I’m not joking – head off to a workwear supplier, and they’ll list ‘Victoria’ and ‘NSW’ specification high visibility vests.

The NSW version has the reflective strips forming an ‘X’ across the back.

While the Victorian one doesn’t.

The Victorian version apparently conforms to Australian Standard AS4602.1 Figure 2(c).

Australian Standard AS4602.1 Figure 2(c)

As detailed in Metro Trains Melbourne’s Management of Personal Protective Equipment Procedure.

All high visibility garments must be fitted with retro reflective strips. The strips must;

• Meet either requirements of Class R material in Australian Standard AS/NZS1906.4;
• Positioned on the garment in accordance with AS4602.1 (Refer Figure 1 below);
• Are at least 50mm wide;
• Are silver in color.
• Applied and remain in place and serviceable for the life of the garment under normal use and laundering.

Positioning of the strips on garments must be in accordance with Australian Standard AS4602.1 Figure 2(c), as follows:

• a. Two horizontal hoops of retro reflective material must encircle the waist;
• b. Strips of retro reflective material must cover each shoulder.

While the Sydney Trains Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) standards details their style.

Positioning of the strips on garments must be in accordance with AS4602.1, as follows:

• i) One horizontal hoop of retro reflective material must encircle the waist;
• ii) A second horizontal strip must be at the back, below the waist, so as the strip is still visible when the wearer is bending forward or in a stooped position. The minimum gap between the horizontal strips should be 50mm;
• iii) Two vertical 50mm strips of retro reflective material must join the upper horizontal hoop, straight over each shoulder, and forming an “X” on the back

A real dogs breakfast, isn’t it!

This being a canine working on a *Victorian* railway.

A footnote on Australian Standards

Unfortunately I can’t actually check Australian Standard AS4602.1 “High visibility safety garments” for myself, because the publisher SAI Global is a money hungry grub who refuses to make them available to the public, despite their status as an essential service in governing consumer safety.

Meanwhile in Europe…

It seems that the European Union also has it’s own high visibility vest standardisation issues – some countries use yellow, others orange.

Yellow or orange? Our eurostar hi-vis vests are reversible to take account of the requirements of the different countries we work in.
Yellow:
Orange: pic.twitter.com/Hv2rSY2F5h

— Justin on eurostar (@EurostarJustinp) January 5, 2023

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Incompatible high vis vests – another example of rail dysfunction appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

How we got there

The story starts the same was as Australia’s rail gauge muddle, where each colony started building railways based on their own standards, never thinking the systems would meet to form a national network.

But despite early trials on the Commonwealth Railways during the 1950s, the rollout of two-way radio systems was resisted by many Australian rail operators. Franklin Hussey, Crew Operations Manager for the National Rail Corporation, had this to say to the 2001 Special Commission of Inquiry Into the Glenbrook Rail Accident.

The introduction of train radio systems combined with track circuiting has been slow to develop in Australia, contrary to what occurred in the United States of America after World War II.

In Australia they were not contemplated until an incident in Victoria at Barnawartha in the 1982 when a freight train collided with the rear of the Southern Aurora.

He stated that New South Wales was the least developed of all the States until the development of the Metronet and Countrynet systems the mid-1990s.

So one might think the lessons of the past on rail gauge would lead to standardisation – but it didn’t.

Communications facilities and current call types have evolved due to the different safeworking practices of the rail authorities and their investment strategies. Each system has evolved to best meet the requirements of their operation and necessarily are influenced by the equipment capabilities which in turn depend on the level of investment. The differences between systems is a major inhibition to flexible locomotive operation on the interstate corridors.

And so each state-based rail operator adopted their own standards for radio communications.

And the mess

By the 2000s there were 20 different radio systems in use across Australia – most states using different radio systems for their suburban and country rail networks.

Australasian Railway Association diagram

To make matters worse, there was no single radio capable of supporting all 20 systems.

Whilst most areas are shown as requiring UHF radio, it should be noted that no single UHF radio can do the job.

The UHF radio used in the Perth Greater Metropolitan area is a trunked radio with narrow band operation. In general, radio transceivers that can provide the trunked radio operation cannot also provide the wide band conventional operation required for the rest of the country.

A standard, off-the-shelf conventional mobile radio can be used for the remainder of the UHF train control areas outside NSW. But in Victoria this radio is useless unless connected to a Motorola ASW or MDC600 unit.

In NSW, a special duplex radio is required for Metronet and Countrynet. There is only one source of duplex radio to our knowledge, although one can contrive a full duplex radio from two simplex radios.

