Archive for November, 2017

Why Melbourne built ramps not stairs at railway stations

In your travels by train around Melbourne, you might have noticed something – the vast majority of stations are accessed via ramps, not stairs. This is reinforced by the current version of the Public Transport Victoria network map, which states – “Step free access at all stations except Heyington”. This sounds like quite a win for accessibility, and the result of years of hard and diligent work – but in reality it is just an accident of history based on the way that Melbourne’s rail network was built.

Photos from ten years ago: November 2007

Another instalment in my photos from ten years ago series – this time it is November 2007. We start at South Kensington station, looking back to a much sparser Melbourne CBD skyline. The main difference – a lack of apartment towers along the northern stretch of Elizabeth Street. Down on the Werribee line I spotted […]

Remembering Ansett Australia

I was digging through my piles of junk the other night, when I came across a copy of Ansett Australia’s inflight magazine Panorama dating back to January 1999. So how did I end up with it? I only flew a handful of times when I was young, and never with Ansett – my main experience […]

Extending Melbourne suburban train lengths is nothing new

In recent months much has been made of how Melbourne’s new 7 car long ‘High Capacity Metro Trains’ will be the biggest ever to run on the network, with platform extensions required to allow passengers to take full advantage of the extra space. However rolling out longer trains is nothing new to Melbourne – similar work has been done in decades past.

Down South Morang train arrives into Bell station