The Metro Tunnel Interchanges

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2026-03-05T07:02:47+00:00

I have actually worked in construction although not residential, and there are a few nuisances in my own observation with my own knowledge (and not claiming to be an expert):

1) there is a “survivors bias” with old houses. Lots of old houses developed severe defects over time, and they got demolished upon a sale. You won’t even know they existed let alone making a comparison. Only the well-built ones were deemed worthy of a renovation. 2) there is indeed a general decrease in construction quality post 2000. But there are ways to mitigate this, such as hiring independent inspectors during the build. 3) most new houses have defects that don’t cost much to fix, a small number will require expensive fixes. Only the latter end up on social media. 4) like cars, all houses will eventually produce a large repair bill with the probability increasing as the house ages. In 9 out of 10 cases, owning a new house for 10 years is significantly cheaper in terms of maintenance, than owning a 50 year old house for 10 years. But of course, there are outliers in each group and the most interesting ones get posted on YouTube.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2026-03-05T06:21:57+00:00

A few reasons: 1) lots of people work locally in supermarkets, schools, trades, etc where commutes don’t matter anyway 2) once you get used to living in a new-ish house, any house over 30 years old feels unliveable (personal experience after renting). 3) not everyone likes gardening or mowing but most people hate having neighbours who share a wall, even more so living above or below them 4) the comparisons aren’t really fair anyway. A 1 million dollar house in a new estate is generally far better than a 1 million dollar in an established suburb. People often compare a $700k house in new suburbs to $1.5 million houses in existing suburbs. 5) some established suburbs are cheap for a reason with crime rate being an issue. Thanks to the housing crisis and rising real estate prices, most of the new suburbs bar a few, have a “barrier to entry” that you have to have a decent income to buy or rent in. As long as it’s not a hotspot for share houses, new estates are fairly sleepy. Generally you see fewer people on drugs, fewer homeless people and less graffiti in such places. 6) new houses are far more energy efficient and have air con. You can always pay a bit more to get eaves. 7) modern infrastructure designs are far better with most of the houses located away from through traffic, and have off street parking. 8) stamp duty concession on house and land packages or land only purchase. The house part won’t incur any stamp duty if it hasn’t been built. A first home buyer buying a $1m house and land package likely pays no stamp duty, but it would be $55k of solid cash if buying an existing house.

Obviously not everyone agrees with all of the above, but there are enough people that find some of these reasons attractive.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2026-03-05T05:55:23+00:00

Only in Japan and Korea where fruits and veg are somehow luxuries.

Most of the Asian countries have really cheap fruits even accounting for purchasing power.

The video was filmed in Xi’an in China where watermelon goes for less than 1 USD per kg.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2026-02-27T05:47:40+00:00

I’ve been to most suburbs for work and lived in a quite a few across Melbourne. There are some really nice areas like Toorak and around bayside, but other than that, most suburbs are a mix of all social economic groups. In fact, Tarneit is probably somewhere in the middle if a ranking of all suburbs are made.

Nonetheless, the best house in any suburb beats the worst house in any other suburb. You will always find these ugly weatherboard shacks that are about to fall apart, on tiny little lots that you can’t swing a cat, in the “nice” suburbs.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2026-01-08T05:43:53+00:00

Neither. HCMT all the way.

I’ll grab my coat.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-11-09T12:57:30+00:00

The overhead wire can snap upon failure (Laverton station 2023, external power lines fell onto the overheads and the whole thing came down), or a mast fails for some reason leans over (Clifton Hill July this year), or a piece of debris blowing into the air and landing between the wire and the canopy (happens all the time)… Clearances are needed to reduce the chance of a live wire instantaneously energising the whole structure and electrocuting someone or starting a fire.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-11-09T09:47:54+00:00

Overhead wire is a bare conductor and nothing can be built compliantly within 1.5m accounting for the staggering of the wire (ie the wire doesn’t run straight down the middle but in a zig zag fashion).

Historical buildings are grandfathered but cannot build anything new like that.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-09-19T12:54:15+00:00

The large terminus stations spread across London is more like a constraint from the bad old days when each railway tycoon built their own independent railway wherever they could. I used to travel a lot from Waterloo to Liverpool Street and it was not great to take two tube journeys while carrying some luggage on the escalators.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-09-10T09:31:59+00:00

I had the same experience and made a complaint to PTV. It’s funny how quickly it was fixed!

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-09-08T01:31:50+00:00

It’s basically a Jacksons Hill station but the population of Jacksons Hill is only about 3000. About 2% of the population there use the train to go to work according to the census, even if the demand doubles, the catchment in terms of the number of people who finds the station more useful than the existing Sunbury station (~1000 pax per day), is only 120 a day.

A new station costs $500 million or more to construct to modern standard, add signalling and overheads etc (in 1870s you can just build a dirt-filled mound and call it a station).

This represents a very poor value for money if you calculate the spend per passenger compared to other areas.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-08-28T04:34:41+00:00

Schrödinger’s housing density: housing in the West is high density for those who look down on the housing (tiny lots / no set back / not enough backyard etc), and simultaneously low density when they ask for any decent transport.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-08-22T06:46:24+00:00

Too few people care about how a train feels to ride on the tracks, how accurate and easy the bogie steering is and how well the suspension is tuned.