Access to the Metronet system is limited to a particular brand and model of mobile radio. Although it is technically possible to implement the Metronet radio functions with other radio transceivers, the necessary information and approvals are not available.

Similarly, RIC is at present the only source of Countrynet equipment.

So a train travelling from Brisbane to Perth via Melbourne required six different radio receivers in the cab.

Rod Williams photo

Changing radio channels along the way.

Yet unable to talk to the driver of a steam train up ahead.

The driver of the suburban train running on the track alongside.

Or the driver of a parallel V/Line train.

In search of solutions

The formation of the National Rail Corporation in 1992 to take over the operation of interstate freight services on the railways of Australia provided an impetus to dealing with the mess of incompatible radio systems.

Weston Langford photo

They wrote in 1998.

Radio frequencies change frequently across the national track network, requiring complex radio equipment, and constant attention from drivers to ensure correct radio channels are selected for each task and area. The very large number of frequencies in use also places large demands on rail operators and track owners for provision of radio equipment and on controllers for attention to detail in its use.

So they patched over the problem with a system called AWARE – “Australia Wide Augmented Radio Environment“.

ATSB photo

It presented a single radio screen to the train driver, and managed a cabinet full of radio equipment, switching between them based on which systems were used at the current location.

ATSB diagram

But radios are still a problem

The inability for train crew from different operators to talk to each other in an emergency was a contributing factor to a number of rail crashes between trains during the 1990s and 2000s.

ATSB photo

At Glenbrook in NSW.

At 2 December 1999 a State Rail Authority interurban train collided with the rear of the Indian Pacific tourist train. The accident occurred because of a fault in an area of automatic signalling. As the signalling system was not functioning normally, control of train movements through the area was therefore managed by the signaller and drivers.

There is no single integrated system which enables communications between the various trains, signallers and controllers involved in operations on the rail network. In the case of this particular accident there were five different communications systems which were involved, namely, three different two-way radio systems (known respectively as Metronet, Countrynet and WB), dedicated line telephones at the bases of signals, called signal telephones, and mobile telephones operating on either the GSM terrestrial based network or by satellite.

Corio in Victoria.

On 1 October 1999 a freight train came to a stand at Corio station after an emergency brake application on the train. On investigation it was found that the train had separated, the rear portion of the train had six wagons derailed. The damaged wagons were fouling the Broad Gauge Line and the standard gauge line with severe track damage to both.

The report recommended that all locomotive drivers and train controllers to be instructed that immediately a train comes to a stand on a running line, the driver must inform the train controller who, in turn, must inform the train controller in charge of any parallel lines, so that all trains on the parallel lines can be warned.

Hexham in NSW.

On 12 July 2002 an empty coal train derailed at Hexham, fouling two out of the three adjacent railway lines. A short time later a passenger train collided with the fouling wreckage. The line that the passenger train was travelling on was track circuited but the track remained unbroken, preventing the automatic signals returning to stop. The crew from the coal train tried to contact the local signal box with no success.

And Chiltern in Victoria.

On Sunday 16 March 2003 a Pacific National freight train derailed south of Chiltern railway station on the standard gauge railway line. At about 1512 a V/Line locomotive hauled passenger train travelling from Albury to Melbourne on the broad gauge railway line, collided with wreckage from the derailed freight train. The collision derailed the locomotive and two carriages of train 8318

There was an about two minute window from the time train 1SP2N came to a stand, up to the time the driver of train 8318 applied the emergency brake, to try and stop train 8318 before the derailed train. In that time the drivers from train 1SP2N had repeatedly tried to warn train 8318, but were unsuccessful. The drivers also followed procedure by notifying ARTC train control but the message was delayed by four minutes before being relayed to the broad gauge train control (Centrol), not in time to prevent the collision.

And a solution

In 2007 the Australian Rail Track Corporation, announced that they would be developing a single National Train Communications System to be used on the interstate rail network.

Seventy-seven new Next G regional base stations will be built as part of an $85 million communications deal signed today between the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) and Telstra.

The agreement will see Telstra’s leading Next G network used to replace nine separate communications systems across 10,000km of rail tracks.

Replacing a series of old technologies, such as two-way radios and CDMA devices, the new network will provide telecommunications coverage for the interstate rail network – from Brisbane to Perth (via Melbourne and Broken Hill) and in the Hunter Valley. The agreement improves coverage in tunnels and across the Nullarbor Plain, introduces new communications equipment for more than 700 locomotives, and is backed up with Satellite if necessary.

Chief Executive Officer of ARTC, Mr David Marchant, said once completed all trains and train controllers would be able to use the one system to communicate with each other across the entire national rail network from Brisbane to Perth, as well as the Hunter Valley Coal Network, eliminating the inefficient nine different communications systems for train operators.

