----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Roderick Smith rnveditor@...>
To: Tdu Transportdownunder transportdownunder@...>
Sent: Tuesday, 11 September 2018, 21:23
Subject: Sat.8.9.18 daily digest.

  The photos will be a second section.
Sat.8.9.18 Metro Twitter.
7.42 Flinders Street/Southern Cross: Major Delays (a trespasser).
- Is the 8:28 Pakenham departing from flinders still? It’s here but on all your apps it still states major delays. Just want clarification please
- 8.25 Is there any delays in arriving to Southern cross via the city loop?
- 8.29 It’s running, for anyone else curious x.
Was this because of the 2 steam locomotives at SCS?
Train services will resume between Dandenong & Cranbourne from 9.00 today after level-crossing abolition at Abbotts Road.
You may have seen a test train passing over the rail bridge yesterday.
18.42 Upfield line: Major delays (a track fault at Gowrie)  Trains may be held.
- 19.15 Please consider alternative transport: Tram route 19 between Coburg and Batman; Bus route 530 between Coburg and Gowrie.
- Buses will replace trains Coburg - Upfield.  Buses have been ordered but may take over 30 minutes to arrive.
- 19.59 Buses are replacing trains, stopping at all stations.  Extended journey time of ~25min.
- 20.36 Ts have resumed, with minor delays.
20.28 Sunbury line: Minor citybound delays (an ill passenger requiring medical assistance at Middle Footscray).  Trains may be held.
Sign of the times: Train fanatic puts $500,000 collection up for sale. 7 September 2018.
Do you know those six year olds who love to watch trains thunder past, and to play with toy locomotives?
Graham Dann remembers seeing steam trains at Frankston as a child and being awed by their noise, smell and power.
Signs, signs, everywhere a sign: Graham Dann with some of the railway signs he is selling on Sunday.  Photo: Jason South
And over 50 years he has translated that sense of wonder into a giant collection of railways, telephone and advertising memorabilia.
Now at age 55, he is selling almost everything at two auctions this weekend: more than 1100 items, which auctioneer Gary Latham says are worth about $500,000.
Until now, the pieces have been crammed into his house and garden in Rowville.
The treasures includes 50 of the classic humped station signs, called ‘‘targets’’, which were once attached to platform buildings and poles.
Some are from well-known suburbs including Jolimont, Heidelberg and Toorak.
Graham Dann, pictured at Yarra Valley Auctions, with the station sign he drove for three hours to buy and a vintage railway lantern. Photo: Jason South
Others are from more obscure stations such as Merri and Hartwell, and one is from a station that no longer exits – North Port, on the Port Melbourne line.
Also up for sale are more than 200 model trains, a pair of four-metre-tall mechanical signal towers, and even a large Victorian Railways luggage trolley.
Mr Dann would get a buzz from spotting a piece to buy, whether from fellow collectors, government sales, or spotted from his car.
He once drove for three hours to a central Victorian town to buy an Upper Ferntree Gully station sign because he worked in that suburb.
Anyone have a light? More than 200 antique railway lanterns are for sale. Photo: Jason South
He had seen the sign years before on a garage door.
He acquired 1000 antique kerosene railway lanterns. Initially he wanted just one but, he says, "it got a bit out of control’’.
Mr Dann has offloaded most of these and this weekend he is selling the last 250. They were used by railway workers from the late 1800s until the 1980s to signal train drivers to stop or go in the dark or fog.
One of the most expensive items is a model of a Clan Line steam locomotive, worth about $11,000, that you can put water and butane in, ‘‘and it runs like a Swiss watch’’.
A rare half telephone box - known as the "bum freezer" because it offered shelter only to the user's upper body - and other vintage phones for sale. Photo: Jason South
It’s based on a real-life train that Mr Dann’s father Keith, a ship’s captain, would see in England in the 1950s bringing passengers to the port of Dover before they boarded his ship to Australia.
The railway memorabilia auction starts at 11am on Sunday at Yarra Valley Auctions in Wandin North.
The day before, on Saturday, hundreds of Mr Dann’s (and other collectors’) vintage advertising signs, telephones and even a 1930s petrol bowser will be auctioned.
The items include a red half-telephone box that’s been sitting in his lounge room.
Hail to the tea: collector Graham Dann first saw classic tea advertising signs like this at railways stations as a child.  Photo: Jason South
The box – which includes an authentic black wall phone – once stood outside a Mount Waverley newsagent.
The boxes were known as ‘‘bum freezers’’ because they only sheltered your top half. The story goes that after World War II, timber was too scarce to build a full box.
Mr Dann’s favourite advertising sign is an enamel Bushells Blue Lady Tea billboard, depicting a beautiful woman looking into the sunrise over an idyllic field of tea labourers. It hung in his kitchen for more than 15 years.
Mr Dann says he’s derived ‘‘years and years of enjoyment’’ from amassing his collection and made many friends.
Although selling would be upsetting, it was ‘‘time to make a new start’’ and secure his family's future with the proceeds.
"Hopefully it will give us the chance to go on to the next chapter of our lives."
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/sign-of-the-times-train-fanatic-puts-500-000-collection-up-for-sale-20180906-p50287.html>
Metro Tunnel, West Gate Tunnel borer naming competition launched.
Sat.8.9.18 Herald Sun
video: Time lapse of Metro Tunnel archeological digs.
VICTORIANS have been asked to name the six tunnel-boring machines to be used under Melbourne in two of the state’s biggest infrastructure projects.
The state government will on Sunday launch a competition to name the massive devices that will get to work on the Metro Tunnel and West Gate Tunnel.
A centuries-old tradition dictates that significant tunnelling work cannot begin until the machines are given a female name, dating back to when miners prayed to Saint Barbara for protection.
Judges are calling on the public to make suggestions recognising groundbreaking women and will favour those who have made a major impact on the history of Victoria.
The winners will also be given the chance to visit a work site and watch as their machine is constructed.
Engineers on the West Gate Tunnel will construct the biggest tunnel boring machine ever used in the Southern Hemisphere, measuring as long as three E-class trams and as tall as the dome of Flinders Street Station.
An artist’s impression of the Metro Tunnel under the Yarra River.
All six machines will together dig up 25km of tunnel as they bore through rock and soil 40m below Melbourne.
“This competition gives the public a unique opportunity to learn more about the monumental engineering feat we are undertaking to build the massive public transport and road projects Victoria desperately needs,” Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said.
“Just like the tunnel boring machines will break through ground to create city changing infrastructure, we’re looking for groundbreaking women that changed our state.”
Roads Minister Luke Donnellan said the rollout of the machines would help build the signature infrastructure projects as quickly as possible.
“These machines are massive — if you had to park them all in one place you’d need a space bigger than the playing surface at the MCG,” he said.
Submissions can be made online at the Big Build, Metro Tunnel or West Gate Tunnel websites until October 7.
WEST GATE TUNNEL A BOOST FOR TRADERS.
CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY ON METRO TUNNEL STATIONS.
METRO TUNNEL TRAIN STATION DESIGNS REVEALED.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/metro-tunnel-west-gate-tunnel-borer-naming-competition-launched/news-story/5a804bb5fb16582eed8445b9940da701>