I had two errands for the day, one in Prahran, one in North Melbourne. The quickest was to travel between the two was by two trains. I was a reasonably regularly train traveller when we lived in Balaclava and some ten years later, I cannot believe the numbers of people using trains on the Sandringham line in the middle of the day. I did get a seat, but there weren't many spare. Too many people Missy.
At Prahran Station they have made another opening on the outbound platform, rather than everyone using the one through the building opening. Presumably the old exit was too narrow for the numbers now using the station, perhaps slowed down by slow Myki readers.
A bit of a safety message for the kiddies at Flinders Street Station. The train from Prahran was on time, as was the
North Melbourne Station has undergone a redevelopment. It seems quite functional, and that is about the best that can be said about it. London's St Pancras, it isn't.
I hung around a bit to watch a couple of trains come and go. North Melbourne is a busy station with both changing passengers and trains. It does not get so many passengers from the surrounding area, but a frequent and well used bus service connecting it to Royal Melbourne Hospital and Melbourne University means many people arrive and leave from the station. I am looking back towards the city.
Here comes a VLocity train on its on its way to the bush, well a large regional town.
Same, same, but different. Which colour scheme do you prefer?
A quiet carriage. How sensible, if people are quiet in the quiet carriage. First class for the same price by another name? It would be nice to not have to mix with the noisy scum who ought to be the non quiet carriage. Perhaps an old retired librarian could be employed to make shush noises and glare at noise offenders over the top of his or her spectacles.
I am not so keen on VLocity trains. You are well aware when travelling that you have throbbing diesel engines under you, or somewhere close by. As Australian trains go, they are quite fast, although I don't know how fast. They are limited to 160 km/h, 100 in the old money.
Pulling into the station was a proper train. I believe it is an N Class locomotive, hauling carriages. Although around thirty years old, the ride in the carriages is whisper quiet and very smooth. Well they were some fifteen years ago when I last travelled on one. The VLocity next to it is long, , maybe seven bits to it, so I would guess it is a Geelong train.
It had been a bad morning on Melbourne's trains with signal failures on the south eastern side of town. Why is the VLocity not departing at its scheduled time? Then came the announcement, All trains will be delayed due to a signal failure at South Kensignton, tailed by one of the most annoying and affected announcements ever, We apologise for any inconvenience caused. I don't know if it grammatically correct or not but it is ugly use of language which I think Australia may have picked up from Britain. I think South Kensington is an important place for signals but not for passengers, as I am sure only one train a day stops there, and never one I have been on. It is no more than a bus shelter on a platform.
I walked on to Errol Street in North Melbourne. Look at this old building remade and reused. What heresy. They could have had eight storeys of apartments there, housing a couple of hundred people. There are plenty of old buildings in North Melbourne that could be redeveloped to house at least a third that number without resorting to a cheap, maximise developer profit, multi storey development.
This is not graffiti. It is art and a reproduction of the woman on our Red Head match boxes. Pity the cars were in the way.