u/Financial_Chapter_54

Why does Metro Notify label the services on the Metro Tunnel lines as “Cranbourne to Arden” or similarly, “Sunbury to Anzac” instead of labelling the service properly, e.g. “Watergardens to Cranbourne” or “East Pakenham to Sunbury”?

Just seems like more segregation of the train lines rather than treating them as a single corridor which they are. Also if the argument is that a Sunbury service is technically different to a Cranbourne service, then really it’d be a “Town Hall to Cranbourne” service as Town Hall is where the train and most of TV’s API data considers a new service to begin.

This usually happens for disruptions on either end of the tunnel as well, Sunbury might read “delays of up to 15 minutes due to a police request in the Albion area”, whereas Cranbourne and Pakenham would get a much vaguer version like “delays of up to 15 minutes due to network congestion”; vice versa if it occurs on the Cranbourne/Pakenham end. I just don’t think it’d hurt to treat the line as a continuous line, as incidents that do occur on the Sunbury end will impact the Pakenham/Cranbourne end.

Similarly, there’s a lack of info in disruptions of how to access the Sunbury line if Pakenham/Cranbourne if you’re coming from that end, and again, the opposite is true on the Sunbury end if you’re wanting to access Pakenham/Cranbourne during a disruption. A passenger who travels cross-city probably thinks of Springvale as a station on their line if they’re on the Sunbury end, or a passenger on Cranbourne/Pakenham probably sees Sunshine as another station on their line since their trains go through there.

I know it’s a nitpicking thing, I’ve noticed it for a while, and I’m just curious why Metro Notify does it.

I noticed on the transportvic.me website that X’Trapolis 2.0 had a few services scheduled today. So I was wondering if they’ve began running outside of Sundays yet, possibly starting with Saturdays? I haven’t heard of them running passengers services outside of Sundays so far.

Of course this data has the possibility of being wrong.

If anyone has information on this, I’d like to hear your comments.

The last of the VLocity fleet (VL141) appears to have entered service marking the end of the existing VLocity orders.

Do take this with a grain of salt as this data could possibly be wrong.

Of course this is subject to whether the government decides to place a future VLocity order which as of now seems unlikely.

Should Melbourne finally address its State Library/Melbourne Central and Town Hall/Flinders Street dilemma?

If you look at the photos above, Melbourne is the odd one out in distinct station naming.

While it can be argued that there are stations around the world that have different names, it doesn’t inherently make it a good idea.

Some may argue that it’s for emergency services reasons to distinguish the two; however I can’t see this argument stacking up for two reasons. First is many cities around the world, including Sydney manage to retain the same name for their new station boxes without issue for emergency services. Second is that the SRL itself uses the same names for its stations at Box Hill and Glen Waverley despite being completely separate boxes. Even Burwood on the SRL manages to use Burwood as its name despite the station on the Alamein line being nowhere near it.

When there is an emergency, services aren’t vaguely going to be told “go to Southern Cross station”, they’re going to be told, “go to Southern Cross station Collins Street entrance”, or more likely, the actual address of the entrance. It can be the same for Flinders Street under one name, for an incident on the Metro Tunnel Town Hall entrance, it can be “incident at Flinders Street station Collins Street entrance”, or for the Elizabeth Street entrance, it’d be “incident at Flinders Street station Elizabeth Street entrance”.

The place identity argument is unfitting in my opinion as well, as if you look at the Elizabeth line in London, they could have easily called Bond Street “Mayfair North” for the excuse of “distinct identities” however it looks fundamentally less appealing from a political lens as suddenly the Crossrail project looks like one that doesn’t share a station with the Central and Jubilee lines at Bond Street. You can continue to honour the local identities of the station and retain the same unified station name by doing “Flinders Street station Town Hall entrance”, and similarly “Melbourne Central station State Library entrance”.

Furthermore, the opening day of the Metro Tunnel demonstrated through the changing to the Frankston line at Caulfield that passengers on the lines that use the Metro Tunnel struggled to comprehend the locations of “Town Hall” and “State Library” despite it being advertised for several years prior that the stations would connect directly with the existing stations. Anecdotally, I’ve seen passengers on the Sunbury line board at Watergardens, want Richmond station, take the Metro Tunnel through to Malvern as it’s the first station that shares a name with a line that reaches Richmond (from a map perspective), and change for the Frankston line back into Richmond.

