Posts Tagged ‘Sydney’

Buying an Opal card – why so difficult?

I recently spent a long weekend in Sydney and tried to buy an Opal card – their public transport smartcard – an exercise that was much harder than I expected.

Tangara set T60 arrives into Central in afternoon peak

Interstate mix and match from mX

In May 2015 publisher News Corp decided to shut down the free ‘mX’ newspaper after years of falling circulation. Targeted at commuters in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane – the newspaper had for years had saved money by sharing content between the three markets, with only slight modifications appearing in each local edition.

Handing out copies of mX to afternoon commuters at Footscray station

Cutaway views of Epping-Chatswood line stations

When I visited Sydney a few years ago, I paid a visit to their then-newest railway line – the Epping-Chatswood link. Running the entire way in tunnels between said stations, the line has three intermediate stations, all located deep underground: North Ryde, Macquarie Park, and Macquarie University. So how do passengers reach them?

Platform 5 at Epping station

Trainspotting on a flying visit to Sydney

A few weeks I made a flying visit to Sydney, as I made my way home to Melbourne from Cairns. I might have only spent an hour at Sydney Airport while I waited for my connecting flight, but I did manage to see a few trains along the way.

8173 shunting container wagons at Cooks River yard

Sydney’s multimodal PT ticketing (or lack thereof)

As somebody who has grown up with a public transport ticketing system that lets you ride the entire network with a single ticket, Sydney’s service disruption messages focus on something that is apparently trivial – where your ticket is valid. So why is this so important?

Ticket barriers at Edgecliff station