Rail Link - Melbourne Airport.
 

Got to protect the Taxi Uber industry too.
Is it true there is a completed station under the international terminal already that has been sitting idle for all these years?

Nightmare of a place to live and work out of. Choked with traffic, crime and socialist propaganda at every turn. A million people have turned up in the last 5 years and no change to infrastructure whatsoever. Half the time you’re stuck behind a tram if you think you'll be clever and try to to avoid the tolls. Worse thing is the landslide victory in the elections basically saying “we love this give us more”. How can a city this big not have a high speed train city to the airport in 2019, honestly. The current trains are broken half the time anyway. In the city you wonder when the next extremist is going to have a crack at getting front page news while the police run around in circles trying to catch them meanwhile locals chime in with trolleys and other "deterrents". Its a dead set circus.

At the airport the ATIS changes 3-5 times from setup to pushback and just about every 3rd pushback involves a runway change. On arrival it’s ARBEY, LIZZI and WAREN times over and over no matter what time of day or night. Runway and taxiway works that have been going for at least a decade. After 4 long sectors, 12 hours on the clocks you’re at max weight onto a wet Runway 27 quartering gusty crosswind tailwind. Meanwhile the carpark clears a million bucks a day while the airlines scratch their heads on where to find more revenue. Over in the that backwater Brisbane they've had an airport train for more than a decade and shortly two big parallel runways.

Seriously, the coffee and food just isn’t that good but if you’ve been outside of Australia.

Please flame me I want to hear "if you don't like it leave" as its quite original and well thought out. Was a great city, its been left behind and taken off on a tangent in the last 10 years particularly the last 5. Via Sunshine? Awesome, a few ICE fuelled bashings to get the kiddies up to speed sound like a great idea.


If you've been away this is todays Melbourne https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...ossing/8330560

Ah yes, I have heard that one over the years...perhaps it links up to the secret alien base under Denver airport.
But in all seriousness, I understand there is really a tunnel already under Southern Cross which is ready for the the airport link when they start work on it...that said, never let the truth get in the way of a good rumour.

That would be the cost and time frame from a tunnel from the Airport direct to Flinders St.
Crossrail

Well duh, of course. The construction unions in Australia need job security so they'll string something out from how long it should take (a few years) to how long they want their workers to be making a salary that is in excess of a captain on a narrowbody aircraft. Talk about a backwards country. I live in the US now and the project speeds over here are incredible. They've built a whole new freeway structure in the city I live, including overpasses, new roads etc etc in a little over a year.

The Alice Springs - Darwin railway construction project took approximately 18 months to complete 1,420km of track (including up to 2km of track per day) at a total cost of approximately $1.2 Billion completed in 17 September 2003. (approx. 846,000/km

`In one day, on April 28, 1869, these men, fired with the enthusiasm of the greatest railroad construction race in the history of the world, laid ten miles and fifty-six feet of track in a little less than twelve hours to bring the rail head of the Central Pacific three and one-half miles from Promontory, Utah, USA using steam driven cranes and shovels by a small squad of Irish workmen and Chinese Coolies.' A record unbroken to this day.
(I will wash my mouth out later)

The proposed ambitious project will cost an estimated $8-$13 billion and the time - 9 years to build starting in 2022 to be completed 2031: This to build approximately 27 kms of track, infrastructure & stations!

No wonder the country is rooted as Hanrahan would say; Rooted I tell yers Mate! Rooted!

Endless immigration and declining infrastructure spend is gridlock.
Outside the home market myopia Australia is now the white trash of Asia LKY warned of, with the third world infrastructure to match. Only problem is the trash is mixed now as Melbourne and Sydney added a million people, improving 'vibrancy'
Stuck in endless traffic gridlock, inhaling toxic fumes or stuck on a train inhaling unwashed toxic armpit fumes, the commuters can at least enjoy the glow of flammable cladding lighting their way, while toll roads circle the city, on their ever lengthening commute.

Sounds like an episode of the brilliant ABC series "Utopia" oh wait...

There is no Station under Tullamarine. Plenty of service tunnels but that's it. There is also no tunnel under SXS aside from the old pedestrian access tunnels.

The best idea I heard was a Maglev or Monorail...yes, just like Shelbyville...into the old DFO at SXS.

Australia is fast becoming a mediocre country. There is no logic to anything and people in charge making the laws and what not constantly take us futther backwards. Australia unfortunately is a backwater, and we can't seem make basic decisions or do anything with foresight because someone gets upset, and then everything is stonewalled.

