Fw: Thurs.14.7.21 daily digest
  Roderick Smith

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Subject: Thurs.14.7.21 daily digest


Roderick


Wed.14.7.21 Metro Twitter
Aircraft: No ramp access to platforms until late 2021 (pedestrian-underpass works).
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works.
Parliament: No lift access until 19.00 (maintenance works).  Passengers requiring lift access alight at Melbourne Central, and speak to station staff for alternative transport.
- 15.00 Lift access has been restored.
6.31 Because of a power fault in the CBD, buses will replace trains on all lines. Owing to limited availability, passengers should defer all non-essential travel. Some trains may be moved to platforms during this time, so please follow level / pedestrian crossing warnings.
- 6.38 Metro services are running.  The fault is impacting only VLine services.
- 6.51 Power outages are continuing.  Buses are replacing trains where possible.
- 6.53 Why does this affect only VLine?
- 7.12 It's nice to know that there are no train services to/from Ballarat running on the Gippsland line this morning. We've never had services running there.
- 7.40 I just saw a VLine from Ararat.
- 7.55 Comms outage at VLine control centre
- 8.10 The power outage affecting communications systems is still ongoing but limited services have now begun to depart/arrive into Southern Cross and regional stations. Customers are still advised to defer all non-essential travel.
- 9.50 Trains have now resumed.  Possible further cancellations and delays are expected. 
- 18.12 Why didn’t the control centre’s backup power kick in automatically?
13.19 Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: Major delays (a vandalised train near Springvale).
- 13.38 clearing.
- All trains run direct to/from Flinders St from 21.00 until the last train (maintenance works). From loop stations, take a train pfm 4 to Richmond.
16.52 Buses replace trains Frankston — Stony Point (a train fault). Buses have been ordered, ETA 45mins.
- 17.50 & 18.50 Buses are in operation.
17.07 Mernda/Hurstbridge lines: Major Delays while police attend to a trespasser near North Richmond.
- 17.09 clearing.
17.13 Frankston line: Major delays after a trespasser incident near Carrum.
Buses replace trains on sections of the Werribee/Williamstown lines from 20.35 until the last train (maintenance works).
21.32 Major delays citybound Frankston - Caulfield (an 'operational incident' near Mordialloc.
- 21.56 clearing.
- 22.38 We were on the platform in the cold at Moorabbin without any info. Noone came to inform passengers. The announcement was made 30 min later and volume was SO LOW that no passengers understood. Staff in the booth didn’t come out to explain.
Buses replace trains Ringwood - Lilydale from 22.30 until tthe last train (level-crossing works).

Snowy Hydro rejects modelling showing Kurri Kurri gas plant will lose $3b. Mike Foley July 13, 2021
<www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/snowy-hydro-rejects-modelling-showing-kurri-kurri-gas-plant-will-lose-3bn-20210713-p58966.html>

