In 2018 the City of Melbourne started work to transform Southbank Boulevard, reclaiming underused roadways to create 2.5 hectares of public space and neighbourhood parkland for the people of Southbank, Melbourne’s most densely populated suburb.
Something new
Work started at the eastern section of Southbank Boulevard and was completed in three stages.
Stage 1 A – Early works: Early July to 21 September 2018
Stage 1 B – Tram occupation works: 22-30 September 2018
Stage 1 C – Civil and footpath works: 1 October 2018 to August 2019
Rebuilding the route 1 tram tracks on a new alignment.
Trams have been stopping in the middle of the Melbourne roads for years.
Despite the fact the motorists keep driving past tram stops, leaving a trail of injured passengers.
And Melbourne also has a precedent for cyclists travelling along a bike lane sharing space with passengers boarding public transport vehicles – the tram stops on Swanston Street.
But with the completion of the Southbank Boulevard works not coming until 2021, it will be some time until we find out whether cyclists will ever be asked to share the road with bus passengers.
We start overlooking Southern Cross Station, where the Docklands skyline was a lot emptier.
As was that of Spencer Street.
And the western edge of the CBD.
Back in 2009 the explosion of (flammable!) apartment blocks was yet to take off, with 3-car trains still used after 6 PM on some suburban railway lines, and low floor E class trams not appearing on route 86 until 2016.
Next up – a ride to the country, where there was a long line at Southern Cross Station to buy a V/Line ticket.
In the days before myki paper tickets were the only option for V/Line travel, and had to be purchased for a specific date, leading to massive queues in the leadup to holiday periods.
The tunnel boring machines responsible for digging Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel started work in August 2019, but the concrete segments that will line the new tunnel have had a much longer journey.
Their start their life behind an anonymous gate in Ravenhall, next door to the Regional Rail Link tracks.
But the ‘tunnel lining segment manufacturing facility’ sign gives it away.
Overhead cranes travel over the casting yard.
Segments and a sunset. 🌅 More than 1,500 concrete segments have been manufactured at our tunnel lining segment facility in Melbourne’s west. Our tunnel boring machines will use 56,000 curved concrete segments to create a watertight lining inside the twin 9km rail tunnels. pic.twitter.com/rCi0iIzOCp
Production started early, so that a stockpile of tunnel lining segments could be built up.
🌾 It’s no cornfield, but how’s the serenity? So much serenity. 🌾
Our tunnel segment manufacturing facility is in full production mode pumping out the 56,000 concrete segments required to line the Metro Tunnel’s twin nine-kilometre tunnels. pic.twitter.com/ZD1tva9YQ2
The first tunnel segments have arrived at the new North Melbourne Station site with 18 concrete segments delivered, each weighing 4.5 tonnes.
The TBM will use these segments to create temporary rings to line the steel bell, which is an innovative launching method for the TBMs. pic.twitter.com/QzOUQZxx4P
Driven across Melbourne six at a time on the back of a semi-trailer.
Until they arrived at the future North Melbourne station site.
In September work on the shed over the station box was still underway.
But was completed in October.
Ready to store the concrete segments, before they are lowered into the tunnel.
Loaded onto a rubber tyred TBM support vehicle.
Even the mightiest machines need some support 🚚
Meet our TBM support vehicles, tasked with delivering the concrete segments needed to line the Metro Tunnel and will eventually be used to transport our team to and from the TBMs. pic.twitter.com/5Nu2CiaYSE
TBM Joan is on her way towards Kensington, installing a number of tunnel lining rings, composed of concrete segments. The team has been monitoring Joan’s performance and systems, including confinement pressure management, ring building, segment handling and grouting. pic.twitter.com/Hsa9dVdZ2f
The West Gate ‘Tunnel’ might be predominately surface roads, but it actually features two tunnels: 4 kilometre long outbound and 2.8 kilometre long inbound.
In August 2009 the Victorian Government was announced that Connex Melbourne would be dumped as the operator of the Melbourne suburban rail network, replaced by Metro Trains Melbourne.
Rolling out a new look
The government released a flashy video alongside the media release, featuring an X’Trapolis train bearing the new Metro corporate image.
Back in 2009 X’Trapolis trains were the newest in the Melbourne suburban fleet, following a hurried order for 20 new trains to cater for an explosion in patronage.
But for the launch of Metro Trains Melbourne on 30 November none of the new trains were ready to carry passengers, so one of the older X’Trapolis trains was rebranded, with a design looking much like the train featured in the animation.
But it wasn’t a full repaint, but a change of stickers – goodbye Connex logo, hello Metro Trains Melbourne.
The same process followed with the rest of the fleet – the first Siemens train to receive the Metro livery appearing a week later, with the fractal design and large ‘METRO’ text fitting easily onto the flat carriage sides.
But that design wouldn’t fit over the fluted sides of the older Comeng trains, so a cut back version was devised – which didn’t appear until April 2010.
But if in doubt – rebrand again!
Following the launch of Public Transport Victoria in 2012, the Metro Trains Melbourne brand was taken off the side of trains, replaced by new PTV logos – resulting in three layers of branding visible.
Feedback from the workshops
In the years that followed, more X’Trapolis trains continued to be delivered – each one being painted plain white at the factory, with Metro stickers applied over the top.
Until July 2018 when a new X’Trapolis train emerged from the Alstom workshops at Ballarat, with a smaller Metro logo on the side.
But why was it changed? Take a look at the side of the side of an X’Trapolis train, when coupled to a classmate.
The previous version of the livery required four different types of door sticker to be kept in stock:
ME (left side, left door)
ET (left side, right door)
TR (right side, left door)
RO (right side, right door)
While the new design only needs one kind – plain blue. I wonder who made this clever observation?
