Sunbury electrification opens today

Melbourne's electric rail system expanded electric trains service Sunbury and Diggers Rest. 

At most times every second train from Watergardens extended / started at Sunbury. Frequencies were 40 min off-peak during the day (including Sunday mornings) and 60 min at night.

The evening service was later upgraded to 30 min with all trains from Watergardens extending to Sunbury. Further even bigger service improvements are likely under the Metro Tunnel timetable when that starts in late 2025. 

Also starting on that day were bus network and timetable reforms in the Coburg - Broadmeadows area. Details at: https://bcsv.org.au/vm/2012-11-18-broadmeadows-glenroy-changes/

Note: This item was added retrospectively for the historical record.  

Pictures of the new South Morang Station

Taken on the first weekday of operation.

New Metro timetable - 10 min frequencies for Ringwood, Dandenong and Frankston as three new stations open

Today four big things happened to transform train services in Melbourne. 

* The Epping line gains another station with an extension to South Morang, the subject of a community campaign for many years. 

* New stations opened at Cardinia Rd on the Pakenham line and Lynbrook on the Cranbourne line. Both serve growth area catchments. 

* Weekend train services to Ringwood, Dandenong and Frankston were doubled from every 20 to every 10 minutes between approximately 10am and 7pm. This provided turn-up-and-go service over most of the day. However weekend evening and Sunday morning headways remained at every 30 minutes. 

* Extra run time was added to Metro timetables, making punctuality targets easier to achieve. And indeed there was a major improvement in reported punctuality after this change. 

More on page 6 of the DoT Annual Report: 

https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-06/DOT-Annual-Report-2011-2012.pdf

 
Daniel Bowen's item: https://danielbowen.com/2012/03/07/fkn-line-first-metro/

March 7 Age article about the change here: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/citys-train-services-set-for-major-overhaul-20120307-1ujkl.html

Metro website announcement: 
https://web.archive.org/web/20120408204403/http://newtimetable.metrotrains.com.au/

Note: This item has been added retrospectively for posterity. 

The end

After nearly seven years the time has come to put Melbourne on Transit to sleep. It will remain online but there won’t be new posts. Comments on previous posts will continue to be accepted.

I’ve enjoyed being able to document the many changes in Melbourne public transport during this time. By and large they have been for the good; the declines up to the early 1980s and stagnation through to the early 2000s have given way to a growth unseen for generations.

So why am I ceasing posting? There is no one reason. Time is one; like this one's topic, service frequency is critical to maintain reader interest, and the headway between posts was sometimes too long. Another is that more outlets are now available, for instance magazine articles and research papers.

While I’ve been in the industry for some time, its fragmented structure invariably put me at some distance from (and in different organisations to) those for whom the topics herein were of more than academic interest. This won’t necessarily be the case in the future, and I think this is a good time to finish. Fortunately this does not leave us without a Melbourne-based public transport blog and I recommend reading and supporting Transport Textbook.

Finally, I thank the readers and commenters for their encouragement that allowed Melbourne on Transit to continue the time it did. While there is no means to measure any influence it might have had, I am heartened by some recent changes in how those charged with its planning view the network. I hope these posts encouraged such tendencies and fostered a climate conducive to making Melbourne’s trains, trams and buses move more people more effectively.