With the Airport line expected to run through the Metro Tunnel, if passengers who rely on the lines that use the Metro Tunnel to get to work couldn’t understand it on opening day despite relentless advertising, I couldn’t imagine a tourist, let alone someone from another line being able to understand it, and I think it’s unnecessary to expect anyone who visits Melbourne to have to learn the network “kink” of Melbourne Central and State Library station being one paid area despite the different names. People are people, and someone who lives in Ringwood is likely to board a train at the airport, notice that there’s no “Town Hall” or “State Library” (or no other shared same-name station with the Metro Tunnel lines) on the Belgrave/Lilydale line, and consequently would think to take it to Footscray (which is a station on both the Sunbury and Werribee/Williamstown lines), take it into Southern Cross (which is where Werribee/Williamstown and the Belgrave/Lilydale lines meet) and change for a train stopping at Ringwood. If it were just Melbourne Central, they would see that they can take the airport train through to Melbourne Central and change for their own line.

The no-shared-name station issue exists on the Burnley group lines, the Clifton Hill group lines and the Northern group lines. Again, while people who use the rail network frequently may eventually learn, someone who takes a train once a year or a tourist isn’t going to get it, and they shouldn’t be expected to learn this kink either.

The separate names for Melbourne Central and Flinders Street are a result of the Metro Tunnel needing to look as politically attractive as possible, where saying “5 new stations” is more attractive than saying “3 new stations and 2 expanded ones”. The SRL needs the opposite headline, as the SRL is a project that links Melbourne’s lines orbitally, and using Box Hill, Glen Waverley, Clayton, etc. is the politically preferred names to show the orbital connections to each of these lines. The Metro Tunnel is open now, and the political headline has served its purpose. It’s unnecessary to keep the separate names for a train line that’s so significant to Melbourne, especially with the Airport line.

It’d look significantly more attractive having the Metro Tunnel stations named “Melbourne Central” and “Flinders Street”. People in the CBD would now understand that they can get from Melbourne Central to Flinders Street without going the long way around the loop. Similarly, in the result of a City Loop reconfiguration where Frankston runs Richmond-Parliament-Melbourne Central-Flagstaff-North Melbourne, where Frankston has lost its Flinders Street direct route, by having the Metro Tunnel use Flinders Street and Melbourne Central, they’d know that they can change at Caulfield or Malvern to get to Flinders Street. Likewise, when disruptions send Glen Waverley passengers on buses to Caulfield, they see Frankston with the stations that they’re familiar with and not understanding Town Hall and State Library on the Metro Tunnel, but calling them Flinders Street and Melbourne Central, they’d see that the Metro Tunnel is an option for reaching the city too.

For anyone who understands London’s rail network, it’d look absurd if every line if a different box had a different name. To get from Victoria to Westbourne Park, the instruction would be “take the Victoria line to Green Park, change at Green Park for Buckingham station and board the Jubilee line to Bond Street, change at Bond Street for Mayfair North station and board the Elizabeth line to Basin station, change at Basin station for Paddington station and board the Hammersmith and City line to Westbourne Park”. In reality, these stations all use single names where Londoners can easily comprehend “Victoria line to Green Park, change for Jubilee to Bond Street, change for Elizabeth to Paddington, change for Hammersmith & City to Westbourne Park”.

As Melbourne grows and demands future lines like MM2, MM3 and others, are we really going to give Southern Cross, Flagstaff and Parkville different names and similar for whatever stations are on MM3? We shouldn’t need different names for every new station while SRL manages to keep the same names.

In terms of wayfinding, the answer is to clearly distinguish the Metro Tunnel platforms using letters. E.g. the existing Flinders Street platforms use 1-14, and for the Metro Tunnel platforms, you use A/B. Similarly at Melbourne Central, platforms 1-4 for the existing platforms and A/B for the Metro Tunnel platforms. People at Flinders Street would understand that A/B refers to the underground platforms separate to the surface ones with a walkway between the two. You would use strong wayfinding to clearly direct people to the Cranbourne/Pakenham/Sunbury platforms at Flinders Street and Melbourne Central and vice versa. MM2 could do the same at stations like Flagstaff using A/B, as people would come to know that A/B refers to the platforms of the “Metro Tunnel” that are distinct from the existing station structure.

London uses the A/B platform naming on its Elizabeth line at the massive Paddington station so people clearly know what platforms they are. If London can manage with Paddington, I don’t see why Melbourne can’t manage.

What do people think of this idea?

