Another instalment in my photos from ten years ago series – this time November 2005.
V/Line was short of rolling stock to operate their normal services, so they had to hire freight locomotives from Pacific National to haul some trains.
They were also still using S302 – a locomotive built in 1957 and them retired in 1992, only to be sold off to a private operator and then bought back in 2004.
As for the dozens of VLocity trains that are now the mainstay of the V/Line fleet, they had yet to enter service and only appeared on test runs.
Southern Cross Station was still called Spencer Street Station, as the old platforms down below were demolished and carted away by train.
There was no access via the main door on Spencer Street.
And the stairs from Bourke Street were still being rebuilt.
Outside the station, a new platform stop at the corner of Spencer and Collins Streets was underway.
Down on Flinders Street the former King Street overpass had been demolished, with new tram tracks being laid.
New platform stops were also put in place as part of the work.
Metlink, the predecessor of Public Transport Victoria, use a promotional liveried tram to roll out out the first of many fare evasion campaigns.
But the majority of the Yarra Trams fleet wore a battleship grey livery.
Suburban trains were in a mix of liveries, with much of the Siemens train fleet wearing a hybrid of the Connex livery on the sides and an interim yellow and green strip on the front.
Six Hitachi trains were also still in service, wearing the green and gold ‘The Met’ livery of the 1990s.
Down in the dungeons of Flinders Street Station some new LED matrix screens had been installed – a decade later the screens are still there, having spent most of the time scrolling the same ‘Welcome to Flinders Street Station’ message.
And finally, and overview of Spencer Street Station.
The skyline to the west of the Melbourne CBD is far shorter than that of today, with clear sky visible behind the roof of what is now known as Southern Cross Station.
Further reading
The full photos from ten years ago series.
Ohh, proper train engines but not in blue and gold as I remember them.
In the decade since V/Line’s A class fleet has had more comeback tours than John Farnham – the April 2013 timetable change was supposed to retire them, but they keep on coming back!
https://railgallery.wongm.com/vline-last-a-class/
Two typo’s:
“having spent most of the _TIME_ scrolling the same ‘Welcome to Flinders Street Station’ message.”
“Metlink, the predecessor _OF_ Public Transport Victoria, use a promotional liveried tram to _ROLL_ out out the first of many fare evasion campaigns.”
Also some of the LED displays in the dungeon have actually been covered up with standard signage. What a waste of money they were. There’s many things they could have used them for.
Thanks for the corrections – all fixed. 😀
I’m hoping that the reason those LED screen get so little use is because you need physical access to reprogram the message on them – otherwise why else would they just sit there.
They almost certainly have communications cabling too them – from memory there is a blue CAT5 cable to them which I’ve seen when the signage was all pulled down for updating.
Also if you look at the conduit running to them you will see two – one for power and one for communications which are required by australian standards to be seperated – hence the two conduits.
The signs were probably just thrown in when they ordered in the signage and never had any proper plans for them.
They can’t display a lot of information at once which might be part of the reason they were never used. Ideally the ones in the dungeon would be split in two, with one half for each platform showing the next departure.
It’s a shame, but it wouldn’t be the first time a heap of money has been spent on something that has just sat there and done nothing.
They could have even displayed more useful static information such as Craigieburn/Upfield/Sunbury services depart these platforms.
Given the comms links are there, I wonder if a computer is still available at the other end to reprogram the screens?