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News and events transport

See something newsworthy? Get the footage!

OK, so you’ve seen a big problem, and since you carry a very capable camera in your phone everywhere you go, you’ve decided you want to get footage of it so the world can find out about it. Great! This really helps activists, and can get problems fixed. When you’re filming or snapping photos, here  ... [More]

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transport

Metro 1/Metro 2/Metro Rail Capacity Project – The Metro rail tunnel’s many names

There seems to be a little confusion over the various names of the Metro rail tunnel — for instance the name Metro One pops up regularly, especially out of the City Of Melbourne. The confusion is not surprising, as the name and design of the tunnel has changed a bit over the years. Origins The  ... [More]

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transport

Smoking banned completely from railway stations and tram platform stops from 1st March

From next Saturday, 1st of March, smoking will be banned from the entirety of all railway stations and tram platform stops. The new arrangements will extend the existing smoke-free zones, which currently only include covered areas of railway platforms and inside covered tram and bus shelters. “Extending smoke-free areas is good news for public transport  ... [More]

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News and events

Names from the past

The neurosurgeon attacked at Footscray Hospital was Dr Michael Wong, aged 43. I went to school with a Michael Wong; presumably he’d be 43. Digging around, I haven’t found any other detail to confirm or deny it’s the same bloke (there are tons of Michael Wongs, even just in Melbourne, and my usual method of  ... [More]

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transport

Investment in motorways vs rail capacity – where are we at?

There’s been some speculation about who is running the SpringStSource Twitter account and web site. The web domain name is registered through WhoIsGuard, a Panama-based service specifically for hiding details of people who want to remain anonymous. It’s not hard to see whoever is behind it is well and truly on the side of the  ... [More]

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Photos from ten years ago

Photos from February 2004

For this month, I don’t have very many great photos of interest, but here goes… We must have been on the way to Marita’s house in Footscray. This is the Footscray Road intersection with Citylink, back when there was a level crossing underneath the tollway, where slow freight trains used to run in and out  ... [More]

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transport

Some local PT issues in Bentleigh #SpringSt

The Public Transport Not Traffic campaign held their PT To Parliament event on Thursday morning. Locals were encouraged to invite their local MPs to catch public transport with them into Parliament House, and discuss PT issues with them along the way. My local MP, Elizabeth Miller, was sadly unavailable. So we invited ALP opposition candidate  ... [More]

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transport

PTV’s plans for in-cab signalling – could boost track capacity by 50%

A while back I had a read through the PTV rail network plan looking to summarise their view on the rollout of high capacity (in-cab) signalling. Sorry this post has been so long in coming. This short (three minute) video explains it nicely, but one analogy is that the current system is like driving around  ... [More]

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TV

The digital TV re-tune 7th Feb – and: It’s nice to know genuine technological reform can happen

This Friday 7th February is Melbourne’s re-tune day for digital television. This is when the frequencies of some channels change, so they can make more efficient use of the spectrum. If you don’t re-tune your digital TV devices, you may find some channels don’t work after this. Hopefully most people will figure out how to  ... [More]