Fw: Sat.1.10.22 daily digest archive
Roderick Smith
Saturday, September 28, 2024 1:30 PM
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Subject: Sat.1.10.22 daily digest archive part 1, text
Roderick
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Sat.1.10.22 Metro Twitter
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works.
Because of tunnel works, Degraves St subway at Flinders St is closed until 2024. No platform transfer via Degraves St subway. Passengers should use Elizabeth & Swanston St entry/exits. Campbell Arcade remains closed to 2024. Platform interchange via that subway was available until mid 2022.
Bell: No lift access to platforms until Oct 2022, while works continue around the station precinct. A shuttle bus will run from Bell to Preston and Thornbury.
Heading to Royal Melbourne Show? We’re running more trains to the showgrounds to get you there and back.
Sunbury line: Buses replace trains North Melbourne - Sunshine until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (works).
Mernda line: Buses replace trains Parliament - Reservoir until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (maintenance works). Buses replace trains Flinders St - Reservoir during Night Network hours.
Hurstbridge line: Buses replace trains Parliament - Heidelberg until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (maintenance works). Buses replace trains Flinders St - Heidelberg during Night Network hours.
Lilydale/Belgrave/Alamein/Glen Waverley/Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: All trains direct to/from Flinders St from 21.00 until the last train (works). From loop stations, take a train from pfm 3 to Flinders St.
12.48 Werribee/Williamstown lines: Major delays (a train fault near Yarraville).
- 12.56 When is a train expected through Seddon to Werribee?
- 13.22 Major delays due to an earlier train fault near Yarraville.
- 13.27 clearing
Buses replace trains on sections of the Sandringham line from 21.00 until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (works).
Six of the best: Railway hotels. Traveller. Anthony Dennis June 4, 2015
* GRAND HOTEL MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: Aside from the legion of humble pubs that call themselves "Railway Hotel", Australia is bereft of authentic grand railway hotels.
But there's always the 118-room Grand Hotel Melbourne, located in the southern portion of an elephantine erstwhile 19th-century Italianate railways headquarters near the modern-day Southern Cross Station in gentrifying Spencer Street.
The hallways of the recently refurbished hotel, which is protected by the Heritage Council of Victoria, are so wide and tall that you could fairly drive a loco down them, with the building's generous dimensions allowing for spacious split-level guestrooms.
From $169 per night. See grandhotelmelbourne.com.au
Long delays (up to 60 min), March-April 2019. [with the worst of the propaganda edited out]
Melbourne and Victoria are growing fast. We’re building a South Yarra - South Kensington tunnel and improving the public-transport network. This will involve disruption to your journey. We expect you to plan ahead, using ptv.vic.gov.au
– If you can, avoid peak times and travel before 7.00 or after 9.00.
– Take advantage of the Early Bird fare. Touch on and off before 7.15 and your train travel is free.
– We expect other public transport services and roads to be busier than usual.
AFL fans should allow extra time to get to MCG in April, with a number of train lines not running to Richmond. The free tram zone will be extended to MCG for affected games.
Plan ahead and allow more time if you’re attending a show at Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
There will be no trains between the City and Caulfield on these dates.
Caulfield is the major bus interchange and will be extremely busy in peak periods.
What’s happening during autumn:
Timed to coincide with the April holiday period, construction works will continue to build the tunnel, remove level crossings and upgrade regional lines.
The tunnel project will be create room on the Cranbourne, Frankston and Pakenham lines for an additional 157,000 peak passengers to travel by train every week, saving up to 50 minutes a day.
– Major works continue across south eastern rail lines to upgrade infrastructure and build the tunnel entrance at South Yarra.
– On the Mernda and Frankston lines, works continue to remove the level crossings at Reservoir and Carrum
– Major track, signal and platform upgrades will deliver more-reliable trains on the Geelong and Warrnambool lines.
Accessibility
If you need help or cannot board a replacement bus, please contact PTV prior to travelling on 1800 800 007 or speak to our staff at the bus stop for alternative transport to be arranged at no cost.
For information in other languages [phone numbers listed].
If your language isn’t listed visit ptv.vic.gov.au/languages or call 9321 5450.
Plan your journey at ptv.vic.gov.au or call 1800 800 007.
If you’re deaf, or have a hearing or speech impairment,
contact us through the National Relay Service – for more information, visit relayservice.gov.au
Authorised by Transport for Victoria, 1 Spring Street, Melbourne
9321 5454 9321 5441
9321 5444 9321 5445
9321 5443 9321 5442
9321 5449 9321 5446
9321 5440 9321 5447
Buses replace trains during March and April 2019
Mernda line: Various days between 23 March and 9 April, adding 45 min. [also quoted as Various days between 3 and 14 April]
Glen Waverley line: 13 & 14 April, adding 45 min.
Pakenham and Cranbourne lines: Various days between 22 March and 23 April, adding 60 min.
Bairnsdale line: Various days between 22 March and 23 April, adding 60 min.
Frankston line: Various days between 22 March and 23 April, adding 60 min.
Stony Point line: 6 to 23 April, adding 60 min.
Sandringham line: Weekends and Easter between 22 March and 22 April, adding 60 min.
Pakenham & Cranbourne lines: Express and limited express buses depart from Federation Square.
Frankston line: Express and limited- express buses depart from Arts Centre.
Pakenham, Cranbourne, and Frankston lines Stopping-all-stations buses depart from Spring St for stations between Parliament and Caulfield (weekdays only).
Sandringham line. All buses depart (except Night Network ones) depart from Spring St.
Thurs.29.9.22 Melbourne 'Herald Sun'. Flinders St display. NUI TE KOHA
ARTIST Rone is taking inspiration from the ticking heart of post-WWII Melbourne for a nostalgic installation opening in the Flinders St station ballroom next month.
His installation, Time, will bring a lost era to life in 12 rooms that recreate the days of machine rooms, typing pools, public libraries, school houses and entertainment parlours.
Rone, born Tyrone Wright, says each installation evokes stories from the past "slightly based on the truth, with a bit of fiction in there as well.
"I'm not letting the truth get in the way of a good tale." he says.
