A response to my public transport post:

Martin,

Good work on your plans!!! - Great ideas!!!

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if the government were to actually do some of that???

In my humble opinion, there are 6 items that could be improved with the current system, in addition to your ideas.

1. There are some extensions and additions planned for some of the outer suburbs. These have been promised by the government and they have either dropped or not finished them. They should be completed. =)
   • South Morang extension
   • Craigieburne extension - The track is there, as is Craigieburne station, it just needs a couple of stations (and trains of course)
   • Langwarrin station on the Stony Point line.
   • Cranbourne East station after Cranbourne.
2. On this subject, short extensions to the next suburb on some of the outer arms of the star would also be good:
   • Link the Upfield line up to the Broadmeadows line extension - the track is there, it just needs trains to run on it.
   • The Yarra Valley Tourist Railway could be used to extend the Lilydale line out to Healesville.
   • And use the Mornington Peninsular railway to extend the Stony Point line out to Mornington

   Basically, the idea with these is that they get:

   • Government funding to restore their infrastructure.
   • Validators / vendys for metcards.
   • Their share of the profits from the sale of these.
   • And timetabled platform space at Baxter/Frankston and Lilydale.

   In return they would run somewhere in the reigon of 4-6 trains a day over their tracks as commuter trains ticketed with Metcards. They’d also have the option of running their usual steam / whatever services whenever they want with their own tickets.

3. There probably should be a tram link to the airport too => tourists seeing the classic icon of Melbourne, it’s trams, immediately upon entering the city. (It’d have to be light rail to keep transit times down, maybe along the highway, and joining up with, or extending, the #59 on the Tullamarine Freeway.)
4. The Geelong line: (does this mean that Geelong is now part of Melbourne???) I think it should be extended from your plan to go out to the new Marshall station. (Via breakwater for the Geelong Cup =) ) Yay, one ticket to go from home in Melbourne to home in Geelong. Sadly it’ll cost about the same as it does now with V-Line. V-Line should run the Werribee-Marshall line with their new fast trains. (Basically, the same service they run now, but terminating at Marshall more often, accepting suburban passengers within the MET, and accepting Metcards for the journey, possibly with ticket machines / validators on the trains).

For the long term:

5. maybe a “zone 3″ linkup between the Frankstone line through Cranbourne and merging with the line to Pakenham at Officer, and a similar thing for the Belgrave line, through Belgrave south, and looping back to the city on the Pakenham line at Berwick.
6. Maybe also resurrect the South Gippsland Railway as an extension of the Cragieburne line.

Hmm, maybe I’m getting a little obsessive about this =)

Maybe I’m also putting too much thought into it =)

So, why not continue?

I have updated your big map with what I’ve described above. (points 1,
2, 4 in dark red, and 5 in orange) It’s 2.6 MB, so if you want it, email / talk to me. I’ve also attached an updated version of your train diagram with the new extensions and stations filled in

Have fun!

–

Julian Calaby

Here’s the pics to go with it… unfortunately the Healesville rail extension is off the edges of the Melways map that I produced:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2005 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.