Yeah, that seems like what he was talking about.

Thanks Premier Allan

Great comment! We do indeed have it very good in Melbourne. We shouldn't be complacent about it, but based on the way certain people whinge, you'd think we were in a warzone!

Not as good as Sydney. Our Train Network is average and despite this project which is very good will still be nowhere near Sydney's. Our tram network is very good, but our Bus network is truly dreadful, one of the worse in the world for a city of Melbourne's size.

@@mjcats2011 This is exactly the kind of comment I'm talking about, thanks for giving us a perfect example. Who cares about busses or trams or Sydney? This is a video about Melbourne's train network, there is literally zero reason to bring up those other things apart from you wanting something to complain about. Real productive, dude.

@emilmofardin2.0 No I am fed up to the back teeth of people bigging up Melbourne rail network when people in our growing West cannot get on trains because the RRL is at capacity. It's not this ALP Governments fault and the Melbourne Metro is a fantastic project. But to say that our rail network is world class is at best a reach and at worst utter nonsense. The rail network is average. It's not even close to Sydney's. Dude.

@@mjcats2011 😂

Ahhhh right. That makes sense!

Ah, they kinda match some of the coloured pillars on some of the new northern stations (eg. Preston)

Thanks. Yeah, I can't wait to do the same when it opens!

Thanks mate :)

How exciting! I wasn't even aware that LA had a subway system. That's so cool! I'd love to check it out one day!

Melbourne airport opened in 1970, we are still waiting for the promised rail link. Looks like 2030 is the new date for it. Most of the rail line is there, a freight line passes near the airport.

Yeah, I agree. It's always tempting to take the functional, easy way out with designs, but it would be a lot nicer if they didn't do that as often!

Yeah, I agree. I think the public (or the media, or both) tends to overreact to 'delays' - I wish they'd just give us timelines, and regularly change them, so regularly that there there can't be a massive backlash when they happen.

Yeah, slowly but surely!

Aren't we all!

No worries. I'm just as excited as you are mate!

Yeah, I highly recommend checking it out! Thanks for your kind words :)

Thanks mate :)

My pleasure

Thanks mate

Thank you!

Yeah, definitely could be useful for that

Hahaha. I'm sure you'll capture a lot of progress too. There's always so much happening!

Hahaha yeah what a strange question to ask!

Yeah, good point actually. There won't be many people using it when it opens, so they might well just sit empty!

If Southern Cross with millions of passengers sits empty, no way Arden is will have any success

I can imagine that has to do with 'competitive pricing' of rent 🙃

LXRA built an empty station kiosk at my local (Carrum) which still has a proud “coming soon” sign 4.5 years after opening 😂

Oooooh. I didn't think of that as a possibility! Hopefully it's going to be both.

Ahhhh right. I thought it might be something like that. You probably did see me then. I can't remember the dates I filmed it, but it probably would have been then.

Yeah, it is a real shame. I don't think it will be a waste, but certainly a missed opportunity!

There is still planned to be plenty of development around the station.

ANZAC

@@74_pelicans Anzac or ANZAC, that's not the point. The point is the public voted 10 to 1 in favour of Domain. Which makes sense seeing as the station is at the intersection of Domain Road and St Kilda Road, and has been known as the Domain interchange for 100 years.

Nationalistic nonsense

@@74_pelicans "ANZAC" I believe that it's now considered acceptable to refer to things as Anzac, despite its origins as an acronym.

@@bradbradson4543 "Nationalistic nonsense" What is, and why?

Ooooh, a lift expert! Thanks for the info!

@@melbournerailwayvideos NP! LiftTech are also one of the better generic installers and lift maintenance companies around and they also maintain all of the escalators for VicTrack but the escalators are still always manufactured by other big companies like Schindler! Otis also had the same contract as LiftTech with VicTrack before the 2000s while the most common lift buttons for public places are the Dewhurst US91 buttons while the old original buttons on the City Loop lifts were square Dewhurst US81 buttons which were used instead of Otis’s buttons for both vandalism resistance and to better fit the architecture of the stations! :)

Replacement buses are very frustrating indeed. I'm not sure if it's justified to have a whole other service run all the time in case there are disruptions, as most of the time, the buses would be pretty empty. But I definitely think that there is a case for reallocating the resources that the 401/403 use.