His clock room is inspired by those at the front entrance to Flinders St Station, which he has envisaged as a storage room, and low key space to hang out.
As with most of his work, Rone's haunting signature female portraits hover ghostlike above each scene.
Rone says the images symbolise beauty amid the decay.
Meanwhile, the time-honoured restrictions of the heritage-listed ballroom have made Rone's latest work challenging.
"Everything we need to get into the building needs to fit though an 80cm door on an active station platform," he said. "We can't put new anchors into the wall, and we have to report any new markings and scratches. It's been hugely difficult."
Time opens on October 28.
Melbourne’s eastern suburbs traders blame level crossing removal for ‘ghost town’. John Masanauskas October 1, 2022. 83 comments
Traders in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs say the “total chaos” of level crossing removal works has driven them to the wall.
Mont Albert and Surrey Hills traders are fuming over major disruptions caused by level crossing removal works. Picture: Tony Gough
Eastern suburbs traders affected by a level crossing removal project (LXRP) say they have been driven to the wall by the “total chaos” of disruptions.
Businesses affected by works to remove crossings at Surrey Hills and Mont Albert stations claim they have lost millions of dollars due to customers avoiding the area.
Both stations, currently surrounded by shopping strips, will be demolished and a new one built under the project due for completion in 2023.
Mont Albert and Surrey Hills Traders spokesman Simon Jamison said businesses in Union Rd and Hamilton St shopping strips had been decimated by constant disruptions, including road closures, loss of carparks, and muddy and dusty conditions.
“You can’t blame the customers, there’s nowhere to park, huge trucks rolling up the street, clouds of dust, roads blocked off and trains suspended,” he said.
“It’s like a ghost town.”
Both stations will be demolished and a new one built under the project due for completion in 2023. Picture: Andrew Henshaw
Mr Jamison said the group’s survey found that 95 per cent of traders experienced a detrimental impact from the project, while 75 per cent said the effect on their small business was severe or unsustainable.
“The Andrews government and the LXRP do not care that traders are going under in our shopping strips, they are treating them with disdain and disrespect,” he said
“The LXRP state that they will not compensate these small family businesses, even though they are sending us broke.”
Mr Jamison said LXRP marketing programs were unsuitable or had failed for 90 per cent of traders, and they wanted significant compensation for losses.
Liberal candidate for Box Hill, Nicole Ta-Ei Werner, accused the government of treating the local community with contempt, such as not showing detailed plans for the proposed Union Station.
Businesses affected by works to remove crossings at Surrey Hills and Mont Albert stations claim they have lost millions of dollars due to customers avoiding the area.
“More must be done to help local traders whose small businesses have survived the world’s longest lockdowns, only to be followed by dire trade interruptions, thanks to Andrews’ vanity Big Build projects,” she said.
LXRP program director Travis Edmonds said that removing the level crossings would make it safer and easier for the community to access local shops with less congested roads and new pedestrian links to the Union Rd and Hamilton St shopping villages.
“We thank locals for their patience while these works are underway. We’re working closely with traders to minimise impacts, and encourage residents to continue shopping in their community while we carry out these important works,” he said.
The LXRP said it had launched several measures to lure shoppers to the precinct, including a trader directory, a loyalty program, with more than 3000 people participating, and about 50 traders involved.
It also worked one-on-one with traders to co-design social media campaigns to drive new customers to their shops while work was under way.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/melbournes-eastern-suburbs-traders-blame-level-crossing-removal-for-ghost-town/news-story/94ffd191078021c7562e0ba0d63fe2b0>
Bridge to nowhere: Government loses big in punt on untried technology. Patrick Hatch October 1, 2022
The Victorian government wasted at least $20m on a joint venture, run by the chief executive of the state’s rail authority, selling bridge safety monitors that did not work as they should. Credit:Stephen Kiprilis
The Victorian government wasted at least $20 million on a commercial joint venture, run by the chief executive of the state’s rail authority, selling bridge safety monitors that did not work as they should have.
Senior employees at the government-backed enterprise Eloque told The Age the company continued to install sensors on bridges across the state with the approval of rail authority VicTrack and the Department of Transport despite engineers and technology experts warning their bosses the devices could not accurately monitor bridges for structural problems.
The idea was supposed to revolutionise infrastructure management globally and become a lucrative moneymaker for the state, with sensors that constantly monitored bridges for signs of corrosion, strain, damage or imminent collapse.
The Victorian government committed a total of $82.5 million to the project, that aimed to commercialise FiBridge sensor technology touted as being “to bridges, as the ECG is to the heart”. By the time Eloque shut down in August, the Victorian government had spent at least $20 million of taxpayers’ money.
The Age can also reveal the Queensland government rejected a proposal to buy Eloque’s technology after it commissioned an independent review that found it was unviable. The review, obtained by The Age, raises questions about the adequacy of due diligence conducted by the Andrews government before it poured taxpayers’ money into the technology.
“We were deploying on bridges, funded by the Victorian state government, knowing that we would probably have to go back at the government’s expense and replace it,” said a former senior manager.
Transport officials have begun removing the sensors from 30 bridges around the state and laid off the last of its 46 employees – just 15 months after the Victorian government announced it was investing in the joint venture with US printing giant Xerox.
The Age interviewed seven senior Eloque employees who were closely involved with its engineering, design, operational and commercial operations. The former employees spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters that remain commercially sensitive to Xerox and because they feared career repercussions.
Campbell Rose, chief executive and driving force behind the joint-venture’s ambitious business plans, was also the chief executive of the state rail authority VicTrack, which was Eloque’s only paying customer. A former chief executive of the Western Bulldogs AFL club, Rose was in charge of both VicTrack and Eloque for a period of about 10 months.
Eloque monitors were installed on the tram bridge at St Kilda Junction.Credit:Justin McManus
Rose’s former colleagues say he “disappeared off the face of the earth” in March, with no announcement or explanation from VicTrack about why he had stopped going to work, and the rail authority confirmed last week he was on “extended leave”. Rose declined to comment when contacted by The Age.