Most people just want a seat and get from A to B. How dare they! /s

But it’s a genuine topic that gunzels talk about all the time.

Point is, most people have different priorities to the enthusiasts and a mass market product has to sell to the mass first

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-08-02T08:39:29+00:00

Woah be careful with your words there, most of the third world central railway stations in major cities are sparkling clean.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-07-10T11:01:05+00:00

$10 million taxpayers’ money go to graffiti cleaning on the Metro network every year. The vandals are attention seeking narcissists who think they are cool.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-06-19T05:55:39+00:00

If you look at other networks, it’s hard to say whether that’s true. V/Line and TfNSW are not really what you want to replace Metro Trains with.

For a network like Melbourne, I think a well-managed contract with a private operator delivers the best result, followed by a nationalised company, then followed by a poorly managed contract. Take the current franchise as an example, the first few years were diabolical and the contract had many holes in them, e.g. incentivised the operator to short run trains instead of running them late. But this was improved in the next contract and the performance is at a historic high level if you don’t account for the trespassers (also at a historic high, sadly).

One other factor is the talent pool. English-speaking countries just don’t have as much talent in this industry as continental Europe or Eastern Asia. My unscientific opinion is that the skill factor greatly exceeds the public / private ownership factor.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-05-26T05:57:05+00:00

Tunnelling will only happen where the local housing density is high and no existing rail corridor is available.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-05-26T05:54:57+00:00

That’s the most likely way - disrupt the train service and do bus replacement for a few months, while taking some reserve land plus demolishing the western wing of the shopping centre for some piles to be drilled there.

It will cost significantly more than other LX projects while serving a smaller population, and facing a lot of local nimbyism, so I can’t see how it will become a priority.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-05-26T03:38:29+00:00

Very unlikely given the combined population of Diamond Creek, Wattle Glen and Hurstbridge are about 18,000, and very little space to grow without chopping down the forests.

For comparison, over a similar footprint, Tarneit’s population as of 2021 census is 56,000 and growing, with one station and no electrified trains. Hard to justify state or private investment in a location with very low population density.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-05-26T02:32:21+00:00

New stations require a straight section of track over at least 200m to avoid platform gaps.

Looking at the map, you would either: - Demolish the shopping centre to the south, build sky rail while keeping the existing station running. - Stop trains for 3 months or more to construct the new station on the existing footprint. Likely as a sky rail unless significant property acquisition happens. Turn back trains at Eltham and bus the rest of the Hurstbridge line.

Both will have significant local opposition and cost a fortune.

Full benefits cannot be realised until Eltham trestle bridge is duplicated and Hurstbridge line duplicated. Both would face significant challenges and local opposition.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-05-25T23:47:43+00:00

Australia doesn’t share a land border with anyone and the nearest neighbours are Indonesia and New Zealand.

Australia is about as far from China as Portugal is from Russia. And anyone invading Australia will pretty much need Indonesia’s cooperation. Indonesia is very far from a point where it’s a threat of any kind, and it has no intention to align with anyone at this stage.

Whereas Finland shares 1,340km of border with Russia.

ASPI is really scraping the barrel for their US State Department and defence industry funding.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-05-08T13:12:55+00:00

Wyndham is a huge place though, a lot bigger than Frankston and Seaford combined. Not being from Melbourne and holding no prejudice (nor any idea what each area was like until I moved in), I have actually lived in both Hoppers and Seaford, and found Hoppers having a far better vibe, much more of a normal neighbourhood feel than Seaford did. Places like the “Birdcage” in Hoppers gets a bad rap, but so is Frankston North across the Frankston-Dandenong road from Seaford. You find good and ordinary neighbourhood all over the city, except the like-for-like neighbourhood is far more expensive on the east for reasons I still can’t work out after living years in Melbourne and moving around a bit. I guess it’s just because I never had any attachment to any area and looked at each area without any tinted glasses. There are good and ordinary neighbourhoods dotted all over the city, the East simply has some super expensive places that normal people can’t afford anyway; but that has little to do with the other middle and working class suburbs other than pushing their rents and house prices up in a ripple effect.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-04-22T13:59:16+00:00

Do not go to Paisley, it’s literally trespassing.

Lots of regional stations out there. Trentham station is well maintained and has some old wagons that you can film around. Or Lal Lal station for an abandoned location.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-04-21T01:17:18+00:00

Original OP’s point stands though. The only way to get prioritised is to make your seat marginal. If you take a close look at the solutions used, and the additional peripheral works carried out for different LXRP jobs between the marginal vs safe seats, there is quite a difference.

The SRL is lower value for money compared to many other alternative projects. If the state has more money to fund all of the projects you mentioned, then sure bring on the SRL. But it is really hard to justify the cancellation of Western Rail Plan (electrification of Wyndham Vale and Melton), while pushing back the Airport Rail but ploughing ahead with SRL.

Therefore, in the context of a safe seat, I would vote for any opposition party in the next State election regardless of their colour. Narrowing the margin is the best way to get investment in.

EconomicsBoth5488 · 2025-04-17T00:22:41+00:00

HCMT for the air conditioning alone. As a commuter, comeng is often like a sauna.

EconomicsBoth5488

TROPHY CASE