Everywhere you look on Melbourne’s rail network it feels like things are falling apart, and North Melbourne station isn’t any different – I spotted this duct tape wrapped glass balustrade back on January 7.
Skip forward two months to March 29 and nothing much has changed.
Actually I should give them some credit – a few pieces of duct tape have disappeared in that time.
April 2016 update
In between taking my March photo and publishing this blog post – surprise! I passed through North Melbourne station on April 8, and the balustrade is finally fixed.
I didn’t know that was called a balustrade, learn something new everyday. Seriously, did you go and look that up? Also, I don’t blame the staff for covering that up, a small child could easily slip through that gap true?
I’d suggest the problem isn’t that it was taped up. The problem is it was taped up for 3+ months.
Spot on – a week could be considered acceptable to fix the issue, but three months!
The balustrades should be safety glass – when broken it forms small granular chunks instead of splintering into jagged shards. But there is still the risk of the glass falling out, and someone falling down to the ground below.
I know this is an old post , however let me give you a proper run down as to how these glass panels get repaired.
A) report gets lodged from station staff and on forwarded to glass company
B) glass company goes to site and makes safe the area , measures for new glass and orders
C) custom made toughened laminated safety glass is ordered from a glass merchant with lead times generally 30 days
D) glazier arranges with Metro trains to shut down train lines due to OH and S legislation which can take upwards of 2 or 3 months to arrange full shut down , including turning the overhead train lines off relevant to that platform
E) replacement organised between hours of 1am-5am
So , as you can see , it’s not as straight forward as turning up to replace within a week of damage.
I know this because my company does a lot of work for metro trains.
Hope this information helps
Thanks for that – makes plenty of sense given the location above the railway tracks.
Those rubbish bins look like used (use your imagination)!
“Scrotum bins” is my favourite name for them:
https://twitter.com/ryansheales/status/593543603370205185
Well, it’s just as well that you did not know that, Beren, because I am exceedingly doubtful that it is correct to call that sort of glass fence a “balustrade”.
A balustrade is a row of balusters, which are turned wooden, or metal, or cast concrete, or other materials, in the form of decorative posts which support some kind of rail on the top.
Wikipedia agrees with you on that front:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baluster