In February 2021, Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan directed VicTrack to proceed with the joint venture, and approved the appointment of Rose as dual chief executive with “appropriate financial and commercial governance arrangements” in place to avoid conflicts of interest.
VicTrack obtained legal advice from law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth about managing potential conflicts of interest with a “management strategy” that meant Rose and others with dual duties to the agency and Eloque would not receive board papers or other information about their commercial agreements.
VicTrack promoted Chris Olds to the new role of “deputy chief executive” to manage the day-to-day running of the agency while Rose focused on Eloque. But Rose remained Olds’ boss and the “accountable officer” reporting to the minister.
A VicTrack spokesman said the “employment arrangement was an interim one to enable the start-up of Eloque whilst the recruitment of a new CEO for Eloque was undertaken”. There is no suggestion Rose acted contrary to the management strategy that was in place. He was paid only one salary, from VicTrack.
Eloque’s sudden collapse contrasts with the grand hopes on display when Allan – who is now also deputy premier – and Treasurer Tim Pallas announced the partnership with Xerox in May 2021.
They said Victoria would invest up to $50 million installing its technology on state bridges and setting up the commercial company to “rapidly expand” around the world.
As it turned out, the state lost less than half that: $7 million in capital for its 37.5 per cent shareholding, $9.85 million for bridge installations and $2.3 million on its early trials. It poured in another $1.12 million on September 2 to cover wind-down costs. Xerox invested $7 million of funding and $8 million worth of intellectual property.
As well as being chief executive of Eloque and VicTrack, Rose was a director of the Australian trading entity, Eloque Pty Ltd, and was named in internal documents as “vice president and secretary” of the US parent company, Eloque LLC. He was also appointed secretary of the company the Department of Transport set up to manage its 37.5 per cent shareholding in Eloque.
VicTrack briefed Allan on the executive arrangement in early 2021, in a document that explained Rose would be Eloque’s “inaugural and interim chief executive” while retaining “the substantive role of VicTrack CE (chief executive)“.
The recommendation to Allan to support this arrangement came from VicTrack’s head of government relations, James O’Brien. He joined VicTrack in April 2020 after a stint as Allan’s chief of staff, replacing Diana Tremigliozzi, who then took his role in Allan’s office.
Victoria’s public service code of conduct says public officials should “avoid any real or apparent conflicts of interest”, which it says may involve outside “professional interests” or “closely associated” commercial ventures.
It began with a problem...
Eloque grew out of VicTrack’s attempts to decide how best to spend limited funds maintaining billions of dollars worth of ageing bridge infrastructure. Seventy per cent of Australia’s bridges are more than 50 years old and manual inspections are expensive and time-consuming.
In 2017 VicTrack obtained a $500,000 grant from the Department of Premier and Cabinet to run a trial with Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) to see if its miniature optic fibres could measure the structural condition of four bridges.
VicTrack deemed the trial a success and commissioned the consultancy firm McKinsey & Company to examine the potential to commercialise the technology. McKinsey found that within a decade, FiBridge could be installed on 14,000 bridges and be earning annual revenue of $422 million and profits of $167 million.
The McKinsey report said “the technology works … as proven by extensive piloting done on five bridges in Victoria in 2019”.
Leaked VicTrack board papers show that in June 2020, Allan and Pallas successfully pitched the joint venture investment to the state government’s COVID “crisis cabinet”, which included Premier Daniel Andrews and his most senior ministers, securing the $32.5 million government commitment it needed to get off the ground.
In November that year, the government doubled down and accepted VicTrack’s “budget bid” for $50 million to further support the project by installing Eloque’s technology on “priority transport assets”, the board minutes show.
Those documents reveal for the first time that the government was willing to spend up to $82.5 million on Eloque – significantly more than the $50 million announced when the state launched the project in 2021.
Leaked company documents show Eloque’s management predicted astonishing growth: in nine years, they claimed FiBridge could be installed on 17,000 assets across the world, earning it revenue of $1 billion – a windfall for its investors, Xerox and the Victorian government.
When Rose went on a whirlwind tour of the US and Europe in late 2021 to woo new customers, he gave them an even brighter picture of Eloque’s outlook. Briefing documents prepared for government agencies, obtained by The Age, claimed the technology was “currently rolling out” on 100 at-risk bridges in Victoria and would be on 300 bridges over the next 18 months. At the time, FiBridge was installed on fewer than 13 Victorian bridges.
Eloque insiders said that soon after the company was established, experienced structural and product engineers, technology experts and other professionals working at its Docklands office and at PARC in California started to warn that, despite promising early testing, the technology was not ready to be sold.
Optic fibre used in the sensors snapped, came unstuck from bridges or was picked out by birds and vermin, former employees said.
Even when the sensors worked, there was no confidence the data collected was accurate. Insiders said the company never developed an analytics system that could use that data to reliably diagnose a bridge’s structural health and nobody at Eloque was building the “artificial intelligence” and machine learning capability it talked about publicly.
In late 2021, an experienced structural engineer resigned from Eloque after claiming that management refused to listen to his grave concerns that the technology was giving inaccurate readings, according to four former employees with direct knowledge of the event. The engineer declined to comment when contacted.
A number of those involved in Eloque believe the core technology held genuine potential and may have become a valuable tool to save money and even lives. But an aggressive commercial strategy took priority over ensuring its product was ready.
One senior employee said designers and engineers working at Eloque’s offices in Docklands and California made it “very clear” to executives that the technology needed at least two more years of research and development before it could be widely deployed.
Three employees who were in meetings where the matters were discussed said they believed Eloque management pushed ahead with installations despite objections from technical staff because of the imperative to keep cash flowing in from VicTrack.
“I heard in more than one meeting: if we don’t implement ‘X’ amount of bridges, we’re out of business. That was constant,” said one.
Failed examination
Staff concerns about the technology were confirmed in a damning independent report prepared on behalf of Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads in mid-2021, when it considered becoming Eloque’s first customer outside Victoria.
The technical due diligence assessment by the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB), a leading independent expert body, found FiBridge was “in its infancy” and that Eloque could not demonstrate “the viability of the technology”.