Commuter chaos after power outage affects V/Line services Miles Proust July 14, 2021
Peak-hour regional trains were brought to a standstill after a power outage in Melbourne CBD, causing commuter chaos across Victoria.
V/Line trains across the state have been affected. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
V/Line trains have resumed service after they brought to a grinding halt on Wednesday morning.
All regional trains across Victoria were impacted when a major power outage affected communication to and from V/Line’s operations centre in Melbourne’s CBD.
Buses were called into replace trains and delays of up to two hours were expected with commuters urged to defer non-essential travel.
Services began resuming on the Geelong, Ballarat, Ararat, Maryborough and Seymour lines by 8.30am though significant delays were expected to continue throughout the morning.
Warrnambool, Shepparton and Swan Hill trains were replaced by coaches due to limited access at Southern Cross Station.
V/Line said an early morning power outage limited its emergency communication systems, bringing trains to a standstill as crews worked to restore power.
Parts of Southern Cross Station were also affected, impacting the arrival and departure of trains.
Suburban trains were unaffected by the blackout.
“We thank passengers for their patience and apologise for the disruption to their services this morning,” a V/Line spokesman said.
“We worked to get passengers where they needed to know as quickly and safely as possible but the nature of the power outage meant that it affected crucial systems which control trains across the network.”
Citipower said an underground cable fault was to blame for the disruption.
“The fault occurred just after 4am and affected power to about 140 customers. We restored power to all customers by 7.30am,” a statement said.
“We thank customers for their patience this morning as we worked as safely and as quickly as possible to restore power.”
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/commuter-chaos-after-power-outage-affects-vline-services/news-story/75eb20808eb2a2e031665e5a63570fd2>
* We must be the only place on earth spending billions to improve the service, but in reality it is getting worse!
* Amazing: there was still enough power left to telephone bus companies: the total skill of PTV, VLine and Metro. There was a time when VR wouldn't have been brought down by such an 'incident': supplying its own power for signalling and safeworking, and with field employees who had procedures for coping.
* Seems to me to be another lack lustre government entity.
* Fast rail will never happen . Think up another bird brain idea .
* Why was Metrol which controls Suburban trains able to continue? Perhaps they need the same type of backup and redundancy
* This is just one example of what to expect when the 'utopia' of unreliable insufficient renewables energies is forced upon us.
* After over ten years of travelling to and from Geelong to Melbourne and then to and from Colac on VLine trains, one permanent trace remains etched in my long term memory - a scratchy squawk of a loudspeaker followed by the regular, foreboding utterance - "V Line apologises!" Sorry? Nah.
* The power goes off in the city and the wheels fall off the entire train network. Are we supposed to take them seriously?  I guess they must be new at this.
* Do you think it has to do with the closure of Hazelwood, and no sun and no wind ?
* renewables?
* Call Weimar back to fix it.
* Come back to the city they say! This is obviously not just a Vline issue if traffic lights in the city are down - but the Vline system in general has deteriorated over the last decade, but it's been very acute over the last few years. Thank goodness that COVID has proven that we don't have to go into the city to work every day, but we should have a reliable enough service that we know that we can get there when needed.
* Wait until we go to 100% renewable energy.  Will be very common.
* Why didn’t they use their back up operations centre? 
* Australia will target running the electricity grid entirely from solar and wind generation by 2025 - AEMO Just wait until Australian electricity is 100% dependent on renewables - just 4 years away according to the new boss of the Australian Electricity Market Operator. Then it will not be only electrical faults that cause blackouts.  On a dull, cloudy, still morning like today, power will likely be in short supply - a self imposed disruption.
* Wait until it has to run on renewables and Dan wishes!
* This can happen when the “Wind” doesn’t blow and the “Sun” doesn’t come out. Doesn't help when you close down Latrobe Valley Power Generation as part of the Left Green Agenda.  Get used to it or Vote differently!
* How is this possible?  How is there a single point of weakness in the network?  Why aren't essential points protected by generators?  This is completely unacceptable.
* Cue the blame shifting, the we had systems in place but that failed too etc.
* Diesel generators, just like in the victorian state parliament that protects the socialist greens when the power goes out.
* This is completely expected with a city centric Government! What did you expect from Melbourne's Big Build, the first word gives you an indication of where all the money is going to! And to think they are going to spend Billions on a Fast Train when this could happen at any time!
* The government doesn’t classify public transport as an essential service therefore it is not provided with backups when stuff like this occurs.
* it is absolutely incredible that rare is no back up protection Once again the government doing it on the cheap to waste the money elsewhere The place is full of overpaid inept fools who cannot think outside the square
* have you travelled on V/Line for the last 20 years?  There are many many weaknesses, particularly on the geelong line.
* It’s possible because VLine is VLine. On the Gippsland line it would most unusual to not find at least one train a day cancelled with the excuse being train mechanical problems. The Bairnsdale train often runs without refreshment options.

Thurs.14.7.21 Melbourne 'Herald Sun' A scandal we should rail against
How we get to work each day has a big impact on the quality of our lives.
Most mornings, the biggest challenge isn’t getting the kids out of bed, it is finding a park at the station. This is a frustration shared across our cities and their suburbs.
So it’s easy to see why so many Liberal MPs made so much of promising extra car parks at stations before the last election.
They were responding to a real pressure point in people’s lives. In fact, the original idea was Anthony Albanese’s, the Liberals just stole it.
Unfortunately, however, it turns out the Liberals were never interested in making Australians commutes easier. This is all laid out in the recent report from the Australian National Audit Office, which details a desperate and dysfunctional government, prepared to do anything to hold onto marginal seats.
The scandal has everything: ineligible projects, rampant underdelivery, the political targeting of projects and secret spreadsheets shared between the then-minister and Scott Morrison’s office; 87 per cent of funding was directed at Liberal or marginal seats and ineligible projects were funded.
Ten projects aren’t even near a station, six have already been cancelled and not a single project was proposed by the department or came about through a competitive merit-based process.
The projects that were funded were chosen through a secret spreadsheet, passed between the offices of ministers and the Prime Minister. And $66Om of taxpayer money was spent with no other purpose than the Morrison government’s political survival.
This is sports rorts on an industrial scale, and an even worse scandal, for two reasons.
Firstly, in terms of its scale and significance. This is part of a $4.8bn program to make our cities and suburbs more liveable. Spent properly, $4.8bn could reshape the daily lives of millions of Australians.
Secondly, this program shows the Morrison government has learnt from sports rorts, but they have taken the wrong lesson. Sports rorts came to light because it could be shown worthy sporting clubs had missed out, despite scoring highly on the criteria. Here, they cynically
had no criteria and offered no opportunity to make an application. We need to get to the bottom of this. Which means the Morrison government must come clean.
Suburban commuters deserve the truth and so does every Australian who wants a government of integrity.
ANDREW GILES IS OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN FOR CITIES AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SCULLIN