A damage-control article.
The tracks between Melbourne SC and FS have been arranged to eliminate
crossing over anything. Going anticlockwise, the Clifton Hill track leads
to your choice of pfm 1 west (out of use; too short), 1, or 14 by bypassing
1; a train aiming for 14 may have to wait for a departure from 1, but
shouldn't have to.
From the Burnley group, there is bifurcation onto 2 & 3 without crossing
anything. If a train is held on the viaduct, it is because something is
leaving late, and Metro should be working on the causes, not the symptoms.
From the northern group is similar, but there may be an impact with Alamein
using 4. That is because DoT/PTV/Metro doesn't believe that all Burnley
group trains can fit through the loop. The morning workaround is to divert
Glen Waverley to 6.
Caulfield becomes messier. Back in the days, all were bifurcated onto 6 &
7. Progressively, the quangos are pulling Frankston out of the loop, and
using the south viaduct tracks, and bifurcating via 9 & 10/12, leaving
Dandenong in a mess: either everything through 7, or split over 7 & 8, which
are not an island pair.
One of the problems with everything uttered by Metro is that it is at best
evasive, and at worst outright lying.

B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Yes, they are out to get you ... to get you there.
February 3, 2013 Melbourne Age
Behind the Scenes - Metro Trains.
Trains are stored and maintained at the Craigieburn Train Maintenance
Facility.
View all 16 photos
IT'S as true in Melbourne as it is in Moscow and Manhattan. Residence of a
large metropolis demands certain rituals and obligations, among them the
conviction that your city's transport system is a disaster without rival - a
mess, a joke, a blight on civilisation.
The trains will never run on time, all the time. Few things exercise the
populace more keenly; few failures drive us more swiftly to anger and
excuses for expletives.
In Melbourne, the people who run and work for Metro Trains know that they
will always be hated, and the best they can do is minimise the hostility,
while doing their best to tame an innately unwieldy beast.
On a day behind the scenes observing various aspects of the network close
up, Fairfax Media went where commuters never go - up front in the cabin with
a driver, backstage at Flinders Street with the staff monitoring the system
by CCTV, and riding the rails with the officers whose job seems to be to
make your life misery if you've forgotten to touch on your myki card.
Driver Ian Terry sums it up best: ''It's different up here,'' he says, as he
guides a train along the route to Sandringham. ''The perspective of a train
driver to a passenger is totally different.''
This much is obvious, not just in the driver's cabin but everywhere we
visit. While passengers, rightly, give little thought to anything other than
getting from their preferred A to B, the people charged with making that
happen have countless factors to weigh every minute of the day.
Up close, it's possible to solve some of the mysteries that drive us to
distraction.
We ask station officer Vipul Limbachia, for example, if he can shed light on
one of the eternal frustrations of train travel through the CBD hub: those
inevitable, enraging, unexplained delays on the journey between Southern
Cross and Flinders Street.
The train stops. So near, yet so far. You're either on it, and stuck in the
carriage, or you're waiting on the platform cursing that the train you can
see has halted as if it's run out of petrol.
Limbachia laughs, acknowledging the ubiquity of the problem.
But he ventures an explanation: ''There are a lot of tracks crossing each
other between Southern Cross and here, and every moment the train wants to
go he has to have a green signal and before he gets the green signal they
have to change the tracks . even though it looks like there is nothing
there, they have to wait for the signal. And sometimes when they change the
tracks there is point failure . there's a lot of operational things going on
that passengers don't know about. They think, 'I can see the train, why
isn't it moving?' But that's all they can see.''
So, it's about safety in the main, and on top of that things do go wrong.
How could they not? Some numbers make plain the pieces of this puzzle that
all need to fit to deliver a perfect service.
There are 15 lines; 217 stations; a workforce of 4200 people; 206
six-carriage trains across 830 kilometres of track; they travel 45 million
kilometres a year. And then there's us: the 415,000 passengers.
The front-line staff cop it the worst.
''Most of it involves late trains,'' says Ian Terry, though he is unfazed by
the occasional abuse.
He's been at it 36 years, and his focus is on his speed, on the curves, on
the stops and the starts. And for every driver, there's the inevitable fear
of an accident, or of his train being used as a suicide weapon. Terry
prefers to identify his greatest concern more broadly: ''Your greatest fear
is anything that may or may not go wrong.''
Ever alert, sometimes that's not enough even for experienced drivers. Train
services officer Carson Millar has experienced the worst. ''Luckily for me I
didn't know about it,'' he recalls of a deadly incident. ''The chap climbed
between the two and three car sets and put his head on the rail. I was up
the front.''
Back at Flinders Street, Andrew Roe is in charge of a less traumatic but
often busy element of the operation: lost property. It's endless: lost
phones, lost wallets, lost bags, lost books. A standard call: 'What colour
case? Tortoise shell? OK. When did you lose it? Monday this week?''
After 10 years in the cramped office, Roe has heard every story, solved
countless problems.
Also used to passengers' tales of woe is Farley Clements, an authorised
officer who does everything from directing people to the right train to
issuing tickets for fare evasion. Myki presents a new challenge, he admits.
And he can exercise discretion.
''We do. Tourists, for example. This time of year there's a lot of tourists
and now they've got no option [but myki], and if they're at a station where
they can't buy a ticket and they don't know how to use the machine, we can
ask for ID and show discretion.''
Watching Clements and other staff up close, you leave with the feeling: glad
it's them and not me. And also with an understanding that, contrary to what
we may think in the heat of the moment, no one at Metro Trains is
deliberately trying to ruin your day.
www.theage.com.au/victoria/yes-they-are-out-to-get-you--to-get-you-there-201
30202-2drg0.html