Two experienced ARRB structural engineers reviewed Eloque’s technical background documents, the findings of its pilot program, and conducted interviews with its executive project team and other staff before finalising their report on October 14.
The confidential report, obtained by The Age, says Eloque did not have enough “verification and validation” to be confident its sensor data was accurate, and found no evidence it had a system that automatically tuned such data into observations of structural health.
The extent of the “limitations and challenges” on display demanded “significant efforts from Eloque to demonstrate that FiBridge is a viable bridge monitoring system”, the report says. It recommended Queensland revisit FiBridge in “a couple of years” when the product was “fully developed”.
All seven former employees said it was widely known at Eloque by late 2021 that the first sensors installed in Victoria did not work as expected.
But on February 22 this year, Xerox published a press release that stunned employees.
Rather than slow down installations, Xerox trumpeted that Eloque would “triple the number of bridges” in Australia using its technology, from 12 to 36, by the middle of the year. The release claimed Eloque was “already seeing success with the installations in Australia” and was now talking to possible customers in the US and Europe.
The targets were never hit.
Eloque quickly unravelled following Rose’s absence from late March, according to company insiders, who said Eloque and VicTrack never announced or explained his absence to staff.
Collapse
Just before his departure, Rose took a group of senior employees to lunch at the RACV Club on Bourke Street, Melbourne, and told them VicTrack had ordered him to cease contact with current and former staff.
About the same time, Department of Transport officials co-ordinating Eloque’s sensor installations suddenly changed their attitude towards the company, according to four sources familiar with discussions, and by April the rollout was halted until they could be satisfied the devices worked as expected.
With funding cut off, a sudden round of redundancies in June stripped Eloque back to a skeleton staff. In late August the remaining employees on both sides of the Pacific were told the company was shutting down.
The Andrews government first confirmed to Melbourne radio station 3AW on August 25 that it had pulled the pin on Eloque. But the government and Xerox have never explained why its venture failed so spectacularly, just 16 months after they claimed it had a functioning technology that would “rapidly expand” around the world.
A spokeswoman for Xerox said it decided with VicTrack to shut Eloque when it realised developing it into a commercial product “would require more efforts than initially expected”.
Campbell Rose was previously the chief executive of the Western Bulldogs.Credit:Andrew De la Rue
Ministers Allan and Pallas did not respond to questions. A VicTrack spokeswoman said the FiBridge idea went through “through extensive research and testing” which showed potential to improve how it managed its bridges.
But despite its “promising earlier development... it became clear that the level of resourcing required to further develop the technology to a workable state” could not be supported, the spokeswoman said.
The deputy premier and the treasurer declined to answer questions about Eloque, including what independent due diligence the government did on the viability of its technology and its business model before committing up to $82.5 million of state funds to the project, of which $20 million has been lost.
A government spokesman said: “All appropriate due diligence processes were followed”.
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bridge-to-nowhere-government-loses-big-in-punt-on-untried-technology-20220921-p5bjpz.html>
NSW redevelopment plan poses ‘very real threat’ to Sydney’s Central station, National Trust says. Tamsin Rose Sat 1 Oct 2022
The Trust’s state conservation director wrote letters to the public and organisations citing concerns over the plan’s scale and impact
The National Trust has criticised the New South Wales government’s plan to revamp and reimagine Sydney’s Central station, claiming that the scheme “presents a genuine and very real threat to Australia’s greatest station”.
The trust’s NSW conservation director, David Burdon, wrote to members of the public and organisations for “help in saving the iconic Sydney Central station”, citing concerns over the scale and impact of the plan that would build over a portion of the heritage-listed site.
“If this proposal is accepted in its current form … then the entire rationale and value of heritage listing in NSW must seriously be reconsidered,” Burdon said.
The proposal to overhaul the station precinct was unveiled in August by the premier, Dominic Perrottet, and the outgoing cities minister, Rob Stokes.
The “once in a generation” scheme would see parkland, homes and workspaces built over the rail lines leading into the station, rejoining Surry Hills to Ultimo after the inner city suburbs were separated by tracks in 1874.
Central station redevelopment aims to heal Sydney ‘scar’ – but is it a missed opportunity?
It would see a bridge constructed over the busiest lines in the country that would hold 15 mixed-use buildings, ranging from four to 34 storeys.
In his plea, Burdon said the key attributes of Central Station that made it important, including its role as a “major public transport terminal of civic importance”, would be lost if the plan proceeded as proposed.
He argued many key features would be lost, including important views like that of the Central Clock Tower, which he said would have less prominence under the plan.
Burdon also said the development would mean steam locomotives could no longer use the station – a claim Transport for NSW has denied.
He said the tallest of the buildings would form a wall between Surry Hills and Ultimo and as such would not re-connect the areas as intended.
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The government said the project included plans to “preserve, protect and enhance the history” of the station.
“Transport for NSW has engaged with many stakeholders,” a spokesperson said.
“The plans have been on public exhibition as part of the state significant planning process, and are currently being assessed by the Department of Planning and Environment prior to NSW government approval.
“While we value the input of the National Trust, many of the claims are inaccurate.”
Transport for NSW also said new views of the Central Clock Tower would be created through the development.
NSW renames national park over pastoralist Ben Boyd’s links to slavery in Pacific
Burdon said the trust was not opposed to the renewal of Central Station, but that the plans could be better.
“There are many ways it can and should be improved, including helping to heal the enormous scar between Surry Hills and Ultimo, and making it a safe and enjoyable place for all who visit or pass through,” he said.
While the project has been largely welcomed, some have also criticised it for not going far enough on housing, connectivity and future-proofing.
Last month, Steve Mann, chief executive of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, said the government should raise the 15% affordable housing goal on the project to 30%.
Prof Elizabeth Mossop, dean of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, said the proposal was “driven by real estate, economic thinking, rather than city-making thinking”.
The period for public feedback was due to end on 19 September but has been extended until 4 October. The trust will also make a formal submission.