Siemens train footnote
The Metro livery applied to the Siemens trains went through a far less noticeable evolution. Can you spot it?
The answer: the train to the left has the early version with one piece stickers, with the train on the right has stickers that avoid the seams in the stainless steel panels.
Presumably the stickers over the seam was would bubble up over time and eventually come loose, hence the change to a more secure two piece design.
And finally – level crossings
There is one that that features prominently in the government’s flashy video from 2009 – single track railways.
And level crossings!
Daniel Andrews took a ‘Level Crossing Removal Project’ policy to the 2014 State Election, with much work done since, but progress on duplicating single track railways is only happening on a sporadic basis.
Remember when Connex ran suburban trains in Melbourne? November 30 marks ten years since they left Melbourne, and Metro Trains Melbourne took over the operation of the suburban rail network.
Connex did not have enough staff to respond to a rail meltdown on Oaks Day last year that left tens of thousands of furious racegoers stranded, the state’s rail safety chief has found.
Trains between Flemington and the city failed on the afternoon of November 6 last year, just as 90,000 people were spilling from the racetrack.
Overhead wires melted above one train stopped between North Melbourne and Newmarket. This knocked out power and halted all services in the area.
Hundreds of passengers were left stranded aboard one hot, airless and broken down train. The risked their lives by abandoning the train and walking on train lines to escape.
Tens of thousands more in the CBD had peak-hour trips home thrown into chaos by the fault.
Victoria’s director of public transport safety Alan Osborne has today released his findings into the incident.
He found Connex’s contingency plans for the emergency were “somewhat inadequate”.
However, despite finding Connex did not have sufficient staff to manage the incident, it had complied with all safety procedures, Mr Osborne said.
Experienced rail maintenance staff at the time of meltdown told The Age it had occurred due to long-term neglect of Melbourne’s rail system.
But Mr Osborne did not find this to be the case. Instead, he said that all maintenance procedures had been followed.
However, Mr Osborne noted that the city’s entire rail network was now being checked to make sure identical faults did not occur.
Melbourne’s frazzled train commuters should brace for another nightmare day, after one of the worst in Connex’s history yesterday.
The city’s crumbling rail system failed as tracks buckled and trains broke down amid baking temperatures for the second consecutive day.
And with the mercury already in the mid-30s this morning on the way to an expected top of 43, Connex had already cancelled 34 trains by 8am, following the failure of about 234 services yesterday.
Scores of trains were cancelled due to faulty air-conditioning and other heat-related faults. Passengers on the Hurstbridge and Epping lines faced extra delays after tracks between Jolimont and Flinders Street buckled.
Connex repair teams, armed with hoses, sledgehammers and crowbars, worked for more than an hour to bash the rails back into shape.
Rails on the Glen Waverley line, at Holmesglen, also buckled in the heat.
Clawing back
Connex eventually responded by ramping up maintenance, such as replacing rotting timber railway sleepers with concrete ‘partial replacement sleepers’.
Connex admits it could have done more to cope with Melbourne’s record surge in rail patronage and the resulting passenger frustration, but it wants another chance to run the network for at least the next eight years.
As Connex fights to renew its contract before the Government’s mid-year decision on who will run Melbourne’s rail system, chairman Jonathan Metcalfe conceded that the organisation had made mistakes.
But the biggest problem, he said, was record patronage growth on a network neglected for decades by state governments..
“We’ve had more than our fair share of issues and difficulties,” Mr Metcalfe said. “(But) have we made mistakes? Yes, we have. Of course we could have done more and we should have done more, but the sheer scale of (patronage growth) has been greater than anywhere in Australia or probably anywhere else in the world.”
The decision to oust Connex is likely to be warmly greeted by train passengers who have become increasingly infuriated with late, overcrowded and cancelled services across the network.
May was the fifth month in a row that Melbourne trains did not meet punctuality targets with almost one in 10 failing to arrive at their destination on time.
Connex this year had $11 million wiped from its revenue by the Government after 2.8 per cent of all train services were cancelled in the first months of the year.
Asked if the tender decision was a condemnation of Connex, Mr Brumby said it “wasn’t helpful to look back”, but he admitted Connex’s record showed that in some areas “obviously their performance could have improved”.
Ms Kosky, a regular target of commuter fury, said MTM would deliver improved reliability and fewer cancellations for Melbourne’s train passengers.
The people of Melboune were hopeful that something might change – some wags even put on a ‘Goodbye to Connex’ party.
Enter Metro Trains Melbourne
November 30 saw the first Metro Trains Melbourne branded train break cover at Newport Workshops.
And head for Flinders Street Station.
Where Premier John Brumby and Transport Minister Lynne Kosky were in attendance, along with Metro Trains Melbourne CEO Andrew Lezala, and members of the press.
Thirteen months after Labor scrubbed the tarnished Connex brand from Melbourne’s history, Metro’s performance record is even worse. This, despite the newcomer costing Victorians many millions more in its first year than Connex in its last. The Brumby government is no more and ALP state secretary Nick Reece has pointed to disruption in train services before the November poll as a key factor in his party’s demise.
While it is early days for Metro in its eight-year contract, there is a widely held view among rail industry insiders and commentators that the company has hit a wall in Melbourne; that an entrenched inertia and old boys’ network in the state bureaucracy and unions has made reform in Melbourne public transport impossible.
The tracks on Melbourne’s rail network are riddled with serious faults – some left unfixed for years – a leaked internal Metro Trains report shows.
And an email sent by one of the rail operator’s senior staff last month appears to show the company responding to the massive repair backlog by simply deleting reports of faults if they had not yet failed.
