Strange Melbourne Man

On the 28th of January, 2022, the route 673 was in operation for the final time. Although PTV states that the route will operate its last service on the 29th , route 673 does not run on weekends, which means that the 28th is officially the date of when the last service operated. A brief history Compared to other bus routes, the 673 didn't last for that long, only being introduced as part of bus reforms in the Lilydale area in 2006 . The route number had originally been given to a route that operated between Croydon and Lilydale , but the route was eventually cut back in stages and was completely deleted in 1987. When I say that this route has a brief history, I do mean it. As far as I know, the route was pretty much left untouched during its 15 years of exisistance. Needless to say, there probably wasn't much that really could be changed about this route, mostly because of how redundant such a change would be. Description The 673 operated between Lilydale Station and Lillydale ...

November 19th saw both Mooroolbark station and Lilydale station re-open for revenue service, after being closed down in order remove level crossings at Manchester Road and the Maroondah Highway. The removal of these level crossings included two new elevated stations at Mooroolbark and Lilydale. I decided that visiting these two stations would be a decent use of my time. Mooroolbark My first stop was the new Mooroolbark station, which I felt looked pretty decent despite not even being completed yet. The new station utilizes an island configuration (as opposed to the old station which utilized a side configuration) and features both stairs and lifts to get from the concourse to the platforms. There was plenty of shelter, plenty of places to sit, and plenty of places to see from the platform. As mentioned before, the station has not finished construction. You can currently only access the station from Brice Avenue, Bus stops are currently very far away, and one can see the construction of...

Coming up on nobody's favourite series, the name origins of stations on the Port Melbourne line! Short History Port Melbourne first opened as the Sandridge line in 1854 , the first of its kind in Australia. It became the Port Melbourne line in 1884 and was electrified in 1919 . The line was closed in 1987 as part of a measure to convert the line into Light Rail. The line now carries the 109 tram, which has run between Port Melbourne and Box Hill since 2003. Montague Montague is named after Montague Street, the road infamous for a bridge that no truck driver has ever passed. Montague is located to the west of that particular road. The station also seems to have been named after a locality to the south . This locality was originally residential, but appears to have been demolished and replaced with industry. North Port North Port takes its name from being located in the northern part of the suburb of Port Melbourne. This is shown through the prior names the station had. Originally...

A few months ago, the State Government announced that they would be upgrading stops along the Route 58 in order to accommodate the introduction of E-class trams. In my neck of the woods (Brunswick), the upgrades appear to have been limited to the removal of a couple stops, as well as another batch of stops being moved to different locations. I thought it would be interesting to check out the stops (possibly) being changed in the Moreland area. I should note that I'm not one hundred percent sure which stops will change, I'm just taking guesses given recent observations. Starting off with a trip to Grantham Street, the area near Union Square was resurfaced and continues to be resurfaced. I am not entirely sure what the purpose of this was but the area was listed as a principle activity centre, so that might have something to do with it. Heading one stop up takes us to Dawson Street, which features some more resurfacing. Foden Street is one of the stops being removed. This has to ...

 A short blog for today regarding the two stations on the former Kew Line. Short History The Kew line first opened on the 19th of December, 1887. It was electrified in December 1922 and closed in May 1957. Much of the line is now either Linear nature reserves or car parks. Barker Barker is named after Barkers Road, a road located to the north of the station. The stations original name prior to 1905 was 'Barker's Road' , further highlighting the link between station and street.   A development in progress appears to occupy the space where Barker station once was. Kew Kew is named after a suburb in London. The name seems to have arisen due to the fact that the suburb in London was close to a suburb called Richmond, and Melbourne's Kew shared the similar trait.    The Head Office of Vicroads ironically enough occupies the space of where Kew station once was. Conclusion I know this was a short blog, but I still hope that you find something you like from it. Station N...