<https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/01/nsw-redevelopment-plan-poses-very-real-threat-to-sydneys-central-station-national-trust-says>
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday 28 September 2024 at 09:24:15 pm AEST
Subject: Sat.1.10.22 daily digest archive part 1, text
Roderick
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Sat.1.10.22 Metro Twitter
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works.
Because of tunnel works, Degraves St subway at Flinders St is closed until 2024. No platform transfer via Degraves St subway. Passengers should use Elizabeth & Swanston St entry/exits. Campbell Arcade remains closed to 2024. Platform interchange via that subway was available until mid 2022.
Bell: No lift access to platforms until Oct 2022, while works continue around the station precinct. A shuttle bus will run from Bell to Preston and Thornbury.
Heading to Royal Melbourne Show? We’re running more trains to the showgrounds to get you there and back.
Sunbury line: Buses replace trains North Melbourne - Sunshine until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (works).
Mernda line: Buses replace trains Parliament - Reservoir until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (maintenance works). Buses replace trains Flinders St - Reservoir during Night Network hours.
Hurstbridge line: Buses replace trains Parliament - Heidelberg until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (maintenance works). Buses replace trains Flinders St - Heidelberg during Night Network hours.
Lilydale/Belgrave/Alamein/Glen Waverley/Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: All trains direct to/from Flinders St from 21.00 until the last train (works). From loop stations, take a train from pfm 3 to Flinders St.
12.48 Werribee/Williamstown lines: Major delays (a train fault near Yarraville).
- 12.56 When is a train expected through Seddon to Werribee?
- 13.22 Major delays due to an earlier train fault near Yarraville.
- 13.27 clearing
Buses replace trains on sections of the Sandringham line from 21.00 until the last train of Sun 2 Oct (works).
Six of the best: Railway hotels. Traveller. Anthony Dennis June 4, 2015
* GRAND HOTEL MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: Aside from the legion of humble pubs that call themselves "Railway Hotel", Australia is bereft of authentic grand railway hotels.
But there's always the 118-room Grand Hotel Melbourne, located in the southern portion of an elephantine erstwhile 19th-century Italianate railways headquarters near the modern-day Southern Cross Station in gentrifying Spencer Street.
The hallways of the recently refurbished hotel, which is protected by the Heritage Council of Victoria, are so wide and tall that you could fairly drive a loco down them, with the building's generous dimensions allowing for spacious split-level guestrooms.
From $169 per night. See grandhotelmelbourne.com.au
Long delays (up to 60 min), March-April 2019. [with the worst of the propaganda edited out]
Melbourne and Victoria are growing fast. We’re building a South Yarra - South Kensington tunnel and improving the public-transport network. This will involve disruption to your journey. We expect you to plan ahead, using ptv.vic.gov.au
– If you can, avoid peak times and travel before 7.00 or after 9.00.
– Take advantage of the Early Bird fare. Touch on and off before 7.15 and your train travel is free.
– We expect other public transport services and roads to be busier than usual.
AFL fans should allow extra time to get to MCG in April, with a number of train lines not running to Richmond. The free tram zone will be extended to MCG for affected games.
Plan ahead and allow more time if you’re attending a show at Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
There will be no trains between the City and Caulfield on these dates.
Caulfield is the major bus interchange and will be extremely busy in peak periods.
What’s happening during autumn:
Timed to coincide with the April holiday period, construction works will continue to build the tunnel, remove level crossings and upgrade regional lines.
The tunnel project will be create room on the Cranbourne, Frankston and Pakenham lines for an additional 157,000 peak passengers to travel by train every week, saving up to 50 minutes a day.
– Major works continue across south eastern rail lines to upgrade infrastructure and build the tunnel entrance at South Yarra.
– On the Mernda and Frankston lines, works continue to remove the level crossings at Reservoir and Carrum
– Major track, signal and platform upgrades will deliver more-reliable trains on the Geelong and Warrnambool lines.
Accessibility
If you need help or cannot board a replacement bus, please contact PTV prior to travelling on 1800 800 007 or speak to our staff at the bus stop for alternative transport to be arranged at no cost.
For information in other languages [phone numbers listed].
If your language isn’t listed visit ptv.vic.gov.au/languages or call 9321 5450.
Plan your journey at ptv.vic.gov.au or call 1800 800 007.
If you’re deaf, or have a hearing or speech impairment,
contact us through the National Relay Service – for more information, visit relayservice.gov.au
Authorised by Transport for Victoria, 1 Spring Street, Melbourne
9321 5454 9321 5441
9321 5444 9321 5445
9321 5443 9321 5442
9321 5449 9321 5446
9321 5440 9321 5447
Buses replace trains during March and April 2019
Mernda line: Various days between 23 March and 9 April, adding 45 min. [also quoted as Various days between 3 and 14 April]
Glen Waverley line: 13 & 14 April, adding 45 min.
Pakenham and Cranbourne lines: Various days between 22 March and 23 April, adding 60 min.
Bairnsdale line: Various days between 22 March and 23 April, adding 60 min.
Frankston line: Various days between 22 March and 23 April, adding 60 min.
Stony Point line: 6 to 23 April, adding 60 min.
Sandringham line: Weekends and Easter between 22 March and 22 April, adding 60 min.
Pakenham & Cranbourne lines: Express and limited express buses depart from Federation Square.
Frankston line: Express and limited- express buses depart from Arts Centre.
Pakenham, Cranbourne, and Frankston lines Stopping-all-stations buses depart from Spring St for stations between Parliament and Caulfield (weekdays only).
Sandringham line. All buses depart (except Night Network ones) depart from Spring St.
Thurs.29.9.22 Melbourne 'Herald Sun'. Flinders St display. NUI TE KOHA
ARTIST Rone is taking inspiration from the ticking heart of post-WWII Melbourne for a nostalgic installation opening in the Flinders St station ballroom next month.
His installation, Time, will bring a lost era to life in 12 rooms that recreate the days of machine rooms, typing pools, public libraries, school houses and entertainment parlours.
Rone, born Tyrone Wright, says each installation evokes stories from the past "slightly based on the truth, with a bit of fiction in there as well.
"I'm not letting the truth get in the way of a good tale." he says.
