TT #183: New Hurstbridge, Mernda, Belgrave & Lilydale train timetables

Being a regular train rider hasn't been easy on much of the network in recent years. 

Prolonged bus replacements of busy line sections have slowed travel, with rail's main selling point - freedom from being stuck in car traffic - gone. 

Furthermore increased travel time variability has made trip planning harder, especially for time-critical trips or if the journey home requires a change to an often infrequent bus.    

Passengers accept these inconveniences for a better future, such as promised by 'Big Build' advertising. That could include removed level crossings, new stations, new paths and capacity for better service.  

As more projects reach fruition it's worth asking whether the benefits were worth the hassle.  Or will some who switched to driving never return to rail if the post-project service is hardly better than before?   

Two significant rail projects will reach operating completeness on Sunday May 28. These include track duplication on parts of the Hurstbridge line and two (more significant than normal) level crossing removals in Surrey Hills/Mont Albert. Both have resulted in revised timetables that are now available.   

A summary of these projects and what the new timetables offer is below: 

Hurstbridge 

Project purpose: Duplications of some single track sections on Hurstbridge line. Single track sections can be a hindrance so project should permit improved peak capacity and better reliability. 

Infrastructure gains: New duplicated track for Greensborough - Montmorency and Diamond Creek - Wattle Glen. Two new stations at Montmorency and Greensborough (latter with much needed bus interchange). New shared path between Greensborough and Montmorency.

Disruptions: Long term bus substitutions between Macleod and Hurstbridge and other portions of the line at times. City Loop not always operating.  

Rail service gains? An extra 40 services per week mostly in peaks. This is made up of 25 in the peaks and 15 off-peak. That's 8 per weekday. This has helped give the Hurstbridge - Diamond Creek section a fairly even am peak service with 20 rather than 30 min intervals as well as better shoulder peaks later on. Also the extra tracks permits greater scheduling flexibility with more and more evenly spaced counter-peak trips. 

Another gain is shorter dwell time at Flinders St, speeding travel for those travelling to City Loop stations. Many more (if not all) trains from both the Hurstbridge and Mernda lines will stop at Victoria Park. This should aid connectivity to Melbourne University via the newish 202 shuttle bus. 

Talking about expressing, patterns will be swapped south of Clifton Hill with Hurstbridge trains stopping all stations (even in peak) and Mernda trains express through Collingwood and both Richmonds on that line. The travel time in the timetable is similar whether trains are express or not so I'm guessing this is done for load balancing purposes and to maximise reliability.  

There are no weekend timetable reforms as far as I can see with the dreaded 40 minute Sunday morning headways remaining. Neither has the start time for the 30 minute evening service been pushed later. This makes the timetable largely a peak affair, though reliability should improve with the duplication. 

Complementary bus service gains or network reform? Minor timetable changes on some bus routes to maintain coordination with trains. However this does not fix systemic issues such  as the chronic mismatch between train and bus frequencies on routes such as 517, 566 and 580 whose frequency will continue to not harmonise at most times. No bus network reform was included as part of these changes but some will come when Greensborough FlexiRide starts. 

What further cost-effective service upgrades could have been done? A good way to assess priorities is to look at times of the week where a significant number of people wish to travel, frequencies are very low and worthwhile upgrades could be done by inserting a small number of train trips per week. Three particular service opportunities stand out. 

a. Sunday morning frequency. This is most notable with passengers having to grapple with a 40 minute frequency until a (not early) 10:26am arrival in the CBD. This compares to a 20 minute service on lines like Frankston, Werribee and Williamstown that got upgrades in 2021. 

An upgrade to start the 20 minute service at a 7:05am CBD arrival would need 10 extra trips per week (5 each way starting/finishing at Eltham like the Saturday timetable). That's only a small increment on the 40 services per week that got added. However it would simplify train service with a maximum 20 minute wait (from Eltham inwards) between 7 am and 7pm 7 days per week so would have been worth doing. 

b. Mid-evening frequency upgrades. With evening trains 30 minutes apart on most of the system, Melbourne has amongst the least evening service of any similar developed city's train network. Sydney, for example, runs a lot of its lines every 15 minutes following large service upgrades in 2017.  

The Hurstbridge line is a bit of an oddity in that there's an uneven and non-clockface mid-evening frequency on weeknights. That's been retained in the new timetable. Departures from Flinders St are 8:18, 8:42, 9:04, 9:19, 9:42pm. That is varying gaps of 15-24 minutes.

It is strange that this has not been made an even 20 minutes given that this regular service is achieved at other times. It might have been possible to juggle existing services to close the gap. Or failing that, one extra trip each way per weekday could have helped with a roughly 20 minute service until approximately 10pm. That's an extra 10 trips per week. 

If you wanted to do weekends you'd need to add more trains per day as the 20 minute service finishes at 7:19pm (from Flinders St) and it falls off more quickly to 30 minutes. That would need two trains each way, or 8 added per week to cover both weekend days. 

To summarise, a revised Hurstbridge line timetable involving a 20 min maximum wait between 7am and after 9pm 7 days per week would need a total of 28 additional trips per week, mostly between the CBD and Eltham. That's an average of just 4 per day - ie pretty small relative to the number of trips that currently run.

Or, even bolder, you could run the upgraded 20 minute service to midnight all week if about 4 trips per day (on average) were added after about 9:30pm. This would make the timetable like that of the Werribee line, which got an upgrade similar to this in 2021.   

That none of these options were done indicates a reluctance to fully exploit our rail assets to  transform service from their now obsolete narrow commuter orientation to a more broadly useful all-week service suitable for diverse trips. 

