On the train

Yes, still on the Regional Rail Link topic – Ballarat and Bendigo trains now had their own tracks through Footscray to Sunshine, along with their own next train displays located away from the ones showing suburban trains.

But for now Geelong line services were still running along the Werribee line. Here we see a N class locomotive hauled train passing through Williams Landing.

A VLocity train passing through Laverton station.

And another passing through the platforms at South Kensington.

Which then took the crossover at the city end of the station to access the new V/Line tracks towards Southern Cross.

Freight trains

A decade ago Pacific National still had the contract to transport grain by rail to the flour mill at Kensington. Southern Shorthaul Railroad won the contract in November 2017.

Meanwhile down at North Geelong Yard Pacific National was busy scrapping surplus wagons – the bulk of which once transport freight that has been lost to road.

Down around Geelong

The North Geelong B signal box was still hanging around a decade after it had been decommissioned in 2005, and surprisingly it hung around almost a decade longer – eventually being demolished in May 2022.

While down in Grovedale money was getting spent on Baanip Boulevard, with a new bridge being built over the railway to link the Geelong Ring Road to the Surf Coast Highway.

And down at North Shore even the dive of a station was getting some attention – new asphalt!

Ding ding on the trams

Remember the ‘Melbourne Star’ observation wheel? This tram was advertising it, before the operator went broke in 2021.

But a tourist icon that people actually patronised was the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant – it ran until 2018 when their restaurant trams were kicked off the Yarra Trams network due to safety concerns.

Another safety concern that is having to dodge cars to climb onboard tram at South Yarra station. The platform stop there wasn’t opened until 2021.

Another crappy tram stop was the one at La Trobe and Swanston Street – on this December afternoon it was overwhelmed by a crowd of RMIT graduates spilling out onto the road. Platform stops were not provided along La Trobe Street until July 2024.

And continuing on that theme, now we’re at Collins and Queen Street – closed in 2015 following completion of a new platform stop at Collins and William Street.

Another stop to close being the one for southbound route 96 passengers at the corner of Spencer and Flinders Street.

Works about to start on new platform stops at Batman Park a short distance to the south.

A few buses

A decade ago route 400 between Sunshine and Laverton was operated by plain white liveried buses – an artifact of the shared operation of the route between Westrans and Sita. Today the operations are now CDC Melbourne and Transit Systems, and the white buses are gone – they’re mostly PTV orange, with the exception of a few buses still in the old poo brown Sita corporate livery.

Another oddball bus was the British-built Optare Solos used on the SkyBus hotel shuttle service around the Melbourne CBD. Later branded as ‘SkyBus Link’, the service was discontinued in 2020 thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, and never restored.

And the last bus is a Designline ‘bubble’ bus running on route 903 along Bell Street in Coburg.

Stuck in traffic waiting at the level crossing with the Upfield line – which was removed in June 2020.

Ticketing bits

Down in Geelong it was once possible to buy a ‘Short Term Ticket‘ from bus drivers rather than use a Myki card – an option removed in April 2013.

While in the lead up to the November 2014 election both parties promised to cap Melbourne suburban travel to zone 1 prices, and introduce the ‘Free Tram Zone’ in the CBD.

Both starting from 1 January 2015.

But don’t think they’re giving you something for nothing – PTV was simultaneously running yet another fare evasion campaign.

As well as promoting free travel on Christmas Day.

Car parking

What’s a worse use of prime CBD land than a ground level car park? This is the ‘Golden Square’ car park at 217 Lonsdale Street, which is still a car park today.

And this is the ‘Safe City Car Park’ at 132 Little Bourke Street in Chinatown – which has since been turned into a pop up event space.

And finally – a power station

Here we are at the main gate to Anglesea Power Station.

Located in the middle of the Anglesea Heathlands.

Next to a brown coal mine.

Opened back in 1969 to power Alcoa’s Point Henry smelter outside of Geelong, the smelter was closed down in July 2014 but the power station remained open pending a new owner, before it too was shut down in August 2015.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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By operator

Ventura has the most of articulated buses in Melbourne, with 25 in their fleet – some used on school runs in the outer eastern and south-eastern suburbs.