His clock room is inspired by those at the front entrance to Flinders St Station, which he has envisaged as a storage room, and low key space to hang out.
As with most of his work, Rone's haunting signature female portraits hover ghostlike above each scene.
Rone says the images symbolise beauty amid the decay.
Meanwhile, the time-honoured restrictions of the heritage-listed ballroom have made Rone's latest work challenging.
"Everything we need to get into the building needs to fit though an 80cm door on an active station platform," he said. "We can't put new anchors into the wall, and we have to report any new markings and scratches. It's been hugely difficult."
Time opens on October 28.
Melbourne’s eastern suburbs traders blame level crossing removal for ‘ghost town’. John Masanauskas October 1, 2022. 83 comments
Traders in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs say the “total chaos” of level crossing removal works has driven them to the wall.
Mont Albert and Surrey Hills traders are fuming over major disruptions caused by level crossing removal works. Picture: Tony Gough
Eastern suburbs traders affected by a level crossing removal project (LXRP) say they have been driven to the wall by the “total chaos” of disruptions.
Businesses affected by works to remove crossings at Surrey Hills and Mont Albert stations claim they have lost millions of dollars due to customers avoiding the area.
Both stations, currently surrounded by shopping strips, will be demolished and a new one built under the project due for completion in 2023.
Mont Albert and Surrey Hills Traders spokesman Simon Jamison said businesses in Union Rd and Hamilton St shopping strips had been decimated by constant disruptions, including road closures, loss of carparks, and muddy and dusty conditions.
“You can’t blame the customers, there’s nowhere to park, huge trucks rolling up the street, clouds of dust, roads blocked off and trains suspended,” he said.
“It’s like a ghost town.”
Both stations will be demolished and a new one built under the project due for completion in 2023. Picture: Andrew Henshaw
Mr Jamison said the group’s survey found that 95 per cent of traders experienced a detrimental impact from the project, while 75 per cent said the effect on their small business was severe or unsustainable.
“The Andrews government and the LXRP do not care that traders are going under in our shopping strips, they are treating them with disdain and disrespect,” he said
“The LXRP state that they will not compensate these small family businesses, even though they are sending us broke.”
Mr Jamison said LXRP marketing programs were unsuitable or had failed for 90 per cent of traders, and they wanted significant compensation for losses.
Liberal candidate for Box Hill, Nicole Ta-Ei Werner, accused the government of treating the local community with contempt, such as not showing detailed plans for the proposed Union Station.
Businesses affected by works to remove crossings at Surrey Hills and Mont Albert stations claim they have lost millions of dollars due to customers avoiding the area.
“More must be done to help local traders whose small businesses have survived the world’s longest lockdowns, only to be followed by dire trade interruptions, thanks to Andrews’ vanity Big Build projects,” she said.
LXRP program director Travis Edmonds said that removing the level crossings would make it safer and easier for the community to access local shops with less congested roads and new pedestrian links to the Union Rd and Hamilton St shopping villages.
“We thank locals for their patience while these works are underway. We’re working closely with traders to minimise impacts, and encourage residents to continue shopping in their community while we carry out these important works,” he said.
The LXRP said it had launched several measures to lure shoppers to the precinct, including a trader directory, a loyalty program, with more than 3000 people participating, and about 50 traders involved.
It also worked one-on-one with traders to co-design social media campaigns to drive new customers to their shops while work was under way.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/melbournes-eastern-suburbs-traders-blame-level-crossing-removal-for-ghost-town/news-story/94ffd191078021c7562e0ba0d63fe2b0>
Bridge to nowhere: Government loses big in punt on untried technology. Patrick Hatch October 1, 2022
The Victorian government wasted at least $20m on a joint venture, run by the chief executive of the state’s rail authority, selling bridge safety monitors that did not work as they should. Credit:Stephen Kiprilis
The Victorian government wasted at least $20 million on a commercial joint venture, run by the chief executive of the state’s rail authority, selling bridge safety monitors that did not work as they should have.
Senior employees at the government-backed enterprise Eloque told The Age the company continued to install sensors on bridges across the state with the approval of rail authority VicTrack and the Department of Transport despite engineers and technology experts warning their bosses the devices could not accurately monitor bridges for structural problems.
The idea was supposed to revolutionise infrastructure management globally and become a lucrative moneymaker for the state, with sensors that constantly monitored bridges for signs of corrosion, strain, damage or imminent collapse.
The Victorian government committed a total of $82.5 million to the project, that aimed to commercialise FiBridge sensor technology touted as being “to bridges, as the ECG is to the heart”. By the time Eloque shut down in August, the Victorian government had spent at least $20 million of taxpayers’ money.
The Age can also reveal the Queensland government rejected a proposal to buy Eloque’s technology after it commissioned an independent review that found it was unviable. The review, obtained by The Age, raises questions about the adequacy of due diligence conducted by the Andrews government before it poured taxpayers’ money into the technology.
“We were deploying on bridges, funded by the Victorian state government, knowing that we would probably have to go back at the government’s expense and replace it,” said a former senior manager.
Transport officials have begun removing the sensors from 30 bridges around the state and laid off the last of its 46 employees – just 15 months after the Victorian government announced it was investing in the joint venture with US printing giant Xerox.
The Age interviewed seven senior Eloque employees who were closely involved with its engineering, design, operational and commercial operations. The former employees spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters that remain commercially sensitive to Xerox and because they feared career repercussions.
Campbell Rose, chief executive and driving force behind the joint-venture’s ambitious business plans, was also the chief executive of the state rail authority VicTrack, which was Eloque’s only paying customer. A former chief executive of the Western Bulldogs AFL club, Rose was in charge of both VicTrack and Eloque for a period of about 10 months.
Eloque monitors were installed on the tram bridge at St Kilda Junction.Credit:Justin McManus
Rose’s former colleagues say he “disappeared off the face of the earth” in March, with no announcement or explanation from VicTrack about why he had stopped going to work, and the rail authority confirmed last week he was on “extended leave”. Rose declined to comment when contacted by The Age.
