It’s time for one of my regular posts of photos from ten years ago. Here’s September 2011.
Southern Cross Station – exciting new retailers to slow down your path to the trains, coming soon! To be fair, these were mostly not placed in the way.
You can find a million and one photos of Hitachi trains online… but not so many taken inside them. Here’s one. They lasted until 2014. Note the number of books and newspapers – this was before smartphones took over.
This Myki brochure was a few years old at the time, but by 2011 was a curiosity, as it used the old “Scan on/scan off” terminology from before they realised the readers were so slow they’d better say “Touch” instead of “Scan”. It also explains what the light colours mean.
There was a time when Nightrider timetables didn’t tell you the scheduled time at the stop – just the scheduled time at the start of the route. You had to work out the rest yourself.
Rule 128 is not a new problem.
At Flagstaff. Not Collingwood.
One of my favourite shops in Elsternwick was Child And Adult. Back in the day I bought many D&D dice there, and coveted the Vectrex games they had on display. They finally closed around 2017 or 2018. In the reflection of the window you can also see another now defunct shop: Civic Video.
Southern Cross Station’s passenger information displays. Following getting all the errors splashed in the MX in June 2011, I stopped past every so often to see if they’d fixed them. At this point, they’d fixed some errors, but others remained.
I think I took this photo as I was curious to see if the motorists who exit the car park had a reminder to watch for pedestrians. The law says vehicles have to give way. Plenty of motorists ignore this.
Finally, a tram interior. Possibly a Bumblebee/C2-class? Remember when you could buy tickets on trams? From this angle the cushion design makes the bum rest look like a cartoon character.
There are a few more photos from September 2011 in this blog post from the time, when I bought a new camera.
9 replies on “Old photos from September 2011”
That So Cross Station departure display is the worst for country trains with knowledge required that the Marshall train is the Geelong train and the Eaglehawk train is the Bendigo train. Generally anyone wanting to travel to Marshall or Eaglehawk would know to respectively catch the Geelong or Bendigo trains. I assume it is clear that it is a coach service to Koo Wee Rup, where you would need to change to another coach to travel to Yarram.
As an aside, I think population growth in Koo Wee Rup has been huge and I can foresee the need for a return of trains.
The “Flinders St via Clifton Hill” bug at Southern Cross still appears at times
Some two years ago they started experimenting with the PIDs on platforms 11 & 12 but they never fully rolled out the new layout on the other Metro platforms or indeed the concourse screens.
August 2019 – https://twitter.com/ldco1/status/1163363610162106368
February 2020 update – https://railgallery.wongm.com/melbourne-suburban-pids/F139_2184.jpg.html
Meanwhile, V/Line of course has had these portable “Popular Destinations” screens since 2019, partly as the concourse PIDS are not near the main ticket barriers & they are limited in what can be shown for the outer suburban stations (which longer distance trains often skip in peaks) – https://railgallery.wongm.com/vline-bits/F132_8538.jpg.html
The tram is probably a Bumblebee, the door and seats resemble it. Interesting to see the Metcard machine placement.
Also, those Hitachis really were looking tired in the last few years of service! I still miss them in some ways though. Maybe it’s nostalgia and rose-coloured glasses I suppose.
Do you have any idea which line that Hitachi was running on? One of the passengers looks like me and I wonder if it was!?
@Andrew, I think it actually got worse after RRL opened and Geelong trains head (at fairly frequent intervals on weekdays) to Geelong, Waurn Ponds, South Geelong and Wyndham Vale. I don’t think Marshall is still a termination point.
@Craig, yeah clearly still room for improvement.
@Anthony, thanks for that. I thought it was a Bumblebee from the curved doors, but wasn’t sure.
@Paul, the timestamp on the photo is 5:50pm. It’s probably the Frankston line – I would have been on my way home.
On the Flagstaff not Collingwood photo, I think the “staff” missed an opportunity to fix the bug.
There is still a sole Marshall train at 17:53 weekdays – hopefully this will be extended to Waurn Ponds once the second platform is in operation (currently under construction)
Some retiming should also do away with the couple of buses that operate for Marshall passengers due to trains using the platform-less passing loop in the counter-peak direction to max. out line capacity, ahead of the proper line duplication & second South Geelong and Marshall platforms that is also coming soon
Spare a thought for Deer Park passengers – they also have to look out for Melton, Bacchus Marsh, Wendouree, Ararat & Maryborough trains! (All Ballarat trains now run to Wendouree following the second platform and 2021 timetable update)
Deer Park passengers do get their own timetable!
Yes presumably that train terminates at Marshall and then returns empty to Geelong, before the next Melbourne-bound train leaves Waurn Ponds soon after. And the Melbourne-bound train leaves three cars behind at Geelong too I think.