Photo by Thomas Hobley, via Wikimedia Commons

And others out of Frankston on routes along the Mornington Peninsula.

CDC Melbourne has six articulated buses scattered across their depots, mostly for school and charter work, along with one for the route 601 Monash University shuttle.

Sunbury Bus Service has three articulated buses – two for route service, the other for charter work.

Kinetic also has six articulated buses used on routes from Doncaster to the Melbourne CBD – two older buses in the silver ‘SmartBus’ livery.

And four newer ones in PTV livery.

And a ring in

SkyBus Melbourne was once a big operator of articulated buses on the Southern Cross Station – Melbourne Airport run.

But since the 2015 introduction of double deck buses, they’ve been bumped down to other services or moved interstate.

Footnote: articulated buses interstate

Sydney is a big user of articulated buses, despite their network working alongside a busy rail system.

Canberra is another big bus city, so ACTION has a number of articulated buses.

Adelaide runs both standard and articulated buses along their oddball O-Bahn Busway.

And Brisbane City Council is a massive bus operator competing against the Queensland Government owned Queensland Rail, deploying articulated buses to their network of parallel busways.

Photo by EamonM25, via Wikimedia Commons

Footnote: double deck buses in Melbourne

Articulated buses aren’t the only oddball vehicles on Melbourne’s bus routes – there is also an even smaller handful of double deck buses.

Sources

The ‘Australian Bus Fleet Lists’ website lists the details of virtually every bus and coach operating on Australia’s roads – here are the gory details for the buses I’ve listed above:

• Ventura Group
• CDC Melbourne
• Kinetic Melbourne
• Sunbury Bus Service
• SkyBus Melbourne

You can find the articulated on those pages by searching for the ‘AB’ (Articulated bus with standard seating) seating code.

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Overview of the carriage yards from the north-east side of La Trobe Street

Regional Rail Link

Work on the Regional Rail Link project will still ticking away, with Sunbury line passengers often having to change to buses at Footscray station.

New tracks had been completed along the edge of Docklands.

But work continued on the route past South Kensington.

Where the old tracks were getting rebuilt.

And at Middle Footscray, where space needed to be created for a third pair of tracks.

The north end of the footbridge at Footscray had been demolished for the same reason.

But work on the 1 McNab Avenue office tower was also underway.

Visible from all over Footscray.

The first stage of Regional Rail Link between the city and Footscray opened in July 2014, with the project completed in June 2015.

Myki

The changeover to Myki was still underway, with ‘Myki Mates’ talking to Traralgon passengers at Southern Cross Station ahead of the rollout of Myki to their line.

Public Transport Victoria also opened a new ‘PTV Hub’ beneath their head office at 750 Collins Street, Docklands.

And a ‘Pop up PTV Hub’ at Southern Cross Station for myki queries during the V/Line rollout.

But the reliability of the Myki system left much to be desired – defective readers onboard trams were still common.

Trams

A decade ago the corner of Elizabeth and Collins Streets still had a tram stop, located a short walk from the Elizabeth Street terminus.

It was eventually replaced with a platform stop located a block to the north in October 2013.

I also paid a visit to the much older trams found at the Ballarat Tramway Museum.

Luckily the sun came out on what was a cold winter’s day.

And back at the depot I found a 1970s advertisement from the State Electricity Commission of Victoria promoting all-electric kitchens.

A case of everything old is new again!

Southern Cross Station

At the far end of Southern Cross Station I paid a visit to the ‘Cavalcade of Transport’ mural – it was still in place, but the rest of the shopping centre had been stripped out for redevelopment.

While at the other end I found a curious sign – a train icon directing me to the ‘Airport Express’.

But it was a lie – the only service them, as is now, was a bus.

In the years since SkyBus has swapped their articulated buses for even larger double deck buses, but they still get stuck in traffic on the run between the CBD and Melbourne Airport.

And the other bits

Down at Avalon Airport I found ex-Qantas 747-300 VH-EBU ‘Nalanji Dreaming‘ still in storage outside Hangar 6.

It was repainted into a white livery in 2016, but was scrapped in June 2023.