“ARTC is breaking new ground in Australian rail communications,” Mr Marchant said. “A single national communication system will greatly improve operational efficiency and reduce costs associated with managing multiple platforms.

General Manager Strategy Development and Chief Information Officer for ARTC, Mr Leon Welsby, said the new communications network will provide train controllers with real time GPS location of all trains, wherever they are between Brisbane and Perth.

Australian government funding under the Auslink National Transport Plan has been made available to provide this common communications system for the national rail network.

The new system supported four different data connections.

• Satellite
• GSM-R
• UHF (analog, digital)
• 3G (UTMS, HSDPA)

All controlled by a single ICE (In-Cab Communications Equipment) unit developed by base2 communications.

The rollout

One the new system had been proven in trials, it was time to roll out a new radio to every single train that operated over the ARTC network.

An ICE unit in every cab.

And new radio antennas on every roof.

V/Line’s fleet of VLocity trains didn’t miss out.

Gaining an array of new antennas.

Melbourne’s restored ‘Tait’ set also received an ICE radio.

And even steam locomotives didn’t miss out!

Gaining radio antennas on the cab roof.

Positioning of the ICE unit presented difficulties for some steam locomotives.

The radio equipment box on A2 986 ended up beside the coal bunker!

But in the end it was done – and the last of the legacy radio systems switched off in December 2014.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) officially switched off the last two of seven out-dated regional radio systems previously used on its network today, completing a seven year project.

“The ‘switch off’ of the old radio systems in NSW and Victoria means freight trains operating on ARTC’s national freight rail network now use a single, safer, digital radio system,” ARTC CEO John Fullerton said.

While the physical network including mobile communications towers and satellites has been in place since June 2010, the retrofitting and testing of ICE (In-cab Communications Equipment) units across the national locomotive fleet and multiple operators has now been completed.

Currently 900 trains with ICE units operate across the country, 704 units were supplied by ARTC as part of the NTCS project.

Around 1024 Telstra Mobile sites form part of the communications network along ARTC’s rail network. Telstra provided an additional 81 radio sites along the rail corridor comprising 70 macro base stations and 11 radio fitted tunnels.

The Next G system is for non electrified NSW, the Victorian tracks controlled by ARTC, SA, NT and WA tracks, excluding the PTA system.

Finally putting an end to a mess created during the 1980s.

Footnote: Victorian train radio systems

The original 1980s analogue radio systems in Victoria used Motorola Micor base stations and Motorola Syntrex radios, with the Motorola MDC-600 data system.

Suburban trains used the ‘Urban Train Radio System’ until it was replaced by the GSM-R based ‘Digital Train Radio System’ (DTRS) using Nokia-Siemens Networks equipment in August 2014.

Country trains used the ‘Non-Urban Train Radio System’ with which was finally replaced by the NTCS-based Regional Rail Communications Network (RRCN) from 2017.

Further reading

• Train Radio Systems of Australia – Australasian Railway Association (2005)
• Australia Wide Communications Systems for CargoSprinter – John Aitken (2002)
• Review of rail access regimes – Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities (2018)
• Optimising harmonisation in the Australian railway industry – Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (2006)
• Derailment of Pacific National Freight Train 1SP2N and the Subsequent Collision of V/Line Passenger Train 8318 – ATSB (2004)

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Australia’s train radio “break of gauge” appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

The contract for Clunes station was dated 25 September 1874 and the polychrome brickwork station building was completed by J. Short, with a cast iron verandah supplied by Robinson Brothers.

Photo from the Clunes Museum collection

By the 1980s the water tower, crane and van goods shed had been demolished, with the lamp room and men’s toilet at the north end of the station demolished in 1980. The last passenger train to pass through the station ran in 1993, when The Vinelander to Mildura was withdrawn. The station was then boarded up, the only passing trains carrying freight.

In December 2008 the State Government announced passenger rail services to Maryborough would resume, but Clunes was left out of the project, V/Line trains rolling past the abandoned station from July 2010.

But in June 2010 it was announced that Clunes would also be re-opened, so restoration works started – including the complete rebuilding of the platform. However the finished station was missing one major feature – the veranda.

Photo by Daniel Ruben du Prie, via Wikimedia Commons

The Courier has the full story.

Clunes Train Station historic verandah removal sparks anger
30 November 2011
Brendan Gullifer

The State Government will proudly unveil the newly refurbished Clunes train station this weekend — but with one glaring omission.

