More services for western Victoria

This weekend will see upgrades on trains and buses across a lot of western Victoria, so a quick look at what they'll mean. 

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. 

Ten years of the Maryborough line

Friday was the 10-year anniversary of the government reopening the Maryborough line to passenger trains - so now's as good a time as any to take a look at the history of the line, how it works today, and what should happen for the future.

Improving walkability for the new Wendouree Station

Wendouree Station is getting a second platform as part of the Ballarat Line Upgrade project, and the designs for the revamped station were just released - so just a quick post on them today.

Design of the footbridge and platforms (via RRR)

Ballarat to Melbourne in under an hour

The launch of the #59minuteballarat campaign

The Committee for Ballarat has a long-standing campaign called #59minuteballarat. They've been talking about it for several years, formally launched it in September 2017, and did their utmost to secure commitments from politicians in the leadup to the November 2018 election. Although there are other elements, the thrust of the campaign is to make it so that there's a regularly timetabled train from Ballarat to Melbourne in 59 minutes every morning, and another one in the opposite direction every evening.

What's the best place for a Eureka Stadium Station?

Eureka Stadium (via Wikipedia)

Eureka Stadium (aka Mars Stadium) in Wendouree has had a lot of upgrades over the last few years, and they've recently started playing AFL matches there. It's great to see this kind of thing happening in Ballarat, but it's clear that in order to run something like an AFL match you need more than just a good oval and a big grandstand - you need a lot of surrounding infrastructure to get all the punters to the ground before the game, and away afterwards.

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)