Out at Campbellfield I went past the site of Pipeworks Fun Market on Mahoney’s Road.

The market closed in 2013, but opened on a new site in 2022.

On the Monash Freeway I found a set of new fixed speed cameras being installed.

They catch around 7,500 speeding motorists in each direction each year, despite standing out like dog’s balls.

And on the Metropolitan Ring Road works were underway on the upgrade between Edgars Road to Plenty Road.

That section was finished in April 2014, but it only marked the start of a decade of works elsewhere on the Ring Road.

And finally, a giant pile of mX newspapers unopened after the end of evening peak.

The evening commuter newspaper continued to be published until June 2015.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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My first through was City Sightseeing Melbourne – they operate a fleet of open top double deck buses around Melbourne, running a hop-on hop-off service targeted at tourists.

But when I checked the ticket prices I got second thoughts – a 24 hour pass for adults is $35, and children aged 4-14 are $15.

What about the SkyBus service to Melbourne Airport?

Another expensive adventure – $33 return for adults, but at least kids can come along free on a family ticket.

But the real cheap seats are the route 190 bus that runs between Werribee and Wyndham Vale.

It’s just a standard Myki zone 2 fare, but only one of the buses used on the route is a double decker – which makes tracking it down an adventure.

I was lucky enough to find it at Wyndham Vale station at 9am where my son and I rode it to Werribee station, after which it retired to the CDC Melbourne depot at Truganina. Apparently it emerges again in the afternoon to complete a number of school runs, then heads back to the depot again for the night.

Back in 2015 Daniel Bowen wrote more about CDC’s double deck bus.

And some other options

If you a pack of excited kids to entertain, then chartering a double decker bus is always an option.

Dee Decker Tours has a number of double deck buses for charter.

While Rockleigh Tours has two luxurious double deck coaches for hire.

And Melbourne’s double deck train

Melbourne once had a double deck train – the 4D. Introduced in 1992 as a testbed, after years out of service it was finally scrapped in 2006.

Photo by Zed Fitzhume, via Wikimedia Commons

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The history of Melbourne’s SkyBus

SkyBus commenced operations in 1978, running a shuttle service between Tullamarine Airport and Franklin Street on the northern edge of the Melbourne CBD. In 1982 it took over the airport bus services run by the now-defunct airlines Ansett and TAA, with the service taking the current form in 2000 when the city terminus was moved to Spencer Street Station, with services operating express to the airport. 2002 then saw the state government contributing $3 million in funding to upgrade the service in place of the construction of an airport rail link.

Articulated buses were introduced to the service in 2002.

With the first Bustech “CDi” double deck buses entering service in 2015.

Travel times were once advertised as 20 minutes from airport to the city, but increasing congestion saw the claim gain a “times may vary due to traffic conditions” disclaimer, then dropped altogether in 2016.

The monopoly nature of the SkyBus service saw private equity firms take in interest in the company, with two foreign firms taking a majority stake in the company in 2014, in a deal valuing SkyBus’s parent company at $50 million to $100 million.

And diversification

It appears that the new management realised that their gravy train of monopoly profits on the Melbourne Airport – City route wouldn’t last forever, as they soon started acquiring other airport bus operators across Melbourne, Australia, and even New Zealand.

October 2015

SkyBus purchased the Airbus Express service in Auckland, New Zealand.

January 2016

SkyBus purchased the Frankston and Peninsula Airport Shuttle (FAPAS) business, rebranding it as SkyBus (sidenote: who the hell thought that FAPAS was a good name to call their business?)

August 2016

SkyBus launched a new direct bus service from Melbourne Airport to St Kilda, speeding up the journey for longer distance travellers from Frankston. (announced in April 2016)

February 2017

SkyBus took over operation of the Avalon Airport – Southern Cross Station route from Sita Group. (announced in December 2016)

July 2017

SkyBus took over operation of the Avalon Airport – Geelong route from Murrell Group.

November 2017

Skybus launched a new direct airport express for Southbank and Docklands.

December 2017

SkyBus purchased the Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle (GCTS) service in Queensland, rebranding it as SkyBus.