Everyone having a go at Melbourne, just remember that Sydney is an 'international' city but doesn't have a 24hr airport and you can't get a drink after 10pm because everything is closed.

What is it with this country..

The price and frequency of Skybus to Melbourne Airport makes an airport train station unfeasible.
I cant find a train service to any airport (that has a dedicated station) in a western country for less than $18 Aussie. Which funnily enough is about the cost of skybus.
The rise of Uber etc has made an airport train station even less attractive.

Brisbane is close at A$19.00

We are frozen by partisan politics. Look how long it took them to even start Buggery's Crack Airport.

In Jakarta, they have built an elevated railway right around the city leading to the airport, over 40 km, with elevated stations and it basically follows the freeway. In Oz the Labor and greens would scream their tatts off at the mere mention of such a project.

Save ya breath ya cant convince people who look outside their own backyard for reasons & excuses, we live HERE not over there! We all know that a lot of other countries can build anything in a short time frame, we are NOT one of them due total lack of leadership, corruption, something here that runs too deep to be effective for the good!

if Humanity is going to get past the next millennium we need to concentrate on quality and not quantity especially in so called leading first world countries.

Quality in every aspect of our societies - including city infrastructure. Cities should be a nice place to be - not rat runs.

The Australian big business continuous growth and development “everything for profit” model doesn’t work to our long term benefit. We are being “mined” as a resource. It should be the other way around.

Australia is becoming 3rd world.

As long as we keep telling the bogans that Melbourne is the world's most liveable city and they keep believing it then Melbourne remains the world's most liveable city.

I've never had a problem using SkyBus (or other airport bus services) so don't believe a rail link will improve anything. SkyBus runs every 15m in peak, and other companies e.g. the Dandenong Airporter, have reasonable timetables if you are willing to book beforehand.

Melbourne metropolitan trains still operate with a steam age mentality. Nearly empty regional services are given higher priority causing delays and blockages in the city loop to regular metropolitan trains, and when these regional trains eventually pass they get every red signal at every station along their way to the country. And if a normal train is cancelled along a line at peak hour then all subsequent trains are full like sardine cans. You would think the train company would be able to shunt a train or two travelling in the opposite to peak to pick up the fat just like the trammies do so well, but no its all too hard for the sh!t for brains running the system.

Honestly, I don't want or need a rail link to Melbourne airport as it will be crap just like the rest of Melbourne's rail network.

The big plan they had was to instigate TCAS (Train Communication And Signalling) that would allow a higher flow rate through the network. (Instead of signals controlling blocks of track, TCAS would just maintain separation) This was being rolled out before I left, roughly 5 years ago. You can probably thank the militant arm of the RTBU (drivers) for that little gem.

Anyway, regardless of that, the City Loop, as cattletruck mentioned, is the achilles heel of the system. Honestly, I don't know of anywhere in the world where trains reverse direction in a tube/loop at lunchtime!

I was in DFW middle of last year, the place was amazing! First time for me there & I was impressed with the infrastructure of the airport, coming back to Oz made me feel as if I dropped back into the last century & expected to see Smithy taxing in in his Southern Cross! We really are very bad at planning ahead, there's simply no foresight or leadership, just squabbling idiots called politicians!

Im not happy with the way the place is being run much either BUT, Im really glad to live in a country that at least has some consideration for the people that big infrastructure projects affects.
Sure, you get major projects like highways, trains tracks or whatever built in record time but did you spare a thought for how many hundreds of people that were most likely chucked out of their homes with god knows
what compensation if any? I'd hate to think of what has been destroyed just so some accountant can get to the office 10 minutes faster
At least in this country, the impact on the average person is considered, as well as the environment ..as it should be, unlike other countries.

We all have to accept that we live in an imperfect world ..its never ever gonna always be the way we would like.

Tthe old chestnut " cost benefit analysis", you know like the one they did on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. How many lanes would we build on the SYB these days?

And all the NIMBYs that come out of hibernation or a change in Govt.

An example is the excellent idea we had in Brisbane for the cross river tunnel. It was to included BUS and rail.
However, like a lot of other progressive engineering, as against political, thinking, it was "de-newmanised" by the present Govt. So we may get a tunnel with just rail.

The bus expansion has now to compete for routes and stops with other surface infrastructure..