Herald Sun February 03, 2013:
Workers asked to leave cars at home, take public transport
CASEY Council is trying to get more residents to leave the car behind when
they go to work.
In a submission to a Federal Government discussion paper on walking, cycling
and public transport, the council said more than 60,000 residents did not
have access to an adequate bus service.
More than 76 per cent of Casey residents drive to work, according to the
2011 Census, yet 63 per cent of residents work in or near Casey.
By comparison, 65 per cent of Melbourne residents drive to work.
"Travel for these could potentially be made by public transport, walking or
cycling if the right infrastructure was available," the submission stated.
In 2003 the council adopted a plan to link paths across the city and has
spent $7 million on the project to date.
It said in its submission, it was important for state and federal
governments to contribute to the plan to allow more to be done.
But it also warned that, even with better transport options, it might take
some effort to change Casey residents' habitual use of cars to get to and
from work.
Is public transport sufficient for your commute? Tell us below.
www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/south-east/workers-asked-to-leave-cars-at-home-t
ake-public-transport/story-fngnvmhm-1226567340996

Machines grab cash. Fleeced by myki.
Sun.3.2.13 Melbourne 'Herald Sun'
FRUSTRATED commuters trying to buy myki cards are being left empty-handed
after malfunctioning machines take their money.
Passengers say their debit and credit cards are being charged by myki
machines that do not spit out a smartcard in return.
Therese, 21, of Coburg, said she went to buy a full fare myki and $30 of
myki money from a machine at Flinders St Station on Monday, but the machine
shut down halfway through the transaction.
When she checked her bank account online, $36 had been withdrawn. "The myki
wasn't dispensed and no receipt came out of the machine," Therese said.
Public Transport Users Association president Tony Morton said the incident.
was worrying.
"Any situation where someone has seen money disappear from their bank
account but not seen it come on to their myki card and has no record of a
transaction, that would make us very concerned," he said.
Public Transport Victoria spokesman Adrian Darwent said more than 440 000
mykis were purchased from machines last year and a card was not dispensed in
139 cases.
"On the small number of occasions this has occurred, the myki machine has
gone out of service, or there is a temporary device outage," he said.
Mr Darwent said the process of refunding money was being improved. He said
the problem was not linked to a software upgrade being undertaken to fix a
serious privacy glitch in myki ticketing machines.
The upgrade will limit the personal information displayed on receipts that
print automatically after any EFTPOS transaction.

Man hurt in platform fall.
An elderly man was been taken to hospital after his wheelchair rolled off a
train platform and onto the tracks. Paramedics were called to Canterbury
train station just before 9.30 today (Fri.25.1.13). Ambulance Victoria
spokeswoman Susanna. Hicks said the man was conscious and breathing, but
received facial injuries. He was taken to hospital and is in a stable
condition. The incident caused a 15-minute delay on the line. (25.1 mX)