../2008-02-12-fatal-crossing

Fatal crossing

No trains between Burnley and Camberwell stations.

A fatality occurred when somebody tried to cross the tracks at Glenferrie station apparently.

There is no reason why anybody should cross the tracks at this station.

Too bad if you were a visitor to Melbourne, you would have got stuck with no knowledge of alternative transport, and the trams were jammed packed full. No alternative transport or information was provided.

After the train eventually started moving again, we got to Burnley station, and worked north to Tram route 75. This was too full to get on.

So we noticed route 48 crossed route 109, and we managed to squeeze on the next 48. Then, by accident, we missed getting off where we intended (just before Victoria street - we hadn't realized that road changes it name), which is very fortunate because when we did get off at the next step, the 109 tram was right behind us. Based on the map we was under the impression that the routes cross over each other, but in fact they follow each other for a small distance too.

We managed to squeeze on to this tram to Box Hill, catch a Lilydale train from Box Hill, then a Belgrave train from Ringwood.

What is amazing is we didn't have to wait more then 3 minutes, after getting off the train, for any connection.

I managed to get home 1 hour 10 minutes later then normal.

Another option might have been to catch a tram to Camberwell station, but I wasn't sure how much to trust the announcements that trains were running from this station, and my knowledge of these routes is even more vague then my knowledge of the 109 and 75 routes.

Also another option would have been to catch a train to Glen Waverly (Lilydale/Belgrave trains were being diverted to Glen Waverly), but somehow I suspect we wouldn't have been able to catch a bus from Glen Waverly. There were a lot of people getting on the next train.

Another person responded to my post on on the PTUA mailing list with:

Other options worth considering:

Glen Waverley line to Gardiner, then 72 tram to Camberwell.

Glen Waverley line to Holmesglen, then 700 bus to Box Hill.

Glen Waverley line to Syndal, then 703 bus to Blackburn.

So yeah, there are other options, but the information on the ground is often inadequate, and it's often the case that alternative routes can't cope with the displaced people.

/private_transport/ /accidents/