A bit of a different post this week, just thought I would give my thoughts on the ten level crossings that are slated for removal. During the 2014 election, Daniel Andrews announced that his government would remove fifty level crossings if he was elected, he was, so now he is in the process of doing so. In 2018, he announced that he would remove another twenty-five level crossings if he was re-elected, on top of the fifty level crossings he had already planned to remove. He was re-elected in a Danslide, and now he is in the process of removing those crossings too. The ten additional level crossings that were slated for removal were announced on Thursday , presumably to celebrate fifty level crossings being removed. What are the crossings? I'll run down the list and give my thoughts on each. Sunbury Line One level crossing is slated for grade separation, while another is slated for closure (the closed crossings are not counted on the list of eighty-five level crossings for some re...

 Exactly as the title says, sorted by line I define going to a station as boarding a train or arriving from a train, not just walking up to it and then walking away. Stations I have been to more than once are bolded. Anyways, here is a list: City Loop: Flinders Street Southern Cross Flagstaff Melbourne Central Parliament  Upfield: North Melbourne Macauley Flemington Bridge Royal Park Jewell Brunswick Anstey Moreland Coburg Batman Merlynston Fawkner Gowrie Upfield Craigieburn: North Melbourne, as well as: Kensington Newmarket Ascot Vale Moonee Ponds Essendon Glenbervie Strathmore Pascoe Vale Oak Park Glenroy Jacana Broadmeadows Coolaroo Roxburgh Park Craigieburn Sunbury: North Melbourne, as well as: Footscray Middle Footscray West Footscray Tottenham Sunshine Albion Ginifer St. Albans Keilor Plains Watergardens Diggers Rest Sunbury Stations not been to: South Kensington  Werribee: Sunbury line as far as Footscray, then: Seddon Yarraville Spotswood Newport Seaholme Altona W...

Last week I did the Inner circle line, so this week I will do the Outer Circle line. The sections covered are between Fairfield and East Camberwell, and between Alamein and Oakleigh. The currently open section between Camberwell and Alamein was the topic of another blog post that you can find here. Brief History The Outer Circle line was opened in stages between March 1890 and March 1891, apparently as an alternative route for Gippsland traffic. This did not occur and the 1890s depression harmed the lines potential, leading to its closure. Fairfield to Riversdale was the first to close in April 1893, followed by Ashburton to Oakleigh in December 1895, and Camberwell to Ashburton in May 1897.  Camberwell to Ashburton re-opened in 1898 and East Camberwell to Deepdene re-opened in May 1900, although passenger traffic was removed in 1927 due to low patronage. The section of line to Deepdene also so goods traffic, with an extension to East Kew occuring in 1925. This section would fina...

Time to continue the station names series shall we? This article will cover the Inner Circle, which was a line that ran between Royal Park on the Upfield line and Rushall on the Mernda line. This article was also cover Fitzroy station, which was located on a branch line that came off the Inner Circle. This will be a short blog considering that the Inner Circle line is not exactly a long line. Later down the track I will cover the Outed Circle line as well. A brief run down of the line The line originally opened in May of 1888 . It was duplicated in stages until October 1889 and was electrified in July 1921. The passenger service ceased in 1948 leaving the line to become a freight line. The line was closed between North Fitzroy and Northcote junction in 1965 and was completely closed in 1981. It is currently used as a rail trail.  The Fitzroy branch line opened the same year as the Inner circle but was closed to passenger traffic in 1892, it also closed in 1981 and the line was repl...

Between 8:30PM on the 24th of June 2021 and 10PM on the 25th of June 2021, I walked from my home in the inner-suburbs in Melbourne and ended up at Ballarat railway station, a journey of 111km. I was originally going to write a blog post about the trip as a whole, describing all the roads I went down and stuff like that. Problem is, I am a terrible writer and I was never satisfied with what I wrote for that blog, so I am going to just make a post about some of the moments I had doing this long and ardous trip. The public toilet map lied to me There is a website known as the National Public Toilet Map that does exactly what it says on the tin, show you a map of toilets. While it has been useful to me on numerous occassions, this trip was not one of those times. The map informed me that there was a toilet at a BP in Caroline Springs that had a toilet avaliable at all times of day, however, upon asking if I could use the toilet, I was informed that the toilet was closed and would not open...

