the 1980s, so I decided to go for a ride down to Geelong. Some history V/Line’s ‘H’ type carriage sets were originally built as ‘Harris’ suburban trains back in the 1950s. SLV image H31188. Photographer unknown. […]

Sprinter trains and V/Line platform heights

This is a tale of V/Line’s Sprinter trains, platform heights, and how the two no longer work together. In the beginning The story starts in 1993 when V/Line bought 22 new single carriage diesel railcars for use on commuter services – their 130 km/h top speed saw them named ‘Sprinter’ trains. Weston Langford photo Able […]