The 1990s were a very uneventful decade in the history of Melbourne's suburban rail transport systems.
On the railways there were no major infrastructure projects to speak of
and only one single new train entered service – the experimental 4D double decker set. The tramways
were still receiving new B2 class trams up until 1994, but overall it was a similar situation.
The transport system as a whole was getting very run-down, with minimal maintenance taking place
and vandalism was widespread. Something had to give, and the conservative state government of the
day under the leadership of Jeff Kennett, decided to handball the job by privatising the system.
A model was adopted where private companies would be contracted to operate the service and employ
staff, but ownership of infrastructure and rollingstock was retained by the state,
a model which has continued to this day. I'm not really going to talk about the pros and cons of
privatisation generally in this video – although for the record I'm not a fan – but I am going to
talk about one aspect of how it was implemented in Melbourne, and that is what I am going to call: The Split.
For maximum capitalism, Kennett decided to divide the operation of both the railway and
tramway networks in two, creating a geographic split through the previously unified systems,
which was apparently supposed to create healthy competition. Although the split only lasted six
and a half years, there are many aspects of it which are still clearly visible today.
Since 1983 all Melbourne's trams and trains had run under the banner of Metropolitan Transit
later called The Met - with its distinctive green and yellow colour scheme.
In preparation for handover to the new private operators, in October 1997 the networks were
pre-emptively divided , and split operation began under a sort of temporary branding.
The tram network was dived into Swanston Trams and Yarra Trams, with each operator getting four
of Melbourne's 8 tram depots, along with the routes they served. The way the depots were
allocated meant that Swanston Trams got all the routes which run north-south through the CBD,
while Yarra Trams got all the east-west routes. In many ways this wasn't all that radical for the
tram network, as it was already run in a highly sectorised way – with trams and drivers based
at specific depots, and those depots operating specific routes. However for the railway network,
the change was much more significant. Throughout the 90s, the fleet was comprised entirely of
Comeng and Hitachi trains, plus the solitary 4D. While the 4D only operated on the Lilydale and Belgrave lines,
the rest of the fleet was available to run over the entire network,
so individual trains could be used wherever they were most needed. Likewise, the train drivers were
qualified to operate on every line, and did so on a regular basis. This obviously provided an
enormous amount of flexibility, with both trains and humans able to be deployed as required.
The newly created halves of the railway network were branded as Hillside Trains, and Bayside Trains.
Hillside's slogan was 'A new train of thought,' and as an 8 year old, I can remember my dad
pointing it out and laughing sceptically. The railway network was already operated roughly as
four groups, based on the four City Loop tunnels – check out this video if you want to learn about that.
Bayside got the Caulfield and Northern groups, while Hillside got the Clifton Hill
and Burnley groups, plus the slightly odd addition of the Flemington Racecourse line. I have no idea
what the reasoning was for dividing the system up the way they did, but a presumably-accidental
side effect was that it created a bit of a class divide, with Hillside getting the hilly - and wealthy
eastern and north-eastern suburbs, while Bayside's territory covered – on average – much poorer
working class areas to the north, west and southeast. While there are obviously numerous
exceptions to this – I'm looking at you Epping.. Toorak – it does work as a broad generalisation.
The existing fleet of Comeng and Hitachi trains were divided up between the two sides,
with the 4D necessarily going to Hillside as it could only run in their territory.
In a further hint to north-eastern favouritism, it seems Hillside got first pick of the Comeng fleet,
getting mostly later-built sets, including all the disc brake cars.
So, enter the private operators. Contracts were signed, and in 1999 Hillside became Connex,
Bayside became M>train, Swanston Trams became M>tram, and Yarra Trams became.. Still Yarra Trams.
A surprisingly resilient branding which outlived all the others and survives to this day.
Initially The Met continued to sort-of exist
as an umbrella organisation handling transport information and ticketing,
and this in turn became Metlink.. which eventually became what we now know as PTV.
Now the whole point of the split was apparently to encourage competition, which would in theory
encourage operators to provide a better service. However, it doesn't take a genius to see that
this was never going to work. Because the splits were geographic, passengers didn't
actually choose which operator to travel with, so there really was no competition at all.
Even on the handful of routes where passengers could have theoretically made a choice – for instance between
the major city railway stations – there was no way to measure which choice people were making,
as the ticketing system did not record which specific trains people caught - which is still the case today.