July 2018

Skybus launched two new airport bus services: Melbourne Airport to Tarneit and Werribee; and Melbourne Airport to the Mornington Peninsula via Rosebud, Mordialloc and Mentone.

July 2018

SkyBus purchased the Hobart Airporter service in Tasmania, rebranding it as SkyBus.

Seeing the writing on the wall

In 2016 SkyBus director, Michael Sewards, gave a hopefully response to airport rail proposals:

The reality is, just because you build an airport rail, it doesn’t mean people want to use it.

Yes, let’s plan for the next 15 or 30 years, but let’s also be somewhat sensible in this conversation by recognising we’ve had a service for over 38 years, which over 50 million passengers have used. We think we can co-exist with rail and provide a very competitive offering.

If we ever have an airport rail, it has to deliver all those value points for customer experience. Melbourne Airport warrants and deserves many modes supplying the highest level of customer experience, and we think SkyBus will be one of those.

But by 2018 they were more worried, questioning the government for choosing to subsidise a competing rail link.

“SkyBus welcomes any compelling mass transit rail option that can compete with our services, but surely there are important questions about at what cost the Victorian taxpayer will be asked to contribute both the build of this and the ongoing operations, let alone the fare price a $10-15 billion investment requires for a return to its investors,” added Mr Sewards.

Getting an opinion piece published in the Herald Sun on 28 August 2018.

Many people have welcomed the news that the long-debated Melbourne Airport Rail Link has finally secured funding from the Victorian and Federal governments.

As the existing provider of Melbourne Airport’s mass-transit service, SkyBus has also welcomed this development.

However, while a rail link to Melbourne Airport is an important development for the many thousands of people who currently travel to and from Melbourne Airport every day, it is only one part of the total transport solution needed to respond to the needs of travellers now and into the future.

And launching a ‘There’s room for everyone‘ campaign, and taking out a full page ‘We welcome an airport rail link too’ advertisement in the Herald Sun.

But experience at overseas airports shows that SkyBus will survive – many passengers will still choose an airport bus over an airport train, with one example being Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong experience

Hong Kong Airport is served by an airport rail link that overseas visitors love to rave about.

But it is the network of direct bus services that have captured the market.

In general, public transport modes dominate HKIA ground access market. Franchised buses have a large proportion (47 percent) with the Airport Express rail line (AEL) having 23 percent. The primary reason attracting air passengers to use the franchised buses is the lower travel cost. ‘Shortest time required’ is the main reason for those who used AEL.

Research there showed that directness of service was the reason for mode choice:

In order to understand the motivation for mode choice – and to explore the attribute of directness of service — MTR managers undertook some market research. Of those riders on the direct bus routes, an expected 55 percent said that the lower fare was a reason for choosing the bus; importantly, 51 percent stated that directness of service (i.e., no need to transfer) was a reason for their choice of mode. Directness of service was considered a factor by only 18 percent of rail riders, presumably those with destinations convenient to the terminals.

And that even throwing money at a gold plated rail service will do little to attract additional passengers.

It is apparent that even with a good design and well-integrated railway service, the Airport Express does not have inherent advantages over more direct single mode bus travel. In other words, the speed advantage of rail versus single mode road competitors when travelling over distances of only up to 34 km [21 mi] do not result in significant enough time savings to compensate for the necessary transfer.

Which also provides lessons for the State Government on how to deliver a Melbourne Airport rail link.

So what will Melbourne Airport rail do to SkyBus?

2018 saw the the signing of a new 10 year contract between SkyBus and the State Government, so it doesn’t look like SkyBus is intending to go anywhere.

I suspect that the Hong Kong experience will also play out in Melbourne – patronage on SkyBus’ primary Melbourne Airport to CBD route will plummet, with passengers switching to rail based on cost if it is a extension of existing suburban services, or quality if it is built as an express airport link.

As for the other SkyBus routes recently launched to other parts of Melbourne, patronage will stay much the same, with the one seat journey being preferred over a change trains in the city. However the real competition will be driving directly from home to the airport, over a freeway network that the State Government continues to expand.

Footnote

There is more than one way to get to Melbourne Airport, as Daniel Bowen describes in his post The cheap way to Melbourne Airport.

