Archive for May, 2017

Passengers stuck waiting at pedestrian crossings

One point often missed regarding level crossing is that rail passengers also get stuck waiting at them – leaving them stuck on the wrong side of the tracks and missing the train they were trying to catch. An example of this is Yarraville station, as I found a few years ago.

Crowd of passengers abandoning the platform at Yarraville, after an announcement that no trains were running

Photos from ten years ago: May 2007

Another instalment in my photos from ten years ago series – this time it is May 2007.

Hitachi 23M being worked on beside the Williamstown line

Melbourne’s Franklin Street and a railway signal box

There are plenty of thoroughfares called Franklin Street in Melbourne, but the most notable one is located along the top end of the Melbourne CBD, connecting the Queen Victoria Market in the west to Old Melbourne Gaol in the east. Meanwhile outside Southern Cross Station is an abandoned railway signal box, with the name ‘Franklin Street’ on the side. So how are the two linked?

Signal box at Franklin Street

When did Melbourne stop building new level crossings?

Removing level crossings is the current flavour of the month in Melbourne, as the continuation of a long and close process to separate road and rail traffic, but it raises a question – how long since the last brand new level crossing was built on a greenfields site?

A walk around Carnegie: apartments and skyrail

In recent years Carnegie has been a suburb full of cranes and construction – the apartment blocks came first, followed in 2016 by the replacement of the level crossing by an elevated rail viaduct dubbed ‘Skyrail’.

Six story apartment block overlooks Carnegie station platform 1