Yeah, I won't be able to get out there for a couple of weeks even though it's open, but it's definitely on my radar.

@@melbournerailwayvideos Looks pretty good, the work where crossing WAS seems to be done and works well. I watched a couple of trains passing just south of the new station, Johnston St. is hard to access at the moment with detours, the traffic management diverted a truck down a street and it pulled own power lines, power was out for 6 hours so not all smooth sailing.

Looks same as every other new LXRA skyrail station tbh

Yeah, good point. There is still heaps to do!

Ahhh right. That's surprising that they even need another lift, because there are already 2 on the other side of the road.

@@melbournerailwayvideos there are a bunch of lifts all around the square, unrelated to the new construction. I would assume allowing students to access the underground under the square.... The uni has a lot of underground areas including the famous mad max parking lot.

I think it was a bit of both. Congestion for V/lines was used extensively in government video justifications for the station.

@@melbournerailwayvideos Propaganda, probably. The government has also said that it was built to serve new development in the area. But the new development (barely started) is actually post-decision justification for the station, not the other way around.

Yeah, the state doesn't really have the cash to get it done. Hopefully they can get the Federal government to agree to funding the first few years, while the state foots the last few years of the bill

Both Syd Airport Line & Brisbane Airport were PPP. By upsetting investors with Land Tax, VIC deserves to have many rail lines to be DIY projects. It is not fair for Federal to fund some projects because a lot of International Airports in Australia are private.

A sky rail or monorail to connect Melbourne Airport to a nearby Station is a budget choice. Singapore Airport has driverless Sky Train between T1, T2 & T3 for FREE.

Ideally, we would have proceeded with Metro 2 instead of SRL, which would have been similarly ambitious to Sydney's, but also much more useful.

@@melbournerailwayvideos Wish you had. I love Melbourne and like how trams hold together the brilliant inner reaches of Melbourne, but your trains utterly suck and are supremely annoying.

Another thing that would make a huge difference and not cost a lot would be 10 minute off peak frequencies on most lines

@@melbournerailwayvideos Increased frequency means more rolling stock, drivers and running costs, unless the trains ran a lot faster. As an ex-Sydneysider the slow running of Melbourne's trains is astonishing. The express trains are hardly faster, what few there are.

Yeah, it's a shame they didn't put one in. The business case, in my view, overestimated the costs.

It was an absolute balls up and blooper of a decision - so someone needs to go back reverse it and build a connecting station at Sth Yarra!!!

Land tax is a really good thing. It's an extremely efficient tax, and it's also quite an equitable one.

TINA. There Is No Alternative to recover the public $ spent on an expensive railway line & guarantee the source of sufficient passengers without over station developments. Sudden land tax levy which will last for a decade impacted the price in a long run esp 90% of CBD apartments are likely owned by investors. Developers have to lose interest in bidding then Treasurer has not much to get, so as stamp duty.

Haha I'm with you mate in this case!

Hahaha yeah inshallah

Funny... But project is a year ahead of schedule so not exactly clever 😅

​@@fatheranthony4popeis it ahead of schedule if the targeted internal date is 2024? It's almost like with all these rail projects the govt says fake days way over what's needed so people like you can comment "it's early"

No its isn't. This project will allow trams services to be redeployed to other parts of the CBD. The Airport line can wait, especially as the Government is unwilling to use existing infrastructure and insists of building expensive viaducts everywhere and using the Metro.

I'm not actually convinced that the Airport line is a higher priority than many other projects. It will benefit a handful of airport staff the most, but will otherwise have fringe benefits for most locals and tourists. I'm not saying we shouldn't build it, but I think we should electrify the Melton line first!

Sydney Airport had train connected before Sydney 2000 Olympic. Brisbane Airtrain opened from 2001 & its private ownership will become public from 2036. If Victorians do not think they are behind too much, then just leave it.

I forgot to mention New Western Sydney International Airport will open in 2026 with a driverless Metro railway to connect with 1 existing line. Hopefully, first Melbourne Airport Line maybe done in 1 decade later.

We'll definitely get trains. But yeah, I think there could well be additional expenses to get everything running.

I don't know about them being ridiculously cheap.