There are also a other privately operated bus services that run from Melbourne Airport towards Dandenong and Ringwood, as well further afield to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Gippsland and Shepparton.

More photos

Until the early-2000s SkyBus used full sized coaches for the trip out to the airport – ‘The Tulla Flyer’ has posted a selection of photos from this period on the Australian Transport Discussion Board.

Photos of the former SkyBus terminal at Spencer Street Station can be found at the ‘Showbus Australia’ website.

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Born out of the airline operated shuttle bus services that operated out of Franklin Street at the north end of the Melbourne CBD, in 2000 the city terminus moved to Spencer Street Station, which combined with upgrades to the Tullamarine Freeway as part of the CityLink project, saw the travel time to Melbourne Airport cut to just 20 minutes.

As late as 2008 the 20 minute travel time was front and centre on the SkyBus website front page.

By 2010 the 20 minute reference was dropped from the front page, but still appeared on their FAQ page. There it remained through 2012, 2014 and 2015 – but with the addition of an asterisk – “times may vary due to traffic conditions”.

By 2016 the SkyBus FAQ admitted that travel times had blown out by 50% in peak periods, to 30 minutes.

And by 2017 it had blown out further – 30 minutes the best case scenario, with a 45 minute journey expected in peak periods.

My recent SkyBus trip took 50 minutes to travel from Southern Cross Station to the airport.

Why is SkyBus taking longer?

The short answer – traffic congestion.

During the 2000s upgrade of the Tullamarine Freeway as part of the CityLink project, an ‘express lane’ for buses and taxis was added between Flemington Road and Bulla Road, operating between 6:30 am and 9:30 am inbound and 3:30pm and 6:30pm outbound, weekdays only.

As traffic congestion increases this lane is the key to reducing SkyBus travel times, allowing buses to bypass other vehicles, as The Age reported in 2011:

SkyBus was designed to provide a 20-minute run between Southern Cross Station and the airport but is consistently failing to do this during peak periods, with times blowing out to as much as 51 minutes in the morning and 59 minutes in the afternoon peak.

A study by engineering and consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff found that “the future will see a continuation of the significant but relatively gradual degradation of travel time on the CBD-airport bus route”.

The study provided three options for improving travel times, with the department’s preferred one involving creating an express bus lane and putting SkyBus on a public transport fare.

A 2011 briefing to Transport Minister Terry Mulder said: “Putting SkyBus on a Met fare and enforcing express lanes would significantly reduce travel time on the express lanes without significantly affecting travel times on the non-express lanes.”

The SkyBus lane would be created relatively cheaply by removing the emergency lane and nominally narrowing the other lanes.

However, Transurban is believed to be bargaining hard to ensure it is not locked out from any extra lane on CityLink. A spokeswoman said: “Transurban supports any further augmentation of CityLink for the benefit of all the travelling public.”

Public Transport Victoria spokeswoman Andrea Duckworth said: “The government does not have immediate plans to install myki readers on SkyBus or widen CityLink.”

Despite the “no plans to widen CityLink” line, what did the government decide to do a few short years later? More roads, of course!

Throwing good money after bad

Approval for the CityLink Tulla Widening project was given in 2015, adding an extra lane to the Tullamarine Freeway between Melbourne and the airport, at a cost of $1.3 billion.

The section of elevated viaduct opened by CityLink in the 2000s as the ‘Western Link’ has had the emergency lanes removed and the speed limit dropped to 80 km/h, allowing an extra traffic lane to be squeezed in.

An additional lane has also been added to the five lane section north of Flemington Road.

As well as the four lane section north of Moreland Road.

But on the bus priority front, nothing has changed, despite the addition of a new lane for general traffic – limited operating times, no enforcement when it is active.

And it still comes to an end at Bulla Road – only half way to the airport!

And to make matters worse, there are no emergency lanes on the upgraded section of freeway.

Broken down taxis are a common sight on the Tullamarine Freeway.

As are rear end crashes.

Today a mere inconvenience, but without emergency lanes any minor incident will result in an entire traffic lane being closed down. $1.3 billion well spent?

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