N Class Bingo

N465 City of Ballaarat at Southern Cross Station

A bit of a gunzelly/trainspotty post for you today.

Waiting forever at Footscray

We in public transport circles often lobby for more frequent services, better-connecting services, and more consistent stopping patterns. There's a lot of theory behind why these are good ideas - but in a practical sense, what does it mean to the average person?

I'm currently planning a trip which is proving to be a good example. I need to get from Ballarat to Castlemaine, to attend a meeting at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, and it's proving surprisingly difficult to do it without a ton of waiting around.

Castlemaine Station (via Wikipedia)

RRL Roundup Part 1: Trains

via Public Transport Victoria

On June 21, Geelong-line trains will finally start using the Regional Rail Link tracks, separating them from Werribee-line suburban trains and grouping them together with Ballarat- and Bendigo-line regional trains. Although the infrastructure was finished months ago, the Andrews government decided to push back the opening date until more trains were built - which was entirely reasonable, given how close to capacity V/Line's fleet is.

Slightly less reasonable, however, is the fact that the new timetables for this change were only released on Sunday, three weeks before the opening date - and they mean sweeping changes for a lot of the network. It's not just the trains that run on these lines that will be affected, but the buses in Melbourne and in regional cities that connect with them. It is quite a lot to digest, so I've divided it into two parts for ease of reading. Part 1 on the trains is below; Part 2 on the buses here.

The Greens' Goldfields Rail Revival

The Greens' proposal (Source)

Yesterday the Greens announced a commitment to the return of passenger trains between Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, calling the project the Goldfields Rail Revival.

Rail Revival Study - Geelong-Ballarat-Bendigo

via Public Transport Victoria