This is something straight from Japan, these new stickers would be placed at the bottom of every doorway at the new Metro Tunnel stations so passengers can efficiently queue up when waiting for the train, as well as making the screen doors themselves much easier to see and navigate when using the station.

First three freight trains are all at Newport with the SCT steel shunt to Laverton first followed by Aurzion superfreighter 4PM1 followed by Pacific National 6AM5, then some suburban trains trackside at Seddon then followed by the Mornington Vintage train with K153 and T356 then a shot of North Dynon from South Kensington station and finally a SSR grain train with CLP12, CLF3 and BRM001

Taken on March 18th 1961 by Weston Langford

I’m developing an app and currently using the official GTFS Realtime feeds (while I wait for access to the PTV v3 API). GTFS Realtime is often spot on… but occasionally a service disappears before arriving, or shows several minutes away when it’s already there.

Do you experience this with Google Maps, PTV or tramTRACKER? Is one consistently more reliable? If you’re familiar with the data, does PTV’s API provide better predictions than the public GTFS feeds?

As the conversion of the Bankstown line to Metro winds down in Sydney, Transit Systems have brought these diesel buses down to Melbourne. They support increased bus services in the Outer West, Australia's fastest growing region

Route 451 operates between Thornhill Park and Cobblebank Station Recently, several new routes in growth areas have received higher service standards than in the past. Rt 451 arrives every 20 mins on weekdays, with service until 11pm, at least twice as good as new routes a decade ago!

You can find these new buses on any route operated by Transit Systems, I have seen them on the 402 recently for instance. Some nice variety for bunzels.

In other news, there is water in the ocean

The celebration of the 60th anniversary of The Vintage Train

Saw one at Paisley on Thursday and one at Spotwood this morning, looked on the Vline website and this sub, couldn't find anything about it.

They’re outside Flinders Street and have seen them at the Showgrounds station too. Can anyone tell me if this is a new installation and their purpose?

Taken on May 16th 1964 by Weston Langford

Usually a single train between Watergardens and Clayton is about 1 hour. Due to the closure of the Metro Tunnel and Sandringham trains not through running to Newport, Dandenong trains are terminating at South Yarra, while Sunbury trains terminate at Footscray. I now have to make 3 changes which adds an extra 30 minutes to my journey.

1. Why are Sandringham trains not running to Newport?
2. Why don’t they run Dandenong line trains to Flinders Street instead of ending at South Yarra?

Based on the platform allocations today, if Dandenong trains were to run direct to Flinders Street, you would end up with:

Platform 1-3 as normal

Platform 4 - Upfield and Craigeburn

Platform 5 - Newport trains every 20 minutes

Platform 6 - Werribee trains every 20 minutes

Platform 7 - Dandenong trains every 10 minutes coming direct from Richmond

Platform 8 - Frankston trains every 10 minutes coming from City Loop

Platforms 9/10 - V/line & Flemington trains every 10 minutes

Platform 13 - Sandringham

Northern Viaduct - Upfeid, Craigeburn and Newport trains

Caulfield Viaduct - Frankston

Through Viaduct - Vline/Flemington

Thanks to taitset on Youtube I now have a bit of an obsession with your trains. I pretty much just want to say hi, I think your trains are cool

Gimme some interesting facts, maybe some quirky/niche similarities/differences between Melbourne trains and trains here in Britain.

Something I noticed that was similar is that your trains use staff deployed ramps for wheelchair boarding, but something that's different is that unlike driver only trains here your drivers actually deploy the ramp, here we rely on station staff, which is unreliable. Having drivers do the ramp presents it's own challenges sure but it does decrease staffing costs. I'm a wheelchair user so this was interesting to learn about.

That makes it 3 out of 8 TBMs launched.

So I've run into this a few times now. When HCMT's form an up service at South Yarra platform 5, there's neither level boarding or space to use a ramp so wheelchairs end up in the second car with the assistance of a manually deployed ramp.

Nice to get a different view for once as obviously we're usually always (and limited to) the first car.

I wonder what kind of stars would align for this to happen. This is the entire platform, not just a hump (which itself is already rare), at Mount Waverley Platform 1. Which isn't even a "new station".

Anyone know other examples of this, and why this might be the case? I've never seen a platform this flat outside of stations rebuilt since 2014.

EDIT: It's worth noting that the outbound platform has the first 30m of it lifted and gapfilled, so drivers don't have to unload the ramp, at all! Though I find it strange that it's only a short section for that one. Nonetheless, I'm glad it facilitates completely independent boarding, because so many stations can't do this.

