The new Clayton station opened this morning, and I went down to take a look. The design is very similar to Noble Park, which opened in February. A ramp just west of the station (and Clayton Road) brings the trains up onto the elevated section. From there, the track is entirely elevated as far as Centre Road, where it then drops back down to ground level before reaching Westall station.
Now that the new Noble Park station (aka "Area 3" of the Caulfield to Dandenong "skyrail") is open, what of the rest of the project? It's moving fast. "Area 2" in the Clayton area is coming along, and a rail line closure from the 3rd to the 15th of April will allow construction workers to hook up the new elevated section and get Clayton station opened. This will remove the crossings at Clayt
On Wednesday the State Government announced that the first section of "skyrail", at Noble Park, will open on Thursday 15th February, along with the new station, following a two week disruption to rail services between Westall and Dandenong. This will mark the removal of three level crossings: at Corrigan, Heatherton and Chandler Roads. Trains will pass over all three of these, as well as over t
Now that we've finished talking about names of yet-to-be-built stations, let's talk about some recently built ones. Last Saturday a steam train ran to celebrate a year (and a bit) since the new Bentleigh/McKinnon/Ormond stations re-opened, following level crossing removals. K153 leads a Steamrail special into McKinnon pic.twitter.com/6XISB3b2t1â Metro Man (@The_Rail_Life) November 25, 2017
The other week I noted the current state of level crossing removals across Melbourne, and that Glen Huntly Road / Glenhuntly Station [1] isn't on the list. This used to be my home station, and with about a million boardings per year [2], it's the busiest on the Frankston line south of Caulfield, apart from Frankston itself. The locals know the trains (express or stopping services) crawl slow
Three years ago in 2014 I attempted to summarise level crossing removals, based on the old 2008 ALCAM list, which is (still) the last public safety evaluation of level crossings in Victoria. Things have moved on a lot since then. Labor was voted in with a policy of grade separating 50 level crossings in 8 years (20 in their first 4 year term). And you'd have to give them credit for storming ahe
OK, back to level crossing removals. My local ones are going full bore, and I thought I'd post an update and provide a Q+A opportunity. The project summary Originally removal of just the Ormond level crossing was funded by the Coalition. The project was expanded to include adjacent crossings at Mckinnon and Bentleigh after Labor came to power in November 2014 with a pledge to start removal
Ian Woodcock (RMIT) and John Stone (Melbourne Uni) have a new report out comparing level crossing removal methods. The Age has a story on it this morning, and hopefully the full report will be online very soon. UPDATE: Here it is. I did manage to get a sneak preview, and looks at various case studies around Melbourne, and tries to evaluate aspects such as: connectivity, accessibility, intermoda
On Saturday I took a look at the Burke Road level crossing removal -- it's being done as part of the same package as the North/Mckinnon/Centre Roads crossings, but is well ahead of them in terms of progress. The official web site has details of the project -- because there's space available, the new rail line and new station are being built parallel to the old ones, similar to how Springvale wa
To their credit, the state government is initiating Stakeholder Liaison Groups for the level crossing eliminations to happen across Melbourne. The first of these covers the three Bentleigh area crossings: North Road, Ormond; Mckinnon Road, Mckinnon; Centre Road, Bentleigh. It's convened by local MP Nick Staikos, and members include representatives from local traders, schools, community groups a
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