In August 2009 the Victorian Government was announced that Connex Melbourne would be dumped as the operator of the Melbourne suburban rail network, replaced by Metro Trains Melbourne.
Rolling out a new look
The government released a flashy video alongside the media release, featuring an X’Trapolis train bearing the new Metro corporate image.
Back in 2009 X’Trapolis trains were the newest in the Melbourne suburban fleet, following a hurried order for 20 new trains to cater for an explosion in patronage.
But for the launch of Metro Trains Melbourne on 30 November none of the new trains were ready to carry passengers, so one of the older X’Trapolis trains was rebranded, with a design looking much like the train featured in the animation.
But it wasn’t a full repaint, but a change of stickers – goodbye Connex logo, hello Metro Trains Melbourne.
The same process followed with the rest of the fleet – the first Siemens train to receive the Metro livery appearing a week later, with the fractal design and large ‘METRO’ text fitting easily onto the flat carriage sides.
But that design wouldn’t fit over the fluted sides of the older Comeng trains, so a cut back version was devised – which didn’t appear until April 2010.
But if in doubt – rebrand again!
Following the launch of Public Transport Victoria in 2012, the Metro Trains Melbourne brand was taken off the side of trains, replaced by new PTV logos – resulting in three layers of branding visible.
Feedback from the workshops
In the years that followed, more X’Trapolis trains continued to be delivered – each one being painted plain white at the factory, with Metro stickers applied over the top.
Until July 2018 when a new X’Trapolis train emerged from the Alstom workshops at Ballarat, with a smaller Metro logo on the side.
But why was it changed? Take a look at the side of the side of an X’Trapolis train, when coupled to a classmate.
The previous version of the livery required four different types of door sticker to be kept in stock:
ME (left side, left door)
ET (left side, right door)
TR (right side, left door)
RO (right side, right door)
While the new design only needs one kind – plain blue. I wonder who made this clever observation?
Siemens train footnote
The Metro livery applied to the Siemens trains went through a far less noticeable evolution. Can you spot it?
The answer: the train to the left has the early version with one piece stickers, with the train on the right has stickers that avoid the seams in the stainless steel panels.
Presumably the stickers over the seam was would bubble up over time and eventually come loose, hence the change to a more secure two piece design.
And finally – level crossings
There is one that that features prominently in the government’s flashy video from 2009 – single track railways.
And level crossings!
Daniel Andrews took a ‘Level Crossing Removal Project’ policy to the 2014 State Election, with much work done since, but progress on duplicating single track railways is only happening on a sporadic basis.
Remember when Connex ran suburban trains in Melbourne? November 30 marks ten years since they left Melbourne, and Metro Trains Melbourne took over the operation of the suburban rail network.
Connex did not have enough staff to respond to a rail meltdown on Oaks Day last year that left tens of thousands of furious racegoers stranded, the state’s rail safety chief has found.
Trains between Flemington and the city failed on the afternoon of November 6 last year, just as 90,000 people were spilling from the racetrack.
Overhead wires melted above one train stopped between North Melbourne and Newmarket. This knocked out power and halted all services in the area.
Hundreds of passengers were left stranded aboard one hot, airless and broken down train. The risked their lives by abandoning the train and walking on train lines to escape.
Tens of thousands more in the CBD had peak-hour trips home thrown into chaos by the fault.
Victoria’s director of public transport safety Alan Osborne has today released his findings into the incident.
He found Connex’s contingency plans for the emergency were “somewhat inadequate”.
However, despite finding Connex did not have sufficient staff to manage the incident, it had complied with all safety procedures, Mr Osborne said.
Experienced rail maintenance staff at the time of meltdown told The Age it had occurred due to long-term neglect of Melbourne’s rail system.
But Mr Osborne did not find this to be the case. Instead, he said that all maintenance procedures had been followed.
However, Mr Osborne noted that the city’s entire rail network was now being checked to make sure identical faults did not occur.
Melbourne’s frazzled train commuters should brace for another nightmare day, after one of the worst in Connex’s history yesterday.
The city’s crumbling rail system failed as tracks buckled and trains broke down amid baking temperatures for the second consecutive day.
And with the mercury already in the mid-30s this morning on the way to an expected top of 43, Connex had already cancelled 34 trains by 8am, following the failure of about 234 services yesterday.
Scores of trains were cancelled due to faulty air-conditioning and other heat-related faults. Passengers on the Hurstbridge and Epping lines faced extra delays after tracks between Jolimont and Flinders Street buckled.
Connex repair teams, armed with hoses, sledgehammers and crowbars, worked for more than an hour to bash the rails back into shape.
Rails on the Glen Waverley line, at Holmesglen, also buckled in the heat.
Clawing back
Connex eventually responded by ramping up maintenance, such as replacing rotting timber railway sleepers with concrete ‘partial replacement sleepers’.
