Trains

A decade ago the Melbourne CBD skyline as viewed from Ascot Vale was much shorter.

As was that of Docklands viewed from North Melbourne station.

A handful of Hitachi trains were still kicking about.

But a new inspection train had just entered service.

Commissioned following a spate of overhead wire failures., from a glass cupola atop the carriage, staff and video cameras onboard the carriage monitor how the pantograph tracks along the overhead wire.

Going bush

I made up trip north to the Murray River at Echuca, and ran into four museum pieces hauling a freight train.

And an equally antiquated signalling system at the junction station of Barnes.

The four diesel locomotives were on hire from railway preservation groups.

I followed the train north, passing local wildlife.

Until we reached the Sunrice mill at Deniliquin, where the wagons were shunted into the plant for loading.

Rebuilding Footscray station

In 2012 work on the ‘Colander Bridge‘ at Footscray station had finally finished.

But it was still surrounded by a sea of car parking.

Stretching all the way to Barkly Street.

But work on Regional Rail Link was about to start.

The shops along Irving Street had been demolished to make way for two new platforms.

As had the service station at Hopkins Street.

The shops along the Nicholson Street bridge.

And even the trees along the rail cutting.

A spot of luck on the trams

In March 2012 the Tramway Museum Society Of Victoria chartered ‘Royal Tram‘ Z3.185 to run a special tour around Melbourne. Along the way we paid a visit to Royal Park.

And posed our tram for a cliché train over tram photo.

And parked at the end of the Footscray Road siding, a location passengers never visit.

In my travels I also paid a visit to Clifton Hill, and happened to catch a route 86 tram passing under a train bound for South Morang.

Back in 2012 this shot at Domain Interchange was nothing special.

But this piece of tram track no longer exists – route 8 is now route 58, and the tram tracks disused – diverted via Toorak Road in 2017 to make way for the construction of Anzac station.

The tram restaurant was another unremarkable sight.

But no longer exists – the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant last ran in 2018 after Yarra Trams grounded their fleet, and there is no sign of a possible solution.

A decade ago City Circle trams were still in the maroon livery, and were running out of North Fitzroy depot on Nicholson Street.

closed in 1993, but reopened in 2008-2012 to stable W class trams used on the City Circle while Southbank depot was undergoing refurbishment.

After months of inaction, work finally starting to happen on platform stops along Swanston Street.

Excavators having moved in to work on the platforms themselves.

On route 86 some new platform stops along High Street, Northcote had been built.

But route 96 services along Nicholson Street would have to wait – fancy yellow low floor ‘Bumblebee’ trams plying their way along the tracks, but with no platform stops to board them.

The trams got a repaint in 2014, but building accessible tram stops had to wait until 2018.

And under “something things never change” we have the route 57 terminus at West Maribyrnong terminus – the same high floor Z3 class trams still run there today, stopping outside the abandoned explosives factory.

Buses

Ventura blue and National Bus yellow were the colours of the buses at North Fitzroy depot.

The operation became Transdev Melbourne in 2013, then refranchised to Kinetic Melbourne in 2022.

In 2012 SkyBus was still boasting “20 minutes to the airport“, with a fleet of articulated buses plying the Tullamarine Freeway.

They acquired their first Bustech “CDi” double deck bus in 2015, which now form the core of their airport fleet.

Out at Highpoint Shopping Centre I found a high floor bus operated by Westrans.

Followed by a Melbourne Bus Link bus.

Melbourne Bus Link was merged into Transdev Melbourne in 2013, with Westrans rebranding as CDC Melbourne in 2014.

Finally, route 509 in Brunswick – a single minibus making the 2 kilometre long journey back and forth along Hope Street all day long.

I paid a visit because it was about to be discontinued, but despite how useless the service looked, locals appealed the decision, with the route eventually reinstated in 2016.

Emporium Melbourne

The big hole at Myer’s former Lonsdale Street store has featured in previous months.

And now it was complete.

The Lonsdale Street facade overlooking an empty hole.

Exposing tunnels to neighbouring buildings.

And the other stuff

March 2012 was the F1 Australian Grand Prix, and the usual merchandise stalls were stinking up access to Southern Cross Station.

Remember Melbourne Bike Share?

Since people can return their bike anywhere, leading to some stations becoming full and others empty, so management needed to drive around Melbourne rebalance bikes between the stations.

After years of lacklustre usage, the system was finally shut down in November 2019.

Out at Airport West I strolled past the Tullamarine Freeway.

Back then six lanes squeezed under the bridge at English Street, but in 2017 the bridge was rebuilt to allow eight to pass under, as part of CityLink Tulla Widening stage 2.

And finally – the Racecourse Hotel all boarded up in Flemington.

