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A quick look around the new Carrum station

I haven’t managed to get to all the newly opened stations, but I did stop past Carrum for a little while on Wednesday night.

Carrum opened on Monday, with some hiccups – late completion of testing (apparently due to a police operation) and sign-off of new signalling equipment resulted in a delay to the first Monday morning train services, and ongoing issues through the morning peak.

But rewind a bit: Carrum originally opened in 1882. There seems to be a lack of information around, but the art deco signal box and station buildings used until recently might date from the 1940s, when interlocked crossing gates were installed.

The level crossing removal was promised by Labor in 2014, and includes a (somewhat controversial) skyrail design over Station Street, also allowing Macleod Road to cross the railway line for the first time, instead of Eel Race Road – the latter crossing has closed in favour of a walking/cycling-only underpass.

The nearby Mascot Avenue crossing has also been closed, so three crossings have been removed in this one project.

During construction last year, a temporary track was put in place alongside the existing rail alignment to allow the skyrail and station to be built while trains kept running. The recent two week occupation allowed the new section to be connected, and the temporary tracks removed.

The new elevated station opened on Monday, but works are continuing. The southern end is open, with some temporary buildings in place. Lift and stair access is available.

Carrum station

Screens at the station entrance show train departures and bus departures. Bravo! I remember asking for real-time bus information when Bentleigh/McKinnon/Ormond were being rebuilt. We didn’t get it (though a Smartbus sign was eventually reinstated), but it’d be great to see it as standard in new builds. It’s particularly important given many bus routes are so infrequent. (Note the mix of 12-hour time for the trains, 24-hour time for the buses.)

Carrum station

Up on the platform you get the sea view. Pretty good!

Carrum station
Carrum station

While it wasn’t particularly cold, it was windy when I was up there. I was glad to have a coat.

Perhaps unique (so far) to Carrum are these pods which provide a level of protection from the sea breeze and rain.

Weather protection at Carrum station

Passenger Information Displays on the platform

Carrum station

Each end of the platform has a quite substantial shelter, with seating. The middle section is largely uncovered. Whether this is sufficient cover remains to be seen – I’d be interested to know how it fared during the storm on Tuesday night, particularly for those passengers alighting from the middle of an arriving train.

Carrum station

Works are continuing, with the main entrance at the northern end of the station yet to open. Apparently it will include a periscope to view the bay!

What do the locals think? There were some interesting quotes in the local Leader newspaper, such as this:

“I used to be dead against this project … but it’s sensational,” Sharon Grace, 70, of Carrum said.

“I’ve lived here for years and I was handing out pamphlets against the sky-rail. But it’s fabulous.”

Breathtaking beach views wow commuters at Carrum Station grand opening
Carrum station

Regardless of the design, it’s good to see more of these projects nearing completion, though even once all pledged projects are done, there will still be plenty of level crossings on the Frankston line, and well over 100 around Melbourne.

These are expensive projects, but given the benefits, and the wide public support for level crossing removals, hopefully future governments will keep funding them.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

13 replies on “A quick look around the new Carrum station”

Tuesday night’s storms could well have flooded the new station if it were in a trench. I still wish they’d waited until after Carrum had opened to announce Bonbeach – Edithvale, which, after locals have a practical example of how good skyrail could be, could be elevated instead with a lot less negative feedback.

Check out the lack of 857 on the bus departures screen, one of the most useless bus routes in Melbourne.

@Nick, looked at the timetable for the 857 out of curiosity. It runs once every hour in off-peak, which is still better than the 704, which runs roughly once every 6 years outside of peak hour. Seriously though, the route often goes 80 minutes without a bus in the middle of the day.

Carrum station looks a bit more practical and sheltered than my local new Reservoir station. It’s quite a wind tunnel up there and the cavernous canopy has mesh sidewalls that don’t block the breeze, while the height doesn’t help with rain on an angle. Still it’s an improvement and hopefully Vicroads gets on to sorting out the crazy spaghetti junction below. I think 2 large interconnected oval roundabouts underneath might be the way to keep traffic moving. Congrats to Carrum locals though- looks good.

Building on the positive reaction to this work, they could change to elevated rail right now for the remaining crossing removals along that line. I bet they don’t though, because all involved will be chasing the costs sunk so far in preparing a design for a trench at Edithvale.

without having seen it up close, it looks a bit bleak, especially for wet and windy days? I’ve heard from people who live nearby that it is so much noisier – station announcements, train horns, etc – than before due to the elevated structures. Makes sense as the noise has no impediments to full propagation across nearby neighbourhoods.

I visited recently and I think it looks great. Was talking to some locals who live 2 blocks away, they say it is much quieter now, not louder.

2 things. They should be punishing people who ‘handed out pamphlets against the sky-rail’. People who in the event are parading their ignorance and stupidity yet nearly sabotaged the whole thing. Taking public positions needs to have consequences for people who are wrong. If this was the private sector I would be suing.

Manifestly inadequate platform shelters against the cold and wet which Melbourne delivers in spades. This could have looked like a Sydney Monorail station with a big glass frontage on the sea side but otherwise enclosed like the CD9s.

The locals have posted pictures of the soaking rain that penetrates those pods, so they are a useless waste of money.

I live a fair distance from the tracks but with the new trains ? come new louder horns. And the train noise is much worse…???

The new pedestrian underpass is great if you can walk the distance to the beach, if you are unable to do that, you can be stuck in traffic at that ‘shamozz’ called the McLeod Rd/Stations St/Nepean Hwy traffic intersection.

Whilst I didn’t hand out no SkyRail, why would you ‘UnderTheClocksBlog’ want to sue those who did? We all have the right to express our opinions. You obviously haven’t seen the video of the scaffolding collapse during construction of this elevated station ? in which several contractors were severely injured.

Wonder if we’ll ever get the day when these new stations have platforms roofed along it’s entirety, covered with solar panels & the water runoff collected & used for toilets & surrounding gardens.

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