As we make our first tippy-toes out of the second wave-induced lockdown, seeing 700 cases a day and you're still not locked down... I can only look from afar in horror. Culturally, we may be different re: tolerances for the virus in Australia and Canada but to put things into perspective, daily...

Officially we still have a suppression strategy in Australia re: the virus, but I wonder if we might get to effective elimination in Victoria (like they have in SA, WA, NT, and QLD sort of). This caught my eye: been a decent-ish downtrend of new casts over past handful of days and someone's...

More importantly: it's rife throughout all the insecure worker sectors of the economy. Aged-care: notoriously underpaid. Meatworks/Abbatoirs Distribution Centres high rates of short-term visa holders filling roles for a pittance. The best (!) thing about this pandemic is that it has fully...

you got a double LOL from me on this post. :) Western Australia is our Alberta. They've shut their internal borders and have been steadfast in not opening it all. All of them, sitting pretty over there, smug bastards

Whispers that the Victorian cabinet was meeting tonight to debate stage 4 restrictions (NZ-style) after we've had 270 odd cases today. Some voices saying we should go for eradication (like NZ did, and what an suppression strategy has effectively done in QLD, WA, SA, NT and TAS). Although...

And now as of tonight at 11:59pm the entire Melbourne metro plus the Mitchel Shire (which borders Melbourne metro to the north along the Hume Hwy - the main inland road to Canberra and Sydney) is going back to what we call stage 3 restrictions (you can only leave home for the 4 "good" reasons...

News from the southern hemisphere. If anything, this pandemic has been really good (not in a good way!) at exposing ugly underbellies of societies around the world. Singapore's a really good example: its citizens are (were?) pretty much fine but the virus was running rampant through foreign...

This. Just this. WTF Britain - they went through Brexit to, apparently, gain more control of their borders and they're only just getting around to it now?!

hahahah I hadn't seen that one yet. Juice comes up with the goods yet again.

Data seekers (or more to the point: $ data seekers), here's some more local for me (in AU) info - yesterday we got word of a duplication + level crossing removal project having contracts signed. $679 million AUD for duplication of approx 12 km of single track (there's about 2km or so of passing...

got halfway through that article and saw: "They capped the length of station platforms at 150 metres rather than 180 metres. " I almost choked. 150 metre platforms for a tram system!?!? say what?

@Reecemartin You can add the Suburban Rail Loop here in Melbourne to your list of projects that will (well, likely at this stage, confirmation will come in next 6 months) be built independently of existing systems... just a few months ago the Premier here said as much - 4 car trains, smaller...

^ tis the story of many-a-rail project in AU at the moment. Here's the video the Victorian Government released back in November when they announced the SRL system will effectively be independent of the existing metropolitan network

The first of three caverns at State Library station has been complete and had a state gov presser down in it today. What it'll eventually look like (the other two caverns will be carved out now, and they'll take the trains) Cross section: And I added the red circle to this for scale...

Speaking of AC versus DC, I keep forgetting to refer to the ongoing project in Adelaide that is probably most relevant to the GO electrification project. Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane all have AC systems (Brisbane electrified from the 70s, Perth the 90s and Adelaide last decade). Melbourne &...

^ (painted) concrete. And now for a wider context! Check out the new visual pollution - the catenary you see in the foreground is literally brand spanking new (all those tracks + signals + catenary were just rebuilt when they put the cut/cover metro tunnel entrance in), Teronnimo's new GO lines...

This line was one of the first to get electrified here, but the catenary you see in this is about 40-50 years old. A quiet suburban street in between Ascot Vale and Newmarket stations The unfathomable visual pollution of the car parks, suburban blight, weeds catenary in Melb's outer western...

Long-ish read on shifting population (and electoral) dynamics in Australia https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-is-set-to-become-the-country-s-most-populous-city-by-2026-with-vast-ramifications-20191128-p53f29.html

And then spend billions building transmission to it all? Niet.

We have an expected timeline for onshore coal power generation in Australia based on expected end-of-economic life/use by dates - in 15 years more than 50% of nameplate capacity will be gone - i.e this is business as usual, the plants just will not make economic sense under current operational...