In my first post, commenters pointed out that the map wasn’t orientated north. However this was an intentional choice to demonstrate how the Box Hill-Glen Waverley section of SRL East could be redirected to the city and outer east. For Part II, I’ve outlined where I would possibly send this proposal beyond Newport. I have kept the orientation used in the first post to demonstrate the extension, however I have provided a north-oriented map displaying the full east-west route.

Recapping the first post, this project would retain the Glen Waverley-Box Hill section of SRL East, (a different metro line originating at Rowville would address Clayton and Monash connectivity which would I would send to the city via Chadstone, East Malvern, Caulfield and Elsternwick, and possibly northwest to rail deserts like Highpoint, Airport West and acting as a direct city connection from the Airport without the Sunshine detour). As stated in the first post as well, these stations would have much more aggressive heights than SRL, which would reach 60+ storeys at some stations (Sydney Metro has heights of over 60 storeys at Crows Nest station). And yes, this project does reduce city dependence by enabling Box Hill to be linked to Glen Waverley, Box Hill to Victoria Park (meaning you can access the Hurstbridge and Mernda lines without being forced around the City Loop), and similarly the Werribee and Williamstown lines at Newport without using the slow Footscray-South Kensington route (Box Hill-Newport would take 26 minutes compared to the current 47 minute journey (subject to stopping patterns)).

Also restated that this route would use the SRL East’s Alstom Metropolis fleet delivered as 6 cars rather than SRL East’s proposed 4 cars, and it would be fully segregated with platform screen doors at every station and fully fenced with 20 second dwell times (Sydney Metro uses this at every station including Central and manages a 99%+ reliability).

For a western extension, I would possibly connect to the Altona loop from Newport, and duplicate it and convert it to metro. I would then have cross-platform interchange at a rebuilt Laverton station, which would create its own rail hub.

I’d then continue to Point Cook, followed by another interchange at Hoppers Crossing which would be in close proximity to the Victoria University Werribee campus.

Finally I’d continue towards Wyndham Vale with a stop at Pacific Werribee (a major shopping centre in the Werribee area) which would provide a rail link to one of the west’s larger shopping centres.

This line could be potentially extended beyond Wyndham Vale to the upper western growth areas (which I would continue to design as TOD hubs rather than low density sprawl like the current west and north have been) pivoting the growth away from the south west (which had been following the Geelong line toward Geelong).

Like the eastern section, I would upzone as much as possible to maximise value capture.

This line would create a new western spine, and its connections at Hoppers Crossing, Pacific Werribee, Newport and Laverton would help to alleviate the existing Werribee line, and would be a line designed for high capacity from scratch (other than the Altona Loop conversion) and frequent 30TPH headways rather than the traditional MM2 proposal which would require retrofitting the Werribee and Mernda lines with power upgrades, platform extensions, stabling upgrades, removing sensitive level crossings around Thornbury, etc.

The project’s intention is to reduce rail deserts around Melbourne and maximise growth through a rapid transit line that can support high density nodes. Like SRL, it improves connectivity between lines with interchanges at Wyndham Vale, Hoppers Crossing, Newport, Southern Cross, Flagstaff, Parkville, Victoria Park, Box Hill, Glen Waverley and Upper Ferntree Gully.

And as stated in the original post, yes this project would be extremely expensive, however I believe with Melbourne growing to 10million people (which is more people than London today) while having the current network, plus just the SRL isn’t enough. I believe that Melbourne needs to create purposely created high density nodes across rail deserts with a high capacity fully automated metro line designed to handle that density from day one rather than continuing low density sprawl (like the Tarneit model), or forcing density into the existing network (like the Sandringham line which still has single track sections and level crossings without plans to address either).

My other reason for criticism of the existing SRL is poorly planned interchanges (such as Glen Waverley which won’t have a paid-area connection) or Monash University which requires a 10-15 minute walk from the station (Chadstone has a 15 minute walk from Hughesdale and is still considered to not have a station). Similar can be said about SRL Cheltenham which isn’t built directly beneath the Southland station, while failing to make up for it by being directly located by Westfield Southland (to demonstrate a good interchange Sydney Metro has, I’ve provided a photo of Castle Hills metro station which has a direct underpass into the Castle Towers Shopping Centre). And similarly to Sydney Metro’s well planned Castle Towers connection, its Epping station is built directly below the existing suburban platforms, and the SRL (which is specifically intended to link Melbourne’s train lines) shouldn’t be compromising on its interchanges just to minimise disruption.

