Caroline Springs Station.

[Thebusofdoom]

Caroline Springs is the newest railway station in Melbourne, situated on the Ballarat line between Deer Park & Rockbank. It officially opens tomorrow but earlier today V/Line & PTV held a community open day where members of the public could check out the new station. I decided to head down.

View of the station taken from the entrance. Access is provided to the platform with an underpass with stairs and ramps. I'm happy to report that the platform & ramp provide good spots for railfanning with great views of the train line & the Boral sidings.


A view of the ticket office situated right in the middle of the island platform.


Another view of the ticket office. As you may have noticed the station has the same architectural style as Williams Landing. I'm not a fan as the shelters are built too high and slope upwards, offering potentially dismal weather protection. Architects never seem to learn their lessons do they?


Unlike Williams Landing though Caroline Springs doesn't have a long ramp right through the middle of the island platform, so some of the space in the middle of the platform is adequately sheltered.


Yet oddly enough the space between these two 'shelters' has been left wide open. Cost-cutting measures perhaps.


Inside the air-conditioned enclosed waiting room with the toilets.


A Ballarat bound Vlocity passing through.


A view of the bus interchange. As Craig pointed out, it's odd that the bus stop for the 460 has been located on the second bus bay which has no facilities at all and is further away from the station entrance.


Kastoria #55 Volvo B7RLE (Bustech) was on display. This will be one of the buses operating route 460 which will extend to the new station tomorrow. To my surprise they didn't display a bus in PTV livery. Makes me wonder if any additional buses were acquired to implement the first stage of the new bus network.


A Nationwide Tours King Long was providing shuttles between the new station and the centre of Caroline Springs.


Overall I don't think it's a bad station but it certainly could have been designed better. I'm sure the locals don't care though. They're probably just happy to have a train service after years of political inaction.

[BroadGauge]

Kastoria #55 Volvo B7RLE (Bustech) was on display. This will be one of the buses operating route 460 which will extend to the new station tomorrow. To my surprise they didn't display a bus in PTV livery. Makes me wonder if any additional buses were acquired to implement the first stage of the new bus network.

Kastoria don't have any buses in PTV livery. Those Bustechs are still quite new as well.

They're probably just happy to have a train service after years of political inaction.

I doubt that it will see much patronage at the beginning with only one train every 60 minutes that actually stops there. It only has slightly more train services than Rockbank does.

Oh and nice photos.

[Thebusofdoom]

I doubt that it will see much patronage at the beginning with only one train every 60 minutes that actually stops there. It only has slightly more train services than Rockbank does.

Indeed, I don't understand why they couldn't get the off-peak Ballarat trains to stop here as a train every 60 minutes is rather dismal, especially in a growth corridor where every other station on the line has a decent service. I played around with journey planner and it suggested half the time to take the bus to Watergardens & catch Metro into the city.

[pgt]

I doubt that it will see much patronage at the beginning with only one train every 60 minutes that actually stops there. It only has slightly more train services than Rockbank does.

Indeed, I don't understand why they couldn't get the off-peak Ballarat trains to stop here as a train every 60 minutes is rather dismal, especially in a growth corridor where every other station on the line has a decent service. I played around with journey planner and it suggested half the time to take the bus to Watergardens & catch Metro into the city.

I remember thinking the same thing (nice pictures by the way) and when I looked at the timetable I seem to recall noticing the issue was the single track (pardon my ignorance if any duplication has actually happened since March last year when I saw it).
My recollection was the Bacchus Marsh train has to wait at Rockbank for the Ballarat train to pass through, and having the Ballarat train stop at Caroline Springs might actually cause a knock-on effect in terms of one train waiting for the other for longer to use the single track sections.

Though if the line has been duplicated, a rejig of the timetable is definitely warranted. (I'm guessing it's still a single track there).

[Alstom 888M]

It becomes single track at Caroline Springs. I think there's a loop at Melton but I'm not really sure.

[Craig]

It becomes single track at Caroline Springs. I think there's a loop at Melton but I'm not really sure.

Correct, there are crossing loops at both Rockbank and Melton.

http://vicsig.net/infrastructure/line/Ararat shows the various loop locations beyond Melton.

Kind Regards


Craig

[Roderick Smith]

Like Williams Landing, PTV has wasted the opportunity of an adjacent overline bridge to bring buses in to an interchange deck directly above the platform: only a single level change instead of up/down or down/up. WA did this far better, although not everywhere.
Roderick

[Mitch]

Plus there's stabling facilities at Bacchus Marsh if the need prevails. However works are due to start sometime this year or early 2018 to duplicate from Caroline Springs to Melton.

Cheers,
Mitch