Somewhat inspired by this thread (although I sort of had an idea way before I found it), here is a list of all the bus routes I have ridden on. I will try to update it as much as I can. Routes in bold are routes that I have fully completed. That does not mean I did them end to end, most of these routes were completed over a series of trips. Routes with an * at the end have been done end to end. Routes in italics are routes that either no longer exist or have been amended. Now for the list (WARNING: VERY LONG): The list Route 152 - Williams Landing to Tarneit* Route 153 - Williams Landing to Werribee*   Route 166 - Hoppers Crossing to Wyndham Vale*   Route 167 - Hoppers Crossing to Tarneit *   Route 170 - Tarneit to Werribee*   Route 180 - Tarneit to Werribee*   Route 182 - Tarneit to Werribee*   Route 190 - Wyndham Vale to Werribee*   Route 191 - Manor Lakes to Werribee (route has been extended since last ride)   Route 192 - Wyndham Vale to Wer...

The answer is the route 109, traveling through fifteen suburbs from Port Melbourne to Box Hill. I made a spreadsheet which you can find here , and a document you can find here . The document details which suburbs each tram route goes through. Data may not be accurate because PTV is not exactly the most useful thing in the world. It does not consider Deepdene to be a suburb as an example of this inaccuracy. If you can find any problems with the spreadsheet or the document, let me know in the comments either here, or on the document itself. Some other notes: Route 3 and 3a both travel through the same suburbs, something that I thought was surprising for some reason. Route 12 was surprisingly high. Route 35 travels through the least amount of suburbs, at a dizzying high number of two. I cannot even count that high. I thought that the 75 would be higher at first, but then I remembered that it makes sense that it does not travel as many as I thought it would, mostly because the suburbs get ...

 Hello everyone! Sorry that I have not been able to post every week recently, University was catching up on me, making it really hard to get a post or two through. Now that the station name series is finished, I should probably tell you what you should expect to see on this blog. Coming up, I have got so posts coming involving trams and suburbs, as well as buses and suburbs, more spread sheets basically. I may also research some old railway lines and tell you where the names of the stations on those lines come from. You can also flat out tell me what you want me to post too! More suburb blogs? Some stupid rants maybe? Perhaps you want me to stop posting all together! If you do want me to post something, please drop it down in the comments for me, it would really help me and my blog.  That is all I had to post for this week, sorry for nothing too interesting.

A quick and messy blog post for this week, I have a lot of assignments due these next couple of weeks. Anyway, here is a link to Western Australian LGAs and the number of stations they have: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17VR3K_Dodpl3Wy-PqxKvPVkBfTZduwi0PdZtc9-bZGE/edit?usp=sharing Some notes: - Gosnells and Joondalup tie for most stations for an LGA, with both having a mere six, pretty low in comparison to other states. - Belmont City, East Fremantle Town, Kalamunda City, Mandurang Shire and Pepperment Grove Shire all do not have stations in them, the only ones in the Perth metropolitan area not to have any. - This list will definitely change once Metronet and associated projects are finished. With Belmont and Kalamunda appearing to gain stations (they currently do not have any). Conclusion Again, a short blog that I wanted to rush out so this page is not neglected. Thanks for reading as always!

I do not really have much planned now that this particular series is over, with the exception of possibly more level crossing lists, so here is a generic top ten list about train station names! Stations are ranked based on their origin stories and how fun they are to say. This was a rather difficult list to make, I am not all that confident with this list even as of posting, so expect an updated list sometime in the future. Before we begin the list, here are a few honourable mentions: Honourable Mentions Middle Gorge Middle Gorge did not feel right on the list because the place it is named after is over two kilometres away from it, but a relatively cool name and a controversy that saw people compare its name to the Lord of the Rings forces me to put it on here in some form.  Croydon Croydon does not make the list because its name is not anything interesting. What is interesting is the name that the station prior to landing on its current one. Its original name appears to have bee...