Mernda 

With Hurstbridge, the Mernda line is part of the Clifton Hill group, so-called as trains pass the same stations between the City Loop and Clifton Hill. As a result the two lines operate as an interdependent group. Hence timetable changes for Hurstbridge typically require a complementary change for Mernda, if only to ensure reasonably even intervals between the CBD and Clifton Hill. 

There are exceptions but generally speaking the Mernda line serves a more diverse, growing and lower income catchment while the Hurstbridge line is a more established, slower growing and typically wealthier catchment.  

Rail service gains? Mernda will get 35 extra services per week, made up of 25 in the peak and 10 off-peak. In other words 7 per weekday. As noted before, the Mernda line gets more inner area expressing though no time is saved. The pm peak builds up a bit earlier from the 20 minute interpeak pattern. This should be a handy benefit for school students and early finishers. Depending on your destination the City Loop can be either a blessing or a curse so the 2 minutes faster travel around it should be welcomed.    

There are no weekend timetable reforms with the dreaded 40 minute Sunday morning headways remaining. There is also no change to the weeknight frequency, with the half-hourly service continuing to start at 8:30pm from Flinders St. Evenings are the major area where Melbourne is less served than Sydney with them having a lot more lines with trains every 15 minutes until midnight.  

Complementary bus service gains or network reform? There are some minor timetable changes on some South Morang and Mernda area bus routes to maintain coordination with trains. However the changes overlook systemic coordination issues with bus routes further south such as the huge number of routes around Preston, Reservoir and Epping which will remain with odd 22 or 24 minute frequencies (as they have for years). Also Route 389 in Mernda remains without weekend service. The Mernda line operates through an area that is slated for the northern area bus review so there may eventually be some network reform.  

What cost-effective service upgrades could have been done? Many of the comments above made for Hurstbridge apply for Mernda, but even more so due to stronger demographics and higher patronage potential.

This includes the need for Sunday morning and evening frequency upgrades. The number of extra trips required would be about 2 to 4 per day higher than for the Hurstbridge line as Mernda drops down to every 30 minutes earlier on weeknights. As the Mernda line is more urbanised than Hurstbridge all trains added would run the line's full length.  

Belgrave and Lilydale

Project purpose: Remove level crossings at Union Rd and Mont Albert Rd. 

Disruptions: Long term bus substitutions on one of Melbourne's busiest rail corridors through crawling traffic. High risk of losing people to public transport permanently unless service is improved afterwards.  

Infrastructure gains: Two level crossings gone. One new station (Union) to replace two old stations (Surrey Hills and Mont Albert).   

Rail service gains? Very limited. Union Station will get a more frequent peak service than the old Surrey Hills did with three morning and three afternoon peak trains altered to stop there. Higher peak frequency may compensate some commuters for their longer walks. 

The line's peak timetables will remain complex with numerous stopping patterns. Stations beyond Ringwood remain with infrequent 30 min service weekday interpeak with a missed opportunity to deliver 10 minute frequencies to Ringwood.  

Complementary bus service gains or network reform? None. Routes and timetables for 284, 612 or 766 in area will remain unchanged. All operate limited hours with no Sunday service despite serving the major hub of Box Hill. A low-cost 7 day upgrade would have been a good starting point, though further network reform possibilities are discussed here.  

What cost-effective service upgrades could have been done? This is a bit different to the Hurstbridge and Mernda line in that, except for weekend evenings, most of the reform possibilities are on weekdays. These include:

a. Simpler peak 'Greenfields' timetable with fewer stopping patterns. Needed because current arrangements are extremely confusing with too many variations. More here.  

b. Reformed weekday interpeak timetable.  including a 10 minute frequency for Ringwood and 20 minute service for Belgrave and Lilydale. Essentially it is running the weekend timetable (which got a frequency upgrade several years back) on weekday interpeaks as well. More here.  

c. Evening and Sunday morning frequencies increased from 30 to 20 minutes. Issues basically similar to the Hurstbridge line except that Sunday morning frequencies are 30 rather than 40 minutes. This makes an upgrade to every 20 minutes relatively cheaper as there is less to add. Ringwood also has a relatively good weeknight service until about 10pm from the city, though service drops off east of there. Like with the other lines you don't need to add very many trips per week to make a worthwhile difference, especially if the general reluctance to improve before midnight weekend timetables can be overcome.   

d. 7 day service on 284, 612 and 766 buses. Would have been a nice touch for relatively little cost.  

Summary

The 75 trips added are a step forward for Hurstbridge and Mernda line passengers. However they mainly benefit peak passengers. They also fall short of getting the most from the infrastructure we build (and must now pay for).

The peak skew means that the overall service offer on both lines remains substantially unchanged, with the hours per week that trains are operating at 30 to 40 minute frequencies hardly budging.
 
Just a few extra trips per day (on average) could have ended the despised 40 minute Sunday morning gaps and pushed the start of the 30 minute evening service later by one or two hours. 

Such a reformed timetable would have delivered a simpler, more attractive and more usable service with maximum waits reduced to 20 minutes from 7am to 9pm (or later) to Mernda and Eltham. 

Similar comments apply for Belgrave / Lilydale especially with regards to simpler weekday peak timetables, interpeak service levels and evening service - again only a few extra trips can make a big difference. 

While the opportunity might have been missed this time, it's never too late to start. More frequent service is the missing ingredient that makes trains genuinely useful for diverse trips. Indeed it may become necessary as economic pressures force a 'making the best with what we have' thinking that recent governments, side-tracked by cheap credit, have tended to downplay.  

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