Connex admits it could have done more to cope with Melbourne’s record surge in rail patronage and the resulting passenger frustration, but it wants another chance to run the network for at least the next eight years.
As Connex fights to renew its contract before the Government’s mid-year decision on who will run Melbourne’s rail system, chairman Jonathan Metcalfe conceded that the organisation had made mistakes.
But the biggest problem, he said, was record patronage growth on a network neglected for decades by state governments..
“We’ve had more than our fair share of issues and difficulties,” Mr Metcalfe said. “(But) have we made mistakes? Yes, we have. Of course we could have done more and we should have done more, but the sheer scale of (patronage growth) has been greater than anywhere in Australia or probably anywhere else in the world.”
The decision to oust Connex is likely to be warmly greeted by train passengers who have become increasingly infuriated with late, overcrowded and cancelled services across the network.
May was the fifth month in a row that Melbourne trains did not meet punctuality targets with almost one in 10 failing to arrive at their destination on time.
Connex this year had $11 million wiped from its revenue by the Government after 2.8 per cent of all train services were cancelled in the first months of the year.
Asked if the tender decision was a condemnation of Connex, Mr Brumby said it “wasn’t helpful to look back”, but he admitted Connex’s record showed that in some areas “obviously their performance could have improved”.
Ms Kosky, a regular target of commuter fury, said MTM would deliver improved reliability and fewer cancellations for Melbourne’s train passengers.
The people of Melboune were hopeful that something might change – some wags even put on a ‘Goodbye to Connex’ party.
Enter Metro Trains Melbourne
November 30 saw the first Metro Trains Melbourne branded train break cover at Newport Workshops.
And head for Flinders Street Station.
Where Premier John Brumby and Transport Minister Lynne Kosky were in attendance, along with Metro Trains Melbourne CEO Andrew Lezala, and members of the press.
Thirteen months after Labor scrubbed the tarnished Connex brand from Melbourne’s history, Metro’s performance record is even worse. This, despite the newcomer costing Victorians many millions more in its first year than Connex in its last. The Brumby government is no more and ALP state secretary Nick Reece has pointed to disruption in train services before the November poll as a key factor in his party’s demise.
While it is early days for Metro in its eight-year contract, there is a widely held view among rail industry insiders and commentators that the company has hit a wall in Melbourne; that an entrenched inertia and old boys’ network in the state bureaucracy and unions has made reform in Melbourne public transport impossible.
The tracks on Melbourne’s rail network are riddled with serious faults – some left unfixed for years – a leaked internal Metro Trains report shows.
And an email sent by one of the rail operator’s senior staff last month appears to show the company responding to the massive repair backlog by simply deleting reports of faults if they had not yet failed.
You’d think that someone paid to drive trucks for a living would know how to turn a corner – but from what I’ve seen in Melbourne’s inner west, many struggle to.
Somerville Road and McDonald Road, Brooklyn
There is a level crossing at the corner of Somerville Road and McDonald Road in the Melbourne industrial suburb of Brooklyn, used twice daily by the Apex quarry train.
Container trucks are everywhere.
But it seems that some truck drivers have trouble turning the corner – in November 2018 one cut the corner taking out the level crossing lights.
For the next few months traffic controllers were put in place.
Stopping vehicles whenever a train passed through the level crossing.
Eventually a replacement gantry was erected at the level crossing, but it didn’t last long – in May 2019 a second truck took it out.
The traffic controllers returned, until a third set of level crossing lights were erected in October 2019.
Along with two massive concrete barriers.
That will hopefully stop a third truck from taking them out.
Wright Street and Anderson Road, Sunshine
More concerning is the intersection of Wright Street and Anderson Road in Sunshine, which is surrounded by houses.
In May 2017 a truck managed to cut the corner, taking out the traffic light gantry then driving off.
But now the entire area is an empty paddock: the yard closed in 2015 to make room for the ‘E’ Gate development, but will instead be covered with flyovers for the West Gate ‘Tunnel’ project.
I also headed out to West Footscray station.
This entire scene is now gone following the Regional Rail Link project, with the current West Footscray station opened in 2013.
There are many cargoes that go by rail, but the sweetest one would be the sugar that that Manildra Group transports from northern NSW to Melbourne.
The sugar is refined at the Harwood sugar mill in northern New South Wales, near Grafton, in a plant established in 1989 by the Manildra Group and New South Wales Sugar Milling Cooperative.
The plant has since been shut down, with the site being cleared.
Manildra operate a second Melbourne plant at Altona North, around the corner from the paused Port Rail Shuttle terminal, so the sugar train is no more.
Some history
The Manildra Group complex dates back to 1907, when James Minifie & Co opened the ‘Victoria Roller Flour Mill’ on the site, with the adjacent concrete silos were designed by Edward Giles Stone were built beside the mill in 1910-11. The mill produced ‘O-So-Lite’ packaged flour and cake mixes, until it closed in 1969.