Contractors working on the $7 million project ripped down the station’s ornate iron verandah and sent parts of it to a scrap merchant.

Local residents are appalled and are still waiting for answers to how the mishap will be fixed.

Hepburn councillor Don Henderson called it a travesty.

“It’s just a piece of our heritage that is gone and will never be returned,” he said yesterday.

“It’s irreplaceable and in a town like Clunes, where heritage is so important, it’s a very big loss.”

Transport at Clunes president John Sayers, one of a small band who have helped negotiate the return of rail services, said he was horrified when he learnt about the mistake.

“It’s an appalling situation to have arisen,” he said.

Mr Sayers said the verandah superstructure, which held up the corrugated iron roofing, was chopped up and sent to a metal dealer while the solid iron posts were saved.

These had been removed to Creswick station for safe keeping, he said.

“We’re hoping some sort of verandah will eventually be built which will hopefully include the old posts.”

Cr Henderson said the verandah was an exact copy of one carefully preserved at the restored Creswick rail station.

“People will still be able to see what existed on this particular railway link,” he said.

But while many local rail enthusiasts were in mourning, those involved officially with the station’s renewal were reluctant to talk.

Building contractors Abigroup referred The Courier to the Department of Transport. A departmental media spokesperson said she would look into it, as did a spokesperson for Transport Minister Terry Mulder.

Neither responded to questions by press time.

Acting Hepburn chief executive officer Peter Reeve said there was an ongoing investigation into the missing verandah.

He said the planning permit included verandah removal to allow platform works and its restoration.

By July 2012 a replacement verandah had been erected at the station.

Commercial Systems Australia photo

But none of the original cast iron posts were used in the new structure – just modern steel beams and poles.

As for the boarded up station building.

Google Street View 2010

In 2015 it was restored for community use.

Google Street View 2017

As part of VicTrack’s Community Use of Vacant Rail Buildings Program.

All aboard Creative Clunes’ new cultural hub
20 November 2015

The historic Clunes Railway Station has been reinvented as a cultural hub, becoming the new home for Creative Clunes and the Clunes Booktown Festival.

State Member for Buninyong, Geoff Howard said Creative Clunes has taken on the head lease of the revamped station building, following the completion of works funded from the Victorian Government’s Community Use of Vacant Rail Buildings Program.

“This much loved, 140 year old station building has been given a new lease of life as the new home to Creative Clunes,” Mr Howard said.

“This project has successfully adapted this historic station building into a vibrant cultural hub, offering the local community an impressive new arts venue with its form and function.

“People will be able to come to explore their artistic side, utilising the hub’s creative and meeting spaces.

“It also provides permanent offices and volunteer facilities for the popular annual Clunes Booktown Festival – which attracts visitors from across Australia and the world to celebrate both historic and modern literary works.”

VicTrack and V/Line carried out restoration work to the exterior of the station building, with Ballarat Civic Construction completing extensive internal renovations.

These works included installing new foundations and floorboards, connecting services, restoring the plasterwork, and reinstating the doors to the platform.

The building now also has a kitchenette, accessible toilets, shower and a new access ramp.

Further reading

Talbot and Clunes Conservation Study, Richard Aitkens (page 339)

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Destroyed heritage at Clunes station appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

Photo by Rohanstorey, via Wikimedia Commons

In October 2019 the Minister for Transport Infrastructure launched the Treasury Square project:

The Andrews Labor Government has today announced the start of an expression of interest process to develop vacant transport land in Melbourne’s CBD which has the potential to create jobs and attract new businesses.

The Treasury Square site is located on the southern side of Flinders Street next to the rail corridor, and spans the area between Exhibition and Flinders streets, and Wellington Parade South.

Developing the land presents an opportunity to increase office space or new hotels or apartments in the heart of the city, close to public transport.

Revenue generated from the sale will be invested into the Labor Government’s record $70 billion pipeline of major transport infrastructure across Victoria.

The expression of interest is being run by Colliers International and EY in conjunction with VicTrack and is open until Friday 8 November.

The outcome of the expression of interest will determine next steps, with any development to be subject to relevant planning controls and approvals. For more information visit treasurysquare.colliers.com.au

With the Australian Financial Review revealing in January 2020 that a number of developers had been shortlisted to produce detailed bids.

Victoria has narrowed the field to just four bidders in the race for Melbourne’s Treasury Square urban regeneration project, with developers sharpening pencils for bids that could see them pay more than $500 million for the key CBD-fringe site.

Teams led by Mirvac, Brookfield, Cbus Property and Dexus-John Holland now have until March 12 to produce detailed bids for the 13,600sq m site.

