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Subject: Wed.26.1.22 daily digest

Roderick

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Wed.26.1.22 Metro Twitter
Aircraft: No ramp access to platforms until late 2021 (pedestrian-underpass works), delayed to March 2022.
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works?
Buses replace trains Westall - Pakenham/Cranbourne until the last train of Thu 3 Feb (works).
Australia Day: Trains, trams and buses will run to a Saturday timetable. Night Network services will not run tonight.
15.14 Buses replace trains between Stony Point and Frankston (an equipment fault), adding 30 minutes.
- 15.50  Trains are resuming.  The first will be 17.17 ex Frankston.
Buses replace trains North Melbourne - Upfield from 20.35 until the last train (maintenance works).
Sunbury/Craigieburn/Upfield lines: All trains direct to/from Flinders St from 21.00 until the last train (maintenance works).  From loop stations, take a train from pfm 2 to Southern Cross.

Tues.18.1.22 Melbourne 'Herald Sun'. Transport/Traffic Notice AUSTRALIA DAY 24 to 26 January 2022
Street closures and changed traffic conditions - Melbourne CBD
DATE LOCATION
26.1 Full closure of William Street between Dudley Street & La Trobe Street. Local access allowed to access Franklin Street, Dudley Street and A'Beckett Street. A'Beckett closed at Queen Street. 7.00am — 10.00pm
26.1 Speed reduction and parking bay closure in La Trobe Street between King Street and William Street. 7.00am — 10.00pm
26.1 La Trobe Street closed between King Street and William Street. 8.00pm - 10.00pm
26.1 William Street full closure northbound from Little Lonsdale Street. Local access closure from Lonsdale Street. 8.00pm -10.00pm
27.1 La Trobe Street. Entry of install vehicles. Parking taken out on La Trobe Street from King Street to William Street. 6.00am - 6.00pm
ALTERATIONS TO PUBLIC TRANSPORT - MELBOURNE CBD TRAM SERVICES WEDNESDAY 26 JANUARY. There will be no impact to public transport services arising from the event or the street closures.
CYCLISTS Cycle paths will be impacted by these closures and cyclists are encouraged to find alternative routes.
Australia Day Victoria www.australiaday.vic.gov.au [9651 9368]
City of Melbourne www.melbourne.vic.gov.au [9658 8008]

‘Psychopath’ public transport Sprayer targeted women. Mitchell Toy January 20, 2022
Mystery surrounds the identity of a “deranged” phantom known as the Melbourne Sprayer who terrorised women on trains and trams in the 1950s.
Flinders St Station in 1954 – a favourite stomping ground of the Sprayer. Picture: State Library of Victoria
Nobody knows when the Melbourne Sprayer first struck.
In early 1952 young women arrived home from their evening commute to find blotches of paint or oil on their fine coats and dresses.
The first victims might have written it off as misadventure. Maybe they had simply sat on a dirty train seat or brushed up against a freshly painted fence.
But soon there were too many complaints to ignore.
A 1952 newspaper articles showing young female victims of the Sprayer. Pictures: Trove
The transport authority was perplexed by this strange spike in cases of garments – almost always women’s dresses and coats – mysteriously ruined by paint or, as it later became common, an oily, ineradicable substance.
So was born the saga of the Melbourne Sprayer.
Using some sort of pump device, it was believed a deranged vandal was silently and invisibly spraying their victims at busy train stations and tram stops.
Newspapers delighted in the Sprayer story and keenly awaited the next unfortunate commuter to have their outfit wrecked.
A 1953 newspaper cartoon about the Melbourne Sprayer. Picture: Trove
Early reports characterised the attacker as a man who carried a greasy bag.
Pundits speculated he was a psychopath with a dark fixation on young women who he found attractive and, perhaps having experienced romantic rejection, sought to dim the brightness of their beauty as a type of revenge.
But despite the dozens of women who came forward with wrecked clothing, the Sprayer was never positively sighted.
The oily muck would always be noticed later, often when the victims had long alighted the train or tram, by which time the shadowy figure had disappeared into the city bustle.
BLURRY SIGHTINGS
By April 1952 there were 38 known victims of the Sprayer.
Three were attacked on the same day including two women on Spencer St and a schoolboy at Prahran Station with his mother, but none saw the assailant.
Soon the sprayings were popping up all over the city – victims were logged in Carlton, Coburg, Footscray and Elsternwick.
By December 1952 there were 84 reported victims, including women struck with purple or blue paint.
Victims of the Sprayer in Melbourne newspapers in the early 1950s. Pictures: Trove
Most of the attacks involved a mixture of dirty sump oil and liquid tar, leading police to believe a man was behind the attacks, possibly a mechanic.
In one early spraying in April 1952, 18-year-old Mary Herron of Preston found oil in her clothes when she arrived home.
She told police she believed a tall man in an overcoat might have followed her near Princes Bridge on her homeward commute.
Similarly vague recollections came from other victims, but the attacker always seemed to disappear without being clearly seen.
Some believed the oil “attacks” were merely mishaps.
One theory suggested the victims had copped the oily stains by walking behind the exhaust pipes of buses at the wrong moment.
A female newspaper reported tested the theory and stood behind a bus while wearing a white dress – the result was an oily stain around the hem.
But the bus theory couldn’t account for the many attacks by the Sprayer on trams and train platforms, far away from the filthy bus exhausts of city streets.
And it certainly didn’t account for the earlier attacks made with paint.
Soon a new theory developed that the Sprayer wasn’t acting alone.
Pranksters might have been working in a team, spurred on by the insatiable newspapers’ coverage of the crimes.
Or, as police speculated, copycats might have tried their hand at the mischievous craft after admiring the notoriety of the original Sprayer.
Then police revealed a new line of inquiry.
They believed Sprayer might have been a woman who, scarred by some horrible past experience, was tormented by jealousy at the sight of young women in attractive clothing.
Corroborating this theory was a Sprayer attack on a Melbourne tram, after which the victim Claimed a thick-set “immigrant woman” had been staring at her ceaselessly during the trip. Only later was the oil patch discovered on the victim’s clothing.
But, like the other sightings, the woman could not be found and nobody else witnessed the spraying.
The attacks continued on and off for about two years and nobody was ever arrested or prosecuted.
Some of the final recorded victims included a schoolgirl at Sandringham who was covered with almost a pint of sump oil, and a man in Tottenham whose jacket was sprayed.
Then, around March 1954, the Melbourne Sprayer faded from the headlines, and vanished into the bustling crowd for good.
More Coverage
The ‘terrier’ behind Melbourne’s world-class buildings
Murder mystery of mine shaft skeleton
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/psychopath-public-transport-sprayer-targeted-women/news-story/95183aab1f02980fc9d7277eaa7b30b5>
* Judging from the photograph, Flinders St was busier in the 1950s than it was in recent pre-covid times.
* No city loop stations then and the CBD really was the CBD!
* Terrifying.