Yes, and it's rare that Victoria (or Melbourne to be specific) is in that position. Queensland is generally the focus, for marginal seat watching, because its population is generally balanced 50% in the capital (Brisbane) and 50% outside of it. Contrast with Melbourne/Vic, Adelaide/SA and...

The crux of the current contest between Lib and Lab is that Labor are slowly, but surely, moving away from the compact both parties have held for the past 20-30 years: neoliberal / trickle-down economics. The ALP has never really embraced it fully, but in the 80s/90s it was responsible for many...

The $10 billion is for the first segment which has already been identified by the state government as the one in the south-east - from Cheltenham to Box Hill in the map below. The north-west section (between Sunshine and the airport on the map) is a separately funded project, both sections...

It's getting interesting! The Federal Labor party (currently in opposition) have just announced they'll fund the Suburban Rail Loop in Melbourne to the tune of $10 billion, piggybacking off the state government (Labor) policy from last year. The Federal election is next Saturday (May 18)...

Just back on Melbourne's level crossing removals - the third section of the Dandenong corridor that was progressively grade separated (removed all crossings between the city and Dandenong) and opened last year has now been documented. It's a Before, during (x 3!) and after construction video...

Here's the Midland-Fremantle line (East to West) through the city. This is more typical of an Australian suburban line - stations far more closer together, an original rail corridor that was subsequently electrified and bonus, the first half is dual gauge (this line eventually becomes the...

I only recently visited Perth for the first time this year and, of course, did a little bit of train-tripping including a small part of the video below. It starts at the far northern end of Perth's metro area, heads through the city and goes all the way out to the far south of the metro area...

Not absolutely sure as to the original reason for truncating the Eastern Subs line at Bondi Junction but around the time of the Olympics/Millenium, there was a proposal to extend it by one station down to Bondi Beach. This ABC article from last year has a good background on it...

Double deckers appear to be a play-thing on here (hah), here they are. Note if you don't want to watch the timelapse (video shown below), click here to see it in real time: That video starts in the far western end of the Sydney metro area in Penrith and runs express, for the most part, to...

Diesels do run over that pair of tracks - the metro Dandenong-Pakenham line shares track with the regional La Trobe valley services (Traralgon & Bairnesdale) as well as the odd freight train. Hell, a couple of times a year the volunteer-run Steamrail Victoria run steam excursions out to the...

More level crossing and general upgrade stuff. This is the Pakenham branch in outer-outer southeast Melbourne (and my old train line where I grew up - Beaconsfield or Berwick were equidistant from my place / my old stations). All the level crossings you see in this video are going except for...

Another train driver's view of level crossing work - this was initiated under the previous (Liberal) state government but completed under current (Labor) government. Frankston line between Moorabbin and Caulfield (where the Frankston and Pakenham/Cranbourne lines meet). Note the second last...

Another major project that kicked off when the current state government came to power in 2014 is the Level Crossing Removal Project. Originally a list of 50 to be completed over two state government terms (8 years), at the last election the list was expanded to 75. There's about 150 level...

I originally posted about emerging consensus on projects that are making their way through state gov agencies at the moment here in Victoria, namely the Melbourne Airport Rail Link (MARL), Western suburbs rail expansion and the Suburban Rail Loop. All three of those projects got a run in the...

There's a lot of drawing on examples from Australia re: PT on here, and rather than take conversations in other thread off-track (pardon pun) I'll post about here - and ask away re: any questions you have. (for background see here). Double deckers versus single-deckers, low and high-level...

I'll start a catch-all Australian PT thread in next day or two in the rest of the universe section and dump all that info there (rather than pollute these threads) :)

It's pretty much only contained within Sydney - the DD/SD debate. And they just announced over the weekend that Sydney Metro phase 1 (the new single decker automated system) will begin ops on May 28th. There's going to be argy bargy just after it opens, because the first phase dumps people...

We only ever had a prototype - the 4D (a single 4-car set only) - and it kept on breaking down and had a very very patchy in-service history - starting off by operating as a standalone 4-car set initially and after so many breakdowns it had to be coupled with a 3-car Comeng.

The catenary in this pic below was 're-done' circa end of the 90s prior to Federation Square being built (which displaced a massive inner-city rail yard) during 1999/2000 in Melbourne. Better angle, it's all in the placement(!) to keep people's OCD in check! :) Just to the right of those...

So Ottawa's airport train will require two transfers to get to the centre of town?! Yowzer, that's...ambitious.