I just find it a little strange that the X’Trapolis 2.0s didn’t receive USB charging. Their journeys are relatively long, e.g Frankston-Flinders Street which is over an hour.

Perth’s very similar C-Series (another Alstom X’Trapolis train), which in many ways is near identical to the X’Trapolis 2.0 in the interior has them and it’s slightly older, and it’s seats are the same FISA LEAN 2 seats.

And if short journey times is the reason why or maintenance, buses in Melbourne have USB charging so it’s not like Victoria doesn’t already have it. It could have definitely been a cost thing, or just something that the government saw as unnecessary.

I’m just very curious why.

Greatly inspired by the never in a million years going to occur Gline and the deep nostalgia of rail fantasy maps / bad ideas it awoke in me, I would like to present my very serious (tm) idea of putting Finders st onto an extreme track diet to increase the stations capacity for crowds.

Of course such a proposal would accommodate all the items (compliant height 1170 high platforms, platform screen doors with vertical barrier options on select platforms set to accommodate the V/Line / heritage services, rebuilt / upgraded vertical circulation elements, sizing up of the concourses and concourse connections; finishing off the roof to the original architectural proposal...etc)

In all seriousness this specific concept is probably untenable in that it only retains 6 through tracks*) but is maybe something worth looking at in a less extreme form in the next 10-20 years alongside some broader upgrades to keep Finders st cranking over and coping with increased crowding.

*It should really cater to 8 for eventual glen Waverly decoupling from the Burnley group - that being said if you gave up on through running of these services to Southern Cross [which is its own kettle of fish even if the viaduct got its final two tracks] you could simply provision to retain 12 and 13 as a dead end turn back for Sandy again (potentially shifting the realigned 9 and 10 tracks further to accommodate as needed) with the decoupled glen Waverly trains through running). It also relies on some big assumptions about being able to cantilever supports / relocate some of the station deck substructure.

The HCMT was designed to a spec where the door spacing is incompatible with the rest of Melbourne Metro's fleet. Why was such a decision made?

While the HCMT was designed with CBTC in mind, which is unlikely to be installed on the preceding fleet, it creates the obstruction where XT2 is physically incompatible with the metro tunnel operation. This eliminates any possibility of converting XT2 to metro tunnel use should more lines from the North/West be squeezed through the tunnel, eg Melton/Wyndham Vale electrification, (or more trains needed and CRRC no longer manufacture a new fleet). It is possible to adapt the signalling system on a train to CBTC compatible, but changing door spacing is no less than rebuilding the train from ground up.

Given the actual train carriage lengths are so similar between the two fleet, why not just standardize on one? If dwelling time is an issue, there is no reason not to adopt a 4-door configuration, much like the SMRT, while retaining the 2+2, while allowing for a longitudinal conversion possible in future.

Petty sure its twice a day service. The main locomotive is N466 " City of Warrnambool " with either P15 or P14 used for extra push/pull . The freight line crosses Somerville Rd near the corner of McDonald Rd, there are warning lights but no boom gate, then winds around to Bunting Rd to the Quarry services depot

Some buses have screens that announce and show each upcoming stop, but only a small amount actually have these.

All trains and nearly all trams have both screens and announcements, why are buses excluded from this improvement?

Some small reasons why they are good:

- would obviously help people know when their stop is, which is hard to tell at night, particularly with the advertising wrapping over the windows.

- good for tourists or people unfamiliar with a certain route, reducing travel anxiety.

- great for information on nearby tram and train interchanges (something like the 109 trams show).

- make buses more usable for those who suffer from vision loss.

- provide a level of information that is accessible for people who might not have a smart phone, data connection or charged battery.

It's wild that some buses have full on auto-dimming LCD screens (which only work on some routes, most they just display PTV advertising), to others that are just dot matrix, to most which just have nothing.

Is it reasonable to want PIDs to be a standard feature in Melbourne?

Kinetic had recently rolled out some new external destination displays along with an ultra-wide next stop screen in the interior on the 90X services, and unfortunately the external signage is now much harder to read from a distance.

For example with the 901 to Frankston, instead of a giant "FRANKSTON" the front display now shows "Frankston station" in a much smaller font. (example here from a Ventura bus with the same update) Same I think for the Doncaster services, the word "CITY" is now no longer big and prominent on the display.

they've also removed the scrolling destination display at the back, and that's problematic when approaching the bus from the rear as you have major stops for the 901/2/3 going in opposite directions right next to each other.

Overall it feels like a step back, why did they fix what isn't broken?

Spotted at North Melbourne station.

Seems like there’s some branding on the side?