Archive for May, 2013

Remembering the other Queenscliff-Sorrento ferry

I’ve previous written about the history of the Queenscliff-Sorrento car ferry, but today I’m looking at a different ferry service that plied the same route – the passenger ferry that stopped off at Portsea on the way across Port Phillip Bay.

Postcard featuring Sorrento - Portsea - Queenscliff ferry 'J.J. Farnsworth'

When advertising trumps transport information

Advertising and Melbourne’s tram stops: Yarra Trams makes a stack of cash from them, leasing their infrastructure to outdoor advertising company Adshel, who then onsell the space for marketing campaigns. But when does it go too far?

Tram stop covered in advertising for Mount Buller

How Australia used to pay for infrastructure

With the 2013 Victorian and Federal budgets having been released in the past week, the spotlight is on funding major infrastructure projects across Australia. So how does the government pay for the big infrastructure projects we need to avoid choking on our own growth? And how did we do it in the old days?

"You have two weeks to leave your mark on Melbourne, forever"

The crumbling station building at Newmarket

Crumbling buildings seem to be a theme I’ve been following of late, and at Newmarket station I have found a crossover with my interest in trains. Located in Flemington on the Craigieburn line, Newmarket station has the main brick building on platform 1 located on concrete piers and beams, with a cantilevered verandah sheltering the waiting passengers. So where is it falling apart?

Station building on Newmarket platform 1

Revisiting Melbourne’s clogged intersections

Recently I’ve blogged about idiot drivers queuing through intersections, and police holding jaywalking ‘blitzes’. So what has changed in the past few months?

Z3.144 and D1.3501 wait for a car blocking the tracks at Swanston and Flinders Streets