In terms of cancelling the project, my stance is that Ben Carroll (new leader of the Labor party) may decide to do a pause and review of SRL East before tunneling starts (as he may want to reduce the burden of a pause and review after tunneling had begun). While it would be very expensive to cancel the project as is, even before tunneling, I believe that spending $5billion to cancel it and pivot to a project that addresses more rail deserts and creating new ultra-dense rail hubs that can house Melbourne’s future population is better than spending possibly $40billion or upwards to finish SRL East which itself doesn’t even do its main objective in the best possible way of linking Melbourne’s suburbs due to its compromised rail connections with the existing stations. I would support the SRL as is if it had its stations located directly below the existing stations like Southland, Clayton, Glen Waverley, etc. which genuinely would be beneficial only requiring an under 2 minute interchange within one paid area, but I can’t support the existing project which could have interchanges of upwards of 10 minutes once you factor in at stations like Southland reaching the surface through multiple escalators, ascending another escalator to an elevated walkway, crossing a long walkway from Sir William Fry Reserve, and then descending back down into the platforms of Southland. This could create 15+ minutes of interchanging in some circumstances if going from say Mentone-Southland-Glen Waverley-Syndal, which defeats the entire point of the SRL.

In summary, I support the idea of SRL, but I think it’s poorly executed and this project would be better for Melbourne’s growing population, especially if delivered with a second metro spine for Rowville to Tullamarine via Monash, Clayton, Chadstone, East Malvern, Caulfield, Elsternwick, City and Highpoint.

Let me know your thoughts.

I’ve been thinking what if instead of to cancel the SRL, the Liberals were to re-scope it retaining parts of it, but turning it into their own project like what the NSW Liberals did with Sydney Metro.

SRL East’s Glen Waverley-Box Hill section would be retained while a Doncaster extension would be fast tracked. However, for my proposal, I’d extend it east from Glen Waverley to a redeveloped site at Morack Road, then to Westfield Knox (a major activity centre with a lack of rail), then stop at Mountain Gate Shopping Centre and finally Upper Ferntree Gully connecting with the Belgrave line.

Stage 2 would see a city extension from Doncaster stopping at Burke Road (stop 44), Kew Junction (48/109 tram connection), Victoria Park (Hurstbridge/Mernda connection), Fitzroy, Parkville (Metro Tunnel and Airport/Pakenham/CranbourneSunbury), Flagstaff (retains connection for future City Loop reconguration for Craigieburn/Frankston), Southern Cross, as well as Sandridge and Fishermans Bend NEIC (two stations on MM2 proposals), and terminating at Newport (Werribee/Williamstown/Laverton interchange).

Newport could in the future be extended as either running through an upgraded Kingsville freight corridor and then converting and segregating the Wyndham Vale line, or Werribee metro conversion, or extensions into other rail deserts like Highpoint or Point Cook.

Hubs like Glen Waverley, Westfield Knox, Box Hill and Doncaster would have direct one-seat journeys to Fishermans Bend and vice versa.

This project would see many stations like Westfield Knox, Burwood (Deakin University), Doncaster, and others upzoned to heights of 60+ storeys to maximise value capture of the project while other politically sensitive areas like Kew Junction would have gentler density to keep the project’s BCR sufficient without creating mass opposition.

An issue I have with the SRL is some of the interchanges with stations are quite poor. If you look at Sydney Metro, Epping (Sydney Metro) station is directly below the non-metro platforms whereas stations like SRL Cheltenham is quite distant from Southland station where it’s quite a long walk between the two station sites, and similar can be said for Glen Waverley where the interchange between the SRL and existing station are said to have two separate paid areas. I’m assuming the poor interchanges are the result of the government trying to minimise disruptions to the existing train lines to keep the project politically supportable; however I don’t think its worth causing poor quality interchanges just to avoid some long disruptions, especially when the project is expected to be used for well over 100 years. One of the intentions of the SRL was to provide cross-suburb trips without going into the CBD, but passengers are going to be less willing to use them if the interchanges aren’t intuitive and require long walks. These poor interchanges could limit the SRL’s use to those who reside right at the stations, or those who need a destination not served by other lines like Deakin or Monash.

