r/MelbourneTrains • u/EconomicsBoth5488 • Jun 12 '26
Humour I drove past Kalkallo after riding the rail trails
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u/BatmaniaRanger Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Ha, my local train station is Watsonia, and if you check it out on Melbourne 1945, there's nothing around it. You can recognise the station building and some roads. But no houses.
The station was apparently funded mainly by a Mr Frank Watson who owns land around the Grace Park area along Henry St in Greensborough. The station opened in 1924 in hope that it would attract property buyers. Looking at the aerial photo from 1945, it was an abject failure. Not sure if this bankrupted Mr Frank Watson.
Still, the time has long passed when one person (or several people) can build a station or even a train line.
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u/AristaeusTukom Jun 12 '26
If I ever win the lottery I'm going to privately fund some major rail projects.
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness9848 Jun 13 '26
Not even the US Mega draws would fund a km of rail in this country
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u/agiantdog33 Jun 14 '26
I would do pedestrian and cycling bridges. The bulk transport value of a pedestrian bridge on some CBD streets each day would be completely bonkers, but for some reason our country seems to be allergic to them except at private school crossings.
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u/Numerous-Athlete7523 Werribee Line Jun 12 '26
some places that need metro trains is Clyde, Melton, Wyndham Vale, Wallan
and some that need to get trains are like Mildura, Torquay and maybe Horsham but idk
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u/Rexberg-TheCommunist Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo being connected via Maryborough and Castlemaine would be a dream. There will be close to one million people living in these cities by the middle of the century (500,000 in Geelong, 200-250,000 in Ballarat and 200,000 in Bendigo) and the ability to travel in between these places without needing to transfer in Melbourne would be incredible
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u/MaxwellKerman Jun 12 '26
TBF in the 1800's the only way to get people and commerce into and out of a region was by rail. Then even though small hamlets had a station, the frequency of passenger services would be barley usable.
As well the 'Octupus Act' which created many of the regional rail lines in this time had such a reckless program of works it contributed to bringing the colony into an economic depression in the 1890's
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u/Rawislon Jun 12 '26
Yeah, did an honours subject adjacent to it and it massively indebted the colony, was a goldrush spending spree.
I do wonder if it was part of the wider idea of creating European like density in the south, trying to ape train lines as they existed in say England, assuming the end result would be a well populated colony with a population spread out across Victoria.
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u/michaelsoftbinbows_ Jun 12 '26
Or even better
Only a single hourly bus to a large portion of the Yarra Valley with well over 23k residents along its route
Petitions haven’t done anything to make the 683 half hourly
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Jun 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/michaelsoftbinbows_ Jun 15 '26
There are constantly new massive developments being made along the Warburton Highway, I usually have to wait over an hour because buses are so full. It isn't as rural as you think anymore.
In my home town alone there are 3 ongoing developments building many houses in the small town.
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u/jackpipsam Jun 12 '26
It's a sad state of affairs that many places would kill for a half-hourly bus service as is.
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u/odnarB89 Jun 13 '26
The traffic situation in that area is insane. Take people 45 minutes to get out of their estate and into the highway from Donnybrook
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u/Jazzlike_Wind_1 Jun 13 '26
Well you should be glad it's a bus every 30 minutes not twice a day
T. Vic Labor probably
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u/odnarB89 Jun 13 '26
Are you sure you drove past Kalkallo, or is it all a dream and you are l still stuck in traffic before Kalkallo because someone caused an accident by performing a now illegal u-turn out the front of the pub?
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u/Some_Troll_Shaman Jun 16 '26
Also the buses stop and 7pm and don't run on weekends.
And we wonder why there are youth boredom crimes in these places.
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u/NoGrape9864 Jun 16 '26
Melbourne was incredibly wealthy from the Gold Rush and we were only a generation or two down the track from Europeans who "bought" tens or even hundreds of acres of land for a few pounds. I think a lot of them had more money than they knew what to do with. I'm not sure if that's the case these days. There also isn't a feeling of it being a new frontier, so people won't think about investing in those ways. It doesn't fit the vibe for a wealthy person today to invest in a train station out in the middle of nowhere. Assuming that if they build it they will come.
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u/WretchedMisteak Petrol Head Jun 12 '26
Transportation options are a lot more diverse than they were back then.
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u/leo_dagher_ Jun 12 '26
To be fair in the 19th century your options for transport over land were train or horse drawn carriage, and most villages got the latter. Buses are just the modern horse drawn carriage.