The Rail Tram and Bus Union have been concerned about the quality of the air at Southern Cross Station for some time now. Over the last several months Vibewire has published several stories on the failure of the station to rid the area of killer diesel fumes but is it really the fault of the station’s owners or is it like many other transport issues caused by poor government planning?
I have written articles and so have others on the effects of the poor air quality at Southern Cross.
The RTBU of Victoria is asking for the station to be shutdown, I can understand why. The air quality is shocking not only for those who use the station but also for those residents living around the station who cannot leave their doors or windows open.
Melbourne is surely the only major city in the world where diesel trains service suburbs of a major International city. This is entirely due to the failure of the Department of Transport and Ben Carroll when he was minster of transport to investment in much needed electrification for the RRL (Sunshine to Wyndham Vale) ignored despite the obvious inclusion into the scope. Indeed the flaws with the development of the RRL whose project managers rejoiced at cutting corners and delivering the project under budget are only now surfacing as the network is strangled with poor design and huge increases in the number of people using the network.
It is a total failure of transport planning policy and those responsible for ignoring the problem for 20 years should be held accountable. Imagine what visitors to our great city must think about the polluted station as they come off the SkyBus and make their way to a Metro Train Service or arrive via rail from interstate? It is beyond embarassing.
For those who don’t know, the western suburbs of Melbourne, including, Little River, Avalon and Geelong, rely on expensive, environmentally unfriendly, smelly, uncomfortable diesel trains despite the distance being only 25 kms from the centre of Melbourne. The Geelong line via the RRL is the busiest regional line in the state of Victoria followed closely by the Ballarat line also without electrification. Together these two routes make up the busiest part of the V/Line network, yet the Department of Transport and its Rolling Stock head Ben Phyland continues to buy out of date, diesel powered Vlocity trains adding to the increasing number of services using Southern Cross each and every day. Could this be because he spent 21 years at Bombardier selling rolling stock to operators including the Victorian Government?
In any other major city with a rail network between the largest regional and capital city electrification would have already been completed. Actually it was proposed and agreed to be done in the 1970’s but was cancelled. Familiar story?
The current government has ignored vital transport projects in the Western Suburbs including the electrification and duplication in part of the Ballarat Railway Line and obvious electrification of the Geelong Railway Line. The government still ignored for calls to restart passenger rail services between Ballarat and Geelong two major regional centres.
Until the issue of electrification is tackled smartly and includes the Ballarat and Geelong lines, 200+ daily diesel train services cannot be replaced with electric powered rolling stock which could run on renewable energy. It has become a planning joke in Melbourne.
It is like most things in Victoria, the root cause analysis is never undertaken or understood and problems are allowed to get larger and larger and when being solved the solution does not work. The solution is not to change Southern Cross Station it is to remove these out of date diesel trains that pollute the environment and cost a fortune to fuel and run. After all, what self respecting and competent city runs diesel trains to their suburbs?
Good words electrification was required a decade ago on both Ballarat and Geelong. Victoria always half measures unless it is a road.
Ballarat should be electrified with the western rail plan but it has not proceeded and Ballarat need more train frequency. The Ballarat Council is calling for more services but they are not being delivered and we don;t want more vlocity diesel trains at all.
Of courses this is what should happen. No new line upgrades without overhead.
How can anyone believe the use of dozens of diesel trains for services to the western suburbs think this is acceptable? The RRL should have been electrified at the time it was built there was more than enough money to do this and connect the line into Werribee and trains could have run on a semi loop making services even better. Who are the idiots who design this current crap we have?
Hi Brad…
That’s a really spicy article…not sure what will happened now….
TBA
I am in the process of writing an article (researching at the moment) on the odd appointment of a former Bombardier resource who has found their way into the PTV and is responsible for (in my view at least) the rolling stock mess we have at V/Line.
It better to keep the loco haul than ripping up the station!
It least the locomotive can be shunted away from the station in their yard in the open , while Volcity are left at the plaform idling away!
When the loco haul was on carraiges, Is left inactive while not in use!
Until Vic can afford better trains…..
Plus the designer of the station doesn’t know seem to much of air flow engineering mechanics for that particular design…..
To let gas and stale air out as it so still underneath the enclosed areas.
This is true in one respect.
There are no place for Diesel rail cars on the scale we have in Melbourne none. loco hauled services for the longer routes with some upgrades are what is required. Next you then as a priority electrify the RRL and connect this to the Werribee line and run the trains in a semi circle a constant stream of trains from city top Werribee to WV to Tarneit and then Sunshine into the city and the opposite direction so the traffic is moving and there are 15 minute services.
Move the Geelong trains between Werribee and the RRL with passing at WV and Werribee for the V/Line services.
Brad It seems DOT adviser Ben is using the WA, SA method in a state that has more extensive network…..
SA and WA are not extensive in their network as NSW….
We should be using their methods in train design and operation applications….
Suburban and Interurban electrified…semi rural DMU 3×2 s and Inter city DMUs push pull 6 -8 so forth!