Similar can be said about the connections to the universities and shopping centres the stations are intended to serve. Again, back to Sydney Metro, Castle Hills station was built with an underground passage directly into Castle Hills shopping centre. However with the SRL this doesn’t seem to be the case, where SRL Cheltenham is not directly linked into Westfield Southland. Likewise for SRL Monash, the station is said to need a 10-15 minute walk into the campus centre (of which is the biggest university in Australia), and you could argue that Hughesdale station is a 15 minute walk from Chadstone, however Chadstone despite this isn’t considered to have its own station.

Melbourne is projected to have 9 million people by 2050, and the current rail network which was built for not even a city of 5 million really isn’t suitable, and a critique I have is the government’s 50 train and tram activity centres plan which intended to give heights of up to 20 storeys at some, however many of these activity centres are on the Sandringham line which has single track sections and level crossings with no plans to address them which limits their frequency, the Metro Tunnel’s issue is sharing tracks with V/Line and freight in the east which means you can’t realistically run trains more than every 4 minutes, and to address it, you need to separate the Metro Tunnel lines from freight and V/Line to at least Westall which is where the earliest turn-back and stabling is (the west doesn’t have this limitation since the Sunbury line begins sharing with V/Line and freight at Sunshine and has West Footscray as an earlier turn-back). Similar can be said about activity centres on the Burnley group stations like Riversdale (which suffers from a line that’s regularly a shuttle), and Auburn (a station that’s regularly skipped), and to be viable, you either need to have all trains stop at activity centres (which would be unpopular with Belgrave/Lilydale passengers) or add a fourth track in (which realistically would be difficult to do with the acquisitions necessary to widen the corridor).

My proposed corridor would be built to handle extreme density from day 1, and does density more substantially than SRL does which I believe the SRL isn’t aggressive enough in its heights in light of Melbourne’s growth projections. I seriously think that the government isn’t doing nearly enough to prepare Melbourne for these growth projections; the SRL and Metro Tunnel are something, but they barely scratch the surface.

Another thing I disagree with on SRL East is the lack of a Heatherton station. I understand that the SRL was built as a line to link Melbourne’s lines orbitally, but I really think a Heatherton station would have been beneficial for the project and would have a minimal cost to journey times. The government’s response is that the patronage wouldn’t be there, but you create the patronage by re-zoning with massive heights and trip-generators like a shopping centre, hospital or university by the station. My project would be doing exactly that through rezoning of places like Morack Road.

Just like Sydney Metro, this project would be automated with GoA4, use platform screen doors (PSDs) at every station, and have dwell times of 20 seconds at every station (Sydney Metro does this and has a reliability of 99%+) unlike the Metro Tunnel’s dwell times which are far too long in my opinion. The eastern alignment would be built to allow for 100km/h speeds where possible. I would keep the Alstom Metropolis trains, but make them 6 cars rather than 4 cars.

The project could see journey times from the CBD (Flagstaff used for estimates) of the following:

City-Kew Junction: 8 minutes (current 17 minutes route 109 tram)

City-Doncaster: 15 minutes (current 28 minutes driving)

City-Box Hill: 19 minutes (current 22 minutes express service)

City-Deakin Burwood: 22 minutes (current 36 minutes route 75 Tram)

City-Glen Waverley: 26 minutes (current 35 minutes direct Flinders Glen Waverley line)

City-Westfield Knox: 33 minutes (current 37 minutes driving)

City- Upper Ferntree Gully: 38 minutes (current 48 minutes direct Flinders express service, 1hr 7 minutes stops all service)

This project would make cross-city travel easier, e.g. if going to Werribee from Box Hill, you wouldn’t need to take the tedious journey through Footscray; you’d go direct from Newport, for anywhere on the Clifton Hill group, you would be able to change at Victoria Park avoid the City Loop. It would also keep the mega hubs of Glen Waverley, Box Hill and Doncaster connected.

In terms of Monash, my proposal would be to build a second rail line in a similar style that serves Rowville, connects with Oakleigh, Chadstone, East Malvern, Caulfield, then to Elsternwick and City.

This proposal would be very expensive, but with Melbourne’s growth projections, I believe this is necessary as Melbourne can’t realistically cope with a rail network designed for less than 5million plus a loop line by 2050. I think Melbourne should be prioritising filling in its rail deserts, rather than avoiding them like SRL does for Heatherton. The Sydney Opera House was built 1500% over budget, however today nobody thinks about what it costed, they care about the benefit it delivers for the city. This project would be the same and would serve Melbourne for centuries to come.

Let me know your thoughts.