Re: Modern facilities for the 1977 public
  prescottt

It is still there on Google maps. I gather it's at Hornby Street and there is another stop about 100 metres (!!) away at Avenue Rd which has a level pedestrian crossing like all other stops along Dandenong Rd. You're forced to use the bridge at Hornby St stop so it's not exactly accessible and you are blocked off from crossing the road on the level. It looks like the sort of overkill TfNSW would design except that they'd have lifts as well.

Talking of which, CSELR is sometimes described as a railway with low platforms. One thing I notice on the Perth train system, much to my liking, is that most of the stations on the legacy lines are basically the opposite - tram stops with high platforms.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Transperth_Swanbourne_Train_Station.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Transperth_Swanbourne_Train_Station.jpg

There are card scanners on the platforms, a basic shelter, timetables, a ticket machine for those who don't have cards and a protected and signalled (unlike IWLR) crossing from the streets across the tracks at one end of the platform with a ramp onto the platform. No change of level or steps anywhere, just completely level access. To cap it off, you can wheel a wheelchair, pram or suitcase straight on and off the train without the need for a ramp or assistance. Many tram systems don't even get this good (Daniel Bowen photo):

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8320/7970642336_06e892f574_z.jpg https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8320/7970642336_06e892f574_z.jpg

In addition, you have this - and likewise on the ferries - and, lo and behold, mostly system-wide accessibility right now, not at some remote future date:

http://www.pta.wa.gov.au/portals/15/AA_IMAGES/Projects/Bus_Stop_accessibility_banner.jpg http://www.pta.wa.gov.au/portals/15/AA_IMAGES/Projects/Bus_Stop_accessibility_banner.jpg

Meanwhile back at the ranch!

http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/4/t/k/s/i/image.related.videoThumbnail.620x349.4tksh.png/1493649237395.jpg http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/4/t/k/s/i/image.related.videoThumbnail.620x349.4tksh.png/1493649237395.jpg

Tony P

---InTramsDownUnder@..., <mcloughlin.dj@...> wrote :

I found my 1977 MMTB Annual Report just now. This amazing photo, attached, is one of the illustrations.

Contrast the caption, "Modern facilities for the public," with the shot of 641, a W2 that entered service in 1930, a mere 47 years earlier.

I presume the "modern facilities" are the shelters and the pedestrian overbridge. The latter wouldn't be allowed now as, like the tram, it only has steps. I'm surprised the board didn't borrow a Z from Bourke Street for this photo.

Is that bridge still there? I'd never have used it. I know Dandenong Road carries heavy motor traffic, but I'd just wait for a gap when the lights changed a block or so away and cross over then to the tram stop. I seem to recall there are pedestrian lights for tram passengers nowadays.

david mcl, Wellington NZ