@@melbournerailwayvideos Last year 2023, median prices of Inner-City Melbourne 1-bedroom apartments decreased by 0.5% to $378,000. However, properties value in Brisbane exploded after Pandemic.

It hasn't gone over budget, $ for $ it has increased over a decade old budgeted price that considered the project in 2014 $

What do you mean on another line?

We don't have enough HCMTs to run both Sunbury and Crackenham lines separated. Doesn't really have an effect on opening time they'll just start running through services when it's ready and the trains will be on both lines

@@guy8968 we have tons of HCMTs in reserve with plenty already on the Dandenong line. Once through running there will be enough

@@dylanshadowstar9779 ah well there you go. Same thing I was saying just y'know... Correct information 😉

​@@dylanshadowstar9779there is actually excess of 5 Units that were ordered for the never to be built airport line.

I agree, but the station is written Anzac, so I'm going with that.

Yeah I'm pretty tempted to make this video. I've just got to work out if there's a way to present it that I'd like.

I'm optimistic 🤞

Why wouldn't it?

​@@melbournerailwayvideosnot saying it won't open, just like these new stations opening,it'll open and be operational but not finished. Like Pakenham not having an entrance to platform 2 other than the construction entrance for 3 months

​@@dylanshadowstar9779look how unfinished it is... Not saying it won't open next year, it just won't be finished.

@@74_pelicans I'd say it could definitely open next year. That's a whole year away. Although the first few months the stations might not look as pretty as they should.

I think tunnelling is a lot easier in Sydney, as it doesn't have so much basalt like in Melbourne. Nevertheless, the timelines are pretty comparable for Sydney Metro and Melbourne's Metro Tunnel. It's more just about political appetite, and there wasn't a lot of it in terms of building rail lines in Victoria before Daniel Andrews (by both the Labor and Liberal parties).

It's definitely not the nicest of the new stations

Move on.

​ You are telling me to move on okay!, WTH, and what line do you live on?, . I do live on the Pakenham and Cranbourne line, and I can also see the inconvenience that the Metro Rail Tunnel is going to be, oh!, by the way we also have a regional train service running on the Pakenham line, what does that mean for passengers that have to get of at Richmond, Flinders Street and Southern Cross, there has been no thought or consideration in the "planning" of the Metro Rail Tunnel. When the pathetic tunnel is up and running the proverbial is going to hit the fan, and there has been NO public service information regarding how the Metro Rail Tunnel is going to travel for those on Pakenham and Cranbourne line and also the Sunbury line.

"when it was realised it was going over budget the Metro Rail Tunnel project should have been abandoned." And waste all the money that had been spent already? "It's going to be a horrible trip into the city when it does get operational, because trains that are coming in from the Cranbourne and Pakenham line will not be going through South Yarra and Richmond that's a total inconvenience for people that have to get off at those stations..." True. But then it will be a "total" convenience for those who want to go around the Domain area, or the Melbourne University area, for example. "...there's been no consideration for those that go to work or school in those areas either,..." What makes you think that hasn't been _considered?_ "... getting of a Caulfeild and changing trains into an already crowded train from Frankston is NOT good and it's not fair for the elderly and disabled." You might find that people are also getting off the trains from Frankston so that they can go to places served by the Metro Tunnel. "I do live on the Pakenham and Cranbourne line, and I can also see the inconvenience that the Metro Rail Tunnel is going to be,..." I also live on that line, and yes, it will be less convenient for me to, but then it's not all about me. "oh!, by the way we also have a regional train service running on the Pakenham line, what does that mean for passengers that have to get of at Richmond, Flinders Street and Southern Cross,..." They can still do so. What's your point? "...there has been no thought or consideration in the "planning" of the Metro Rail Tunnel." Why is "planning" in scare quotes? You don't think that the thing was planned? You think it just _happened?_ "When the pathetic tunnel is up and running the proverbial is going to hit the fan, ..." Yes, I'm sure that there will be complaints from those who have lost the service they now have, and few compliments from all those others for whom it's more convenient. "...and there has been NO public service information regarding how the Metro Rail Tunnel is going to travel for those on Pakenham and Cranbourne line and also the Sunbury line." What sort of information do you expect? You know that Dandenong trains will run through to the Sunbury line and vice versa. No doubt it will not be at lesser frequencies than now. What else are you after?

Thanks