Next door to the roundabout with trams passing through the middle.

Abandoned since at least 2009, an arson attack in June 2012 destroyed the hotel, with the 22-storey apartment tower ‘ONLY Flemington’ now occupying the site.

Footnote

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

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Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

Early years

A bridge taking inbound traffic from the airport over outbound traffic towards Sunbury.

Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

A full diamond interchange was provided at Mickleham Road.

Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

And a bridge taking Carrick Drive over the freeway.

Country Roads Board annual report 1968-69

Nothing changes

The years that followed saw a period of massive growth at Melbourne Airport, and the construction of CityLink at the Melbourne end.

Google Earth 2002

But the outer end of the Tullamarine Freeway stayed the same.

Google Street View 2008

The sign at Mickleham Road was metricated.

Google Street View 2008

But nothing new at Carrick Drive.

Google Street View 2010

At least until 2013, when the Western Ring Road interchange was expanded as part of the M80 Ring Road upgrade project, and an extra set of lanes was punched beneath the Carrick Drive Overpass.

Then the CityLink Tulla Widening project

The car parks at Melbourne Airport kept on growing.

Google Earth 2018

So in 2015 the Victorian Government said yes to an unsolicited proposal from Transurban for the ‘CityLink Tulla Widening’ project – a $1.3 billion package of works that would add extra lanes to the freeway between the CBD and the airport.

A bus-only bridge was constructed to allow buses to skip the queue exiting the airport.

Google Street View 2019

Collector/distributor lanes were constructed at Mickleham Road to separate traffic headed for the Ring Road from that entering the freeway.

Google Street View 2019

And an extra lane was added in each direction, taking the freeway from two to three through lanes at Carrick Drive.

Google Street View 2019

I wonder how long until the next road ‘upgrade’ will be needed?

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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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Let us start by taking a look at the incomplete interchange between the Tullamarine Freeway and the Western Ring Road at Airport West.

The intent of the initial stage of the Western Ring Road was to provide an alternate truck route between the Hume Highway and the Melbourne CBD, so the first section to open linked the Tullamarine Freeway and Pascoe Vale Road in 1992, followed by Pascoe Vale Road to Sydney Road in 1993.

I have hazy memories of childhood visits to Melbourne Airport, where on the way we passed beneath the incomplete freeway interchange.

In the years that followed, further sections of the Ring Road were opened in a piecemeal fashion:

• 1994: Greenborough Bypass to Plenty Road,
• July 1995: Ballarat Road to Keilor Park Drive,
• March 1996: Boundary Road to Ballarat Road,
• October 1996: Princes Freeway to Boundary Road.
• December 1996: Calder Freeway to Keilor Park Drive

As you can expect, a ring road that doesn’t form a complete ring isn’t very useful, so for many years the Tullamarine Freeway interchange remained in the state seen above.

Change finally came in 1997 when the ‘missing link’ of the Western Ring Road opened between the Tullamarine Freeway and the Calder Freeway, and the interchange took on a form that lasted just on 15 years.

The round of expansion in 1997 added new ramps to/from Melbourne Airport and the Western Ring Road towards Altona, the second of two 40 km/h limited ‘cloverleaf‘ ramps, and a pair of bridges to carry the collector/distributor lanes for southbound Ring Road traffic accessing the Tullamarine Freeway.

In the years that followed, the explosive growth in traffic using the Ring Road overwhelmed the interchange, in 2013 the interchange was expanded yet again as part of the M80 Ring Road upgrade project.

Changes to the interchange included:

• widening the Western Ring Road from two to four lanes in each direction,
• replacing the cloverleaf carrying southbound traffic from the Tullamarine Freeway to the westbound Ring Road by a new ramp flying over the top of the rest of the interchange,
• the southbound collector/distributor lane arrangement was replaced by a simpler ‘exit only’ setup,
• a new flyover was introduced north of the interchange to untangle northbound traffic bound for the Pascoe Vale Road exit from through traffic.

I wonder how long the current Western Ring Road interchange will remain in place, before it too becomes overwhelmed by induced traffic?

Footnote

In 2001 Paul Mees published the paper ‘The short term effects of Melbourne’s Western Ring Road‘ examined the effects of the freeway opening on economic growth in Melbourne’s west.

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SLV Accession: H2004.101/287

The freeway itself had two lanes in each direction, with Moonee Ponds Creek running along the western side in a concrete channel.

In the 1990s as part of the CityLink project the freeway was widened to four lanes in each direction and extended south to the West Gate Freeway – resulting in this current view from Google Earth.

In addition, the former Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital has since been covered with apartments as the Athletes Village for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

Footnote

And now starts another expansion of the freeway – the CityLink Tulla Widening project.

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