In February 2021, Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan directed VicTrack to proceed with the joint venture, and approved the appointment of Rose as dual chief executive with “appropriate financial and commercial governance arrangements” in place to avoid conflicts of interest.
VicTrack obtained legal advice from law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth about managing potential conflicts of interest with a “management strategy” that meant Rose and others with dual duties to the agency and Eloque would not receive board papers or other information about their commercial agreements.
VicTrack promoted Chris Olds to the new role of “deputy chief executive” to manage the day-to-day running of the agency while Rose focused on Eloque. But Rose remained Olds’ boss and the “accountable officer” reporting to the minister.
A VicTrack spokesman said the “employment arrangement was an interim one to enable the start-up of Eloque whilst the recruitment of a new CEO for Eloque was undertaken”. There is no suggestion Rose acted contrary to the management strategy that was in place. He was paid only one salary, from VicTrack.
Eloque’s sudden collapse contrasts with the grand hopes on display when Allan – who is now also deputy premier – and Treasurer Tim Pallas announced the partnership with Xerox in May 2021.
They said Victoria would invest up to $50 million installing its technology on state bridges and setting up the commercial company to “rapidly expand” around the world.
As it turned out, the state lost less than half that: $7 million in capital for its 37.5 per cent shareholding, $9.85 million for bridge installations and $2.3 million on its early trials. It poured in another $1.12 million on September 2 to cover wind-down costs. Xerox invested $7 million of funding and $8 million worth of intellectual property.
As well as being chief executive of Eloque and VicTrack, Rose was a director of the Australian trading entity, Eloque Pty Ltd, and was named in internal documents as “vice president and secretary” of the US parent company, Eloque LLC. He was also appointed secretary of the company the Department of Transport set up to manage its 37.5 per cent shareholding in Eloque.
VicTrack briefed Allan on the executive arrangement in early 2021, in a document that explained Rose would be Eloque’s “inaugural and interim chief executive” while retaining “the substantive role of VicTrack CE (chief executive)“.
The recommendation to Allan to support this arrangement came from VicTrack’s head of government relations, James O’Brien. He joined VicTrack in April 2020 after a stint as Allan’s chief of staff, replacing Diana Tremigliozzi, who then took his role in Allan’s office.
Victoria’s public service code of conduct says public officials should “avoid any real or apparent conflicts of interest”, which it says may involve outside “professional interests” or “closely associated” commercial ventures.
It began with a problem...
Eloque grew out of VicTrack’s attempts to decide how best to spend limited funds maintaining billions of dollars worth of ageing bridge infrastructure. Seventy per cent of Australia’s bridges are more than 50 years old and manual inspections are expensive and time-consuming.
In 2017 VicTrack obtained a $500,000 grant from the Department of Premier and Cabinet to run a trial with Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) to see if its miniature optic fibres could measure the structural condition of four bridges.
VicTrack deemed the trial a success and commissioned the consultancy firm McKinsey & Company to examine the potential to commercialise the technology. McKinsey found that within a decade, FiBridge could be installed on 14,000 bridges and be earning annual revenue of $422 million and profits of $167 million.
The McKinsey report said “the technology works … as proven by extensive piloting done on five bridges in Victoria in 2019”.
Leaked VicTrack board papers show that in June 2020, Allan and Pallas successfully pitched the joint venture investment to the state government’s COVID “crisis cabinet”, which included Premier Daniel Andrews and his most senior ministers, securing the $32.5 million government commitment it needed to get off the ground.
In November that year, the government doubled down and accepted VicTrack’s “budget bid” for $50 million to further support the project by installing Eloque’s technology on “priority transport assets”, the board minutes show.
Those documents reveal for the first time that the government was willing to spend up to $82.5 million on Eloque – significantly more than the $50 million announced when the state launched the project in 2021.
Leaked company documents show Eloque’s management predicted astonishing growth: in nine years, they claimed FiBridge could be installed on 17,000 assets across the world, earning it revenue of $1 billion – a windfall for its investors, Xerox and the Victorian government.
When Rose went on a whirlwind tour of the US and Europe in late 2021 to woo new customers, he gave them an even brighter picture of Eloque’s outlook. Briefing documents prepared for government agencies, obtained by The Age, claimed the technology was “currently rolling out” on 100 at-risk bridges in Victoria and would be on 300 bridges over the next 18 months. At the time, FiBridge was installed on fewer than 13 Victorian bridges.
Eloque insiders said that soon after the company was established, experienced structural and product engineers, technology experts and other professionals working at its Docklands office and at PARC in California started to warn that, despite promising early testing, the technology was not ready to be sold.
Optic fibre used in the sensors snapped, came unstuck from bridges or was picked out by birds and vermin, former employees said.
Even when the sensors worked, there was no confidence the data collected was accurate. Insiders said the company never developed an analytics system that could use that data to reliably diagnose a bridge’s structural health and nobody at Eloque was building the “artificial intelligence” and machine learning capability it talked about publicly.
In late 2021, an experienced structural engineer resigned from Eloque after claiming that management refused to listen to his grave concerns that the technology was giving inaccurate readings, according to four former employees with direct knowledge of the event. The engineer declined to comment when contacted.
A number of those involved in Eloque believe the core technology held genuine potential and may have become a valuable tool to save money and even lives. But an aggressive commercial strategy took priority over ensuring its product was ready.
One senior employee said designers and engineers working at Eloque’s offices in Docklands and California made it “very clear” to executives that the technology needed at least two more years of research and development before it could be widely deployed.
Three employees who were in meetings where the matters were discussed said they believed Eloque management pushed ahead with installations despite objections from technical staff because of the imperative to keep cash flowing in from VicTrack.
“I heard in more than one meeting: if we don’t implement ‘X’ amount of bridges, we’re out of business. That was constant,” said one.
Failed examination
Staff concerns about the technology were confirmed in a damning independent report prepared on behalf of Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads in mid-2021, when it considered becoming Eloque’s first customer outside Victoria.
The technical due diligence assessment by the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB), a leading independent expert body, found FiBridge was “in its infancy” and that Eloque could not demonstrate “the viability of the technology”.
