The predecessor of Public Transport Victoria was Metlink, and one of their main achievements was getting every single train, tram and bus stop in Victoria in one big database, and making the timetable information for each one available to the public via a single website. So what oddball stop names lurk in that database?
You can catch the bus to places of natural beauty.
National Park Entrance/National Park Rd (Loch Sport)
Eastern Sister Lookout/Point Nepean Rd (Sorrento)
Or beyond the black stump.
Black Stump General Store/Princes Hwy (Johnsonville)
Toilet humour is always good for a laugh – and gives me three funny bus stop names.
Tooleybuc Toilets/Murray St (Tooleybuc (NSW))
Public toilets/Timboon – Nullawarre Rd (Timboon)
Car Park Rear Toilet Block/Lloyd St (Dimboola)
When you flush, it might end up here:
South East Water Oxygen Plant/Baxter-Tooradin Rd (Baxter)
But to clean up, you could leave the bus at any of these stops:
Laundry Block/Barwon Heads – Ocean Grove Rd (Ocean Grove)
Ironing Service/Deakin Ave (Mildura)
D And K Cleaning/School Rd (Springhurst)
Wizard Car Wash/Princes Hwy (Narre Warren)
Since you are on the bus, you don’t need to park a car.
Council Car Park/Beveridge St (Swan Hill)
Beachside Car Park/Nepean Hwy (Frankston)
Freeway on and off ramps aren’t something you are looking out for:
Eastern Freeway On Ramp/Wetherby Rd (Doncaster East)
Off-ramp/Princes Fwy (Darnum)
Or repairing roads.
VicRoads Depot/Ballarat Rd (Deer Park)
Nillumbik Shire Depot/290 Yan Yean Rd (Plenty)
You don’t need to buy petrol either.
Service Station/Breadalbane Ave (Mernda)
None the less, you still have your choice of fuel retailer.
Caltex Service Station/Calvert St (Bairnsdale)
BP Service Station/Sunraysia Hwy (Speed)
Shell Service Station/Princes Hwy (Narre Warren)
Mobil Service Station/Fifteenth St (Mildura)
United Service Station/Princes Hwy (Cobargo (NSW))
Apco Petrol Station/Gisborne Rd (Bacchus Marsh)
Maybe you are looking to build a car from scratch?
Toyota Australia/Grieve Pde (Altona North)
Holden Engine Works/Lorimer St (Port Melbourne)
Ford Engine and Chassis Plant/Princes Hwy (North Geelong)
Or something more high tech?
Centre for Nanofabrication/Wellington Rd (Clayton)
Perhaps you are peckish?
Kraft Factory/Salmon St (Port Melbourne)
You could pick up the raw ingredients for dinner.
Geelong Sale Yards/Weddell Rd (North Geelong)
Grain Silo/Wimmera Hwy (Marnoo)
Cargo to send by rail?
Pacific National Terminal/Dynon Rd (West Melbourne)
And finally, the really weird.
Bridal Advisory Service/Jamieson St (East Albury (NSW))
Some bad names
There are a few bus stop names with ‘opposite’ in the title, and refer to a local landmark – for example:
Opp Ballarat Health Service/Edwards St (Sebastopol)
But some are just lazy – streets have numbers down both sides!
opp 399 Centre Rd (Narre Warren South)
Opp 28 Ash Cres (Pakenham)
Opp 184 Old Geelong Rd (Hoppers Crossing)
Opp 85 Melville Park Dr (Berwick)
And just plain broken
Look at this mess.
Carrington Bvd/VictoReturns to Thomastown via Main Street (express service).ria Dr (Thomastown)
It’s supposed to read “Carrington Bvd / Victoria Dr, Thomastown”.
Footnote
For a number of years at both Metlink and Public Transport Victoria, the usage of the ‘SC’ abbreviation in bus stop names was inconsistent: sometimes it meant ‘Shopping Centre’ and other times ‘Secondary College’, which led to confusion for any passenger in a suburb where the local shops had the same name as the school!
Thankfully some of the staff at PTV didn’t think confusing passengers was a good idea, so put in place a new standard for names – ‘SC’ for ‘Shopping Centre’ and ‘Sec Col’ for ‘Secondary College’.
An interesting post!
It is amazing what a well crafted Google query can bring up. 😛
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3Aptv.vic.gov.au%2Fstop+bridal
most of these stop names are silly, and equally silly is that in most cases nobody will ever know them or reference them outside of smart buses. it would be good if they used street numbers or connecting roads over landmarks.
I haven’t done any actual analysis, but in my local area most bus stops just have the name of the nearest cross street, as you suggest.
But in some cases landmarks do make sense – for things such as shopping centres and schools at least.
I agree a lot of the names are silly. But allow me to play devil’s advocate and suggest landmarks can be better than cross streets or street numbers. For example, general stores in country towns are usually major landmarks.
Also, on the note of ‘SC’, while I hope PTV has got their act together, recent changes have shown they haven’t. The stop at Sunshine Secondary College is labelled Sunshine SC on the newly installed Route 420 signs following the July 2014 changes, despite the full name on the website: http://ptv.vic.gov.au/stop/view/47612
I’ll have to keep my eye out for other bus stop signs, and see what abbreviations they use.
[…] (Bus and tram stops also have names by the way. Often they are named after cross streets, but sometimes they use landmarks.) […]