The Ballarat Line evening crunch

The Ballarat line has seen quite a bit of investment in recent years - building the infrastructure to increase capacity, and running more services to take advantage of that capacity. But there are still big holes in the timetable that I want to highlight, and which should be relatively cheap and easy to fix. 

Getting off at Rockbank: should we go all the way to Melton?

Infrastructure Victoria's vision for rail extensions (source)

Recommendation 74 of Infrastructure Victoria's 30-year strategy was to "Extend rail services in Melbourne's western and northern growth areas" - specifically, they recommend extending electrified Metro trains to Wyndham Vale, Rockbank, and Beveridge. Why Rockbank and not Melton? Good question. 

Should High Speed Rail be part of a green stimulus?

Australia, and the world, is in the midst of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and everyone is (quite rightly) pretty focused on the task of actually fighting the disease right now. But it is quite clear that this fight will tip us over into a recession - if not a full-blown depression - and so we're starting to see some early thoughts on what kinds of actions governments can take to get the economy moving once we're in that recovery phase.

The platform switcheroo at Melton

Track duplications on the Ballarat Line Upgrade are nearing completion (via BLU)

Just as the rule on Australian roads is for cars to drive on the left-hand side of the road, the general rule for Australian two-track railways is for trains to use the left-hand track. On single-track railways with crossing loops, including single-track railways where stations have two platforms, this rule isn't applied anywhere near as consistently - there will generally be a "main line" (or at stations, a main platform) that gets used by default, whether it's left or right, whichever direction the train is heading; if a train is coming the other way it'll just have to use the other track. But on two-track lines, we have pretty consistent left-hand running.

Should the Airport Rail line use existing tracks?

There's been some speculation in the media recently about whether the Andrews government might not build a tunnel between Sunshine and the city, as part of the Airport Rail line they're currently planning. There's been a lot of ink spilled on this topic already, and my PTUA colleague Daniel has done a good job responding to this, so I won't retread the same ground - but I did have a few brief points I wanted to emphasise.

Changi Airport Station in Singapore