Two experienced ARRB structural engineers reviewed Eloque’s technical background documents, the findings of its pilot program, and conducted interviews with its executive project team and other staff before finalising their report on October 14.
The confidential report, obtained by The Age, says Eloque did not have enough “verification and validation” to be confident its sensor data was accurate, and found no evidence it had a system that automatically tuned such data into observations of structural health.
The extent of the “limitations and challenges” on display demanded “significant efforts from Eloque to demonstrate that FiBridge is a viable bridge monitoring system”, the report says. It recommended Queensland revisit FiBridge in “a couple of years” when the product was “fully developed”.
All seven former employees said it was widely known at Eloque by late 2021 that the first sensors installed in Victoria did not work as expected.
But on February 22 this year, Xerox published a press release that stunned employees.
Rather than slow down installations, Xerox trumpeted that Eloque would “triple the number of bridges” in Australia using its technology, from 12 to 36, by the middle of the year. The release claimed Eloque was “already seeing success with the installations in Australia” and was now talking to possible customers in the US and Europe.
The targets were never hit.
Eloque quickly unravelled following Rose’s absence from late March, according to company insiders, who said Eloque and VicTrack never announced or explained his absence to staff.
Collapse
Just before his departure, Rose took a group of senior employees to lunch at the RACV Club on Bourke Street, Melbourne, and told them VicTrack had ordered him to cease contact with current and former staff.
About the same time, Department of Transport officials co-ordinating Eloque’s sensor installations suddenly changed their attitude towards the company, according to four sources familiar with discussions, and by April the rollout was halted until they could be satisfied the devices worked as expected.
With funding cut off, a sudden round of redundancies in June stripped Eloque back to a skeleton staff. In late August the remaining employees on both sides of the Pacific were told the company was shutting down.
The Andrews government first confirmed to Melbourne radio station 3AW on August 25 that it had pulled the pin on Eloque. But the government and Xerox have never explained why its venture failed so spectacularly, just 16 months after they claimed it had a functioning technology that would “rapidly expand” around the world.
A spokeswoman for Xerox said it decided with VicTrack to shut Eloque when it realised developing it into a commercial product “would require more efforts than initially expected”.
Campbell Rose was previously the chief executive of the Western Bulldogs.Credit:Andrew De la Rue
Ministers Allan and Pallas did not respond to questions. A VicTrack spokeswoman said the FiBridge idea went through “through extensive research and testing” which showed potential to improve how it managed its bridges.
But despite its “promising earlier development... it became clear that the level of resourcing required to further develop the technology to a workable state” could not be supported, the spokeswoman said.
The deputy premier and the treasurer declined to answer questions about Eloque, including what independent due diligence the government did on the viability of its technology and its business model before committing up to $82.5 million of state funds to the project, of which $20 million has been lost.
A government spokesman said: “All appropriate due diligence processes were followed”.
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bridge-to-nowhere-government-loses-big-in-punt-on-untried-technology-20220921-p5bjpz.html>
NSW redevelopment plan poses ‘very real threat’ to Sydney’s Central station, National Trust says. Tamsin Rose Sat 1 Oct 2022
The Trust’s state conservation director wrote letters to the public and organisations citing concerns over the plan’s scale and impact
The National Trust has criticised the New South Wales government’s plan to revamp and reimagine Sydney’s Central station, claiming that the scheme “presents a genuine and very real threat to Australia’s greatest station”.
The trust’s NSW conservation director, David Burdon, wrote to members of the public and organisations for “help in saving the iconic Sydney Central station”, citing concerns over the scale and impact of the plan that would build over a portion of the heritage-listed site.
“If this proposal is accepted in its current form … then the entire rationale and value of heritage listing in NSW must seriously be reconsidered,” Burdon said.
The proposal to overhaul the station precinct was unveiled in August by the premier, Dominic Perrottet, and the outgoing cities minister, Rob Stokes.
The “once in a generation” scheme would see parkland, homes and workspaces built over the rail lines leading into the station, rejoining Surry Hills to Ultimo after the inner city suburbs were separated by tracks in 1874.
Central station redevelopment aims to heal Sydney ‘scar’ – but is it a missed opportunity?
It would see a bridge constructed over the busiest lines in the country that would hold 15 mixed-use buildings, ranging from four to 34 storeys.
In his plea, Burdon said the key attributes of Central Station that made it important, including its role as a “major public transport terminal of civic importance”, would be lost if the plan proceeded as proposed.
He argued many key features would be lost, including important views like that of the Central Clock Tower, which he said would have less prominence under the plan.
Burdon also said the development would mean steam locomotives could no longer use the station – a claim Transport for NSW has denied.
He said the tallest of the buildings would form a wall between Surry Hills and Ultimo and as such would not re-connect the areas as intended.
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The government said the project included plans to “preserve, protect and enhance the history” of the station.
“Transport for NSW has engaged with many stakeholders,” a spokesperson said.
“The plans have been on public exhibition as part of the state significant planning process, and are currently being assessed by the Department of Planning and Environment prior to NSW government approval.
“While we value the input of the National Trust, many of the claims are inaccurate.”
Transport for NSW also said new views of the Central Clock Tower would be created through the development.
NSW renames national park over pastoralist Ben Boyd’s links to slavery in Pacific
Burdon said the trust was not opposed to the renewal of Central Station, but that the plans could be better.
“There are many ways it can and should be improved, including helping to heal the enormous scar between Surry Hills and Ultimo, and making it a safe and enjoyable place for all who visit or pass through,” he said.
While the project has been largely welcomed, some have also criticised it for not going far enough on housing, connectivity and future-proofing.
Last month, Steve Mann, chief executive of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, said the government should raise the 15% affordable housing goal on the project to 30%.
Prof Elizabeth Mossop, dean of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, said the proposal was “driven by real estate, economic thinking, rather than city-making thinking”.
The period for public feedback was due to end on 19 September but has been extended until 4 October. The trust will also make a formal submission.
<https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/01/nsw-redevelopment-plan-poses-very-real-threat-to-sydneys-central-station-national-trust-says>