The site, on the southern side of Flinders Street, has the potential to create 130,000sq m of net lettable area for a commercial value of about $2 billion.

Enter site constraints

The Treasury Square site is quite constrained.

While strong interest in the land reflects the dearth of large commercial sites in the Melbourne CBD, the high price could limit profitability of the technically tricky project.

“They’re dreaming,” said a person close to one team that did not make the shortlist. “If they wanted that number … we’ll stand back and leave them to it.”

The site is above a rail tunnel of Melbourne’s underground loop and has an electricity substation on it.

A deck would need to be built above the site to support the three towers that would likely be built as part of any development, which would also be subject to controls to limit overshadowing Birrarung Marr public park on the banks of the Yarra River.

The deck alone could cost as much as $150 million, the person said.

With the Mernda and Hurstbridge line track pair running parallel to Flinders Street.

Tramway and railway traction power substation alongside.

Full of high voltage electrical gear.

The ‘One East Melbourne’ development curving along the footprint of the Burnley and Caulfield Loop tunnels that run beneath.

And then twelve more railway tracks.

Not to mention fourteen tracks between Exhibition Street and Federation Square.

So what will they build?

Treasury Square sounds like an exciting project – but the renders shown on the accompanying website suggest otherwise.

The development is just a tiny wedge of the land between Federation Square and Richmond station – the Mernda and Hurstbridge line track pair, and electrical substations.

With three towers proposed along Flinders Street.

Maybe a mix of hotel, office and residential.

Stacked in different ways.

Or just three office towers.

Forming a wall of glass along Flinders Street.

Swap the glass for brick, and you’ve got the Gas and Fuel Towers!

Previous developments at East Melbourne

The first land to be developed was at the corner of Wellington Parade South and Jolimont Road, on what was once the ‘Collingwood Sidings‘. They were cleared of tracks during 1987 and 1988 and then offered for sale.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jolimont_Workshops_and_yard_overhead.jpg

The first stage being the lowrise ‘Eastside’ complex of neo-Georgian apartments developed by Becton during the 1990s.

Followed by the high rise ‘One East Melbourne’ development next door completed in 2010.

Consisting of a 19-storey residential tower with 85 apartments; a 6-storey commercial building includes three levels of car parking, 5,500 square meters of office space over three levels, and water wise rooftop garden; and 22 townhouses designed by Edgard Pirotta.

Further reading

• Princes Gate Towers at Wikipedia
• Demolishing the Gas and Fuel Towers, Culture Victoria

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Treasury Square – the Gas and Fuel Buildings reborn? appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.

The railway runs right though the middle of the town’s grid of streets, creating five level crossings in a 1.7 kilometres stretch of tracks.

VicTrack have slowly been upgrading the level crossings of Terang.

VicTrack annual report 2009–10

• Seymour Street: upgraded from passive to flashing lights

VicTrack annual report 2012-13

• Thomson Street: upgraded from flashing lights to boom barriers
• Shadforth Street: upgraded from passive to boom barriers

VicTrack annual report 2013-14

• Simpson Street: closed

Located only 250 metres from the the neighbouring Shadforth Street, closing the Simpson Street level crossing was an obvious choice. The resulting detour: 600 metres by road.

The level crossing at Simpson Street used to look like this.

But strangely enough, closing the road had to be funded by savings elsewhere.

Victorian Government-funded safety upgrades were completed at 22 level and pedestrian crossings across Victoria in 2013-14, mostly in regional Victoria. This exceeded the agreed target by one crossing for the Fix Country Level Crossings Program, with VicTrack able to fund the closure of the Simpson Street crossing in Terang from program savings.

Road signs aren’t free.

And neither is the provision of a passive ‘crib crossing’ for the use of pedestrians.

Footnote

According to Vicsig the closure date of the Simpson Street level crossing was 16 May 2013.

And elsewhere

Until the 1990s the Upfield line through suburban Melbourne was the home of dozen of hand operated level crossing gates.

Hand gates were once a common sight along the Upfield line! A Silver train crosses Victoria St, Brunswick, a W. Langford photo from Oct '89. pic.twitter.com/OPLLUG68cU

— Metro Trains (@metrotrains) June 4, 2017

It took until 1997 for the line to be upgraded to modern standards, which some lesser thoroughfares were closed to road traffic.

• Barkly Street (Jewell)
• Phoenix Street (Brunswick)
• Tinning Street (Anstey)
• Shorts Road (Merlynston)

The remainder of the hand gates were replaced by boom barriers.

Post retrieved by 35.215.163.46 using

The post Closing roads to remove level crossings appeared first on Waking up in Geelong.