Break up at Casino
  Yuri Sos

Tuesday just gone saw a major disruption on Clarendon Street causing half-day delays to routes 12. 96 and 109.

Regular commuters will have noticed a "crash bang" on the inbound track at the Casino stop at the expansion joint on the bridge. It's been there for months but getting worse as time went on. I'd wondered if the constant pummeling would damage both the track and tram wheels. Certainly there seemed to be no effort to mitigate or undertake repairs.

Well on Tuesday morning months of maintenance neglect saw the rail fracture at that point resulting in closure of the tram stop and hence all trams in Clarendon Street. My son was told there had been a derailment but if so the victim had been cleared away by the time I arrived. Hasty diversions were put in place with at least one 109 tram seen in Collins Street in Docklands. Yarratrams got their act together and city-side trams were eventually reversed at Batman Park and suburban trams were reversed at Clarendon Street Junction.

By the time I got there, there was little to see at Casino stop apart from four men in high vis staring at the track break. No trams were visible at Batman Park stop and disgruntled passengers were seen crossing Flinders Street and heading up Spencer Street.

Clarendon Street junction was more interesting. It appeared that there were two A2s and a C1 trapped on the Beacon Cove 109 route and at least six Es (I noted 6089, 6087, 6077, 6055) and a couple of As (233 and 251) trapped on the St Kilda 96 route.
Here's E2.6087 at the junction waiting its turn to reverse at the Clarendon Street stop as A2.297 (unrefurbished) heads towards Beacon Cove past A2.289 inbound (refurbished) also waiting its turn to reverse:
https://gallery.steam4me.net/albums/trams/2022/6087_297_289_clarendon_a7r3_19948.jpg
(2,400 x 1500 pxl; 2.53MB)

E2.6087 pulled into Clarendon Street Junction stop and the driver briskly threw the points before easing over the crossover to head back to St Kilda:
https://gallery.steam4me.net/albums/trams/2022/6087_clarendon_rev_a7r3_19954.jpg
(2,400 x 1500 pxl; 2.55MB)

A little later sees E2.6077 moving forward with E2.6055 and A1.251 waiting their turn on the St Kilda line; A2.288 is well on its way to Beacon Cove as C1.3003 arrives from the port:
https://gallery.steam4me.net/albums/trams/2022/251_6077_6055_3003_288_clarendon_a7r3_19988.jpg
(2,400 x 1500 pxl; 2.65MB)

The line was re-opened on Tuesday afternoon and I traveled into town by tram, noting the tram driver crawling very slowly into Casino stop, the tram crash-banging over the expansion joint - so a hasty quick patch-up job.

To be fair when we traveled into town for the TDU meet-up on Wednesday evening, the tram rolled into Casino at normal speed and there was no crash-bang at all - a very smooth repair had obviously been undertaken overnight. But I wonder how long that will last.

Yuri.
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Gallery at https://tinyurl.com/trams4me
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