For this reason, I think it's fair to say the split may have been one of the stupidest
decisions made in Victoria's transport history... Except maybe the singling of the Bendigo line?
A key part of the privatisation scheme was the introduction of brand new rollingstock,
as well as extensive refurbishment of parts of the existing fleets. Despite rollingstock
purchase still being a government job, separate tenders were put out for the different operators,
and different suppliers chosen. This caused a lot of compatibility problems when the networks were
reunified in 2004, and is still very much evident to this day. Yarra Trams took delivery of 36
Alstom Citadis trams, which were given the Melbourne classification of C class.
M>tram fancied Siemens as their supplier, and ordered 38 Siemens Combino trams – which became the D1 class.
M>train order 72 three-car Siemens Nexas trains, which quickly became known simply as 'Siemens' trains
even though using the model name 'Nexus' would have made more sense.
Meanwhile, Connex obtained 58 three-car Alstom X'trapolis sets. All these trains
and trams were built in Europe, and seemed quite futuristic at the time.
Here's a clipping from The Age describing one journalist's first impression of the C class:
“Embarking commuters look wide-eyed at the new commuter capsule,
unsure at first where to turn. The tram floor is not where is used to be – nor are the grab rails..”
Just pause that if you want to read the whole thing. However the need to quickly increase
the fleet size without breaking the bank also meant that these were all quite cheap options,
and all of them have suffered various major problems over the years. The X'trapolis sets have
terrible suspension – leading to the nickname X'trampoline - and slip like mad in the wet.
The Siemens weren't very good at stopping and suffered from serious braking issues
for a number of years. The C and D class both suffer from having a fixed wheelbase design,
resulting in rough riding. The C class also have a tendency to derail easily in collisions,
and the D class can be very noisy to travel on.
The Comeng trains received a major refurbishment, with the work again being done separately
to separate designs. The M>train fleet were refurbished by EDI at Newport Workshops,
while Connex sent their sets to Ballarat North to be done by Alstom.
Both refurbishments involved a new fibreglass front being fitted, which drastically altered
the appearance of these trains. The interiors were heavily modernised, passenger information displays
and security cameras were fitted, and windows were cut into the ends of the cars,
enabling passengers to look through the train. These changes were quite significant and made a real impact
and it wouldn't surprise me if many passengers thought these were brand new trains.
The existing tram fleet got a fairly basic refurb, and the Hitachi trains were ignored completely.
As a quick side note, the M> branding prominently used this stylised 'greater than' symbol,
which probably seemed like a cool idea in the Year 2000. But in reality it often had to be written with a hyphen instead
because lots of software didn't allow use of the 'greater than' symbol
due to clashes with HTML coding – apparently including the Comeng passenger information system.
This problem still exists right here on YouTube, which won't let me put them in
the title or description of this video – and you'll see the same problem on Wikipedia.
Each operator was able to make their own network maps, and while most maps also included the 'enemy territory,'
some didn't - like this Connex map which pretends that half the city has just vanished.
M>train also had a map which showed the Connex lines in an unappealing brown colour,
as if to emphasise how bad an idea it would be to go over there.
And so things continued for a couple of years. As a young railfan from the north-east,
I always found it quite exciting going over to the M>train side, where everything was just a little bit different.
Then in 2002 National Express – the owners of M>train and M>tram - decided to pull the
plug on their Melbourne operations, signalling the fall of the M>pire. The now-Labor state government
temporarily took control, before deciding to stitch the networks back together again,
with Yarra Trams absorbing M>tram, and Connex taking over M>train in April 2004.
Connex was very quick to remove the M>train livery from the Comeng fleet,
but then took over a year to apply their own – so the EDI Comengs spent a good part of 2004 and 2005
in various states of nudity – something which really didn't help that 'second class side' image.
The Siemens trains were already well practiced at running around with nothing on,
as it seems M>train was so busy trying to get them to work, they only got around to applying livery
to a few of them, and seemed very indecisive on how exactly to do it, trying multiple different styles.
Given they were supposed to be the new flagship of the fleet this was a pretty big PR fail,
and contrasted markedly with the glossy artist impressions from a few years earlier.
Even after Connex took over the Siemens fleet, the care factor for presentation was
still extremely low, with most sets initially getting the Connex colours on the sides only,
with the front remaining in whatever condition M>train had left it in.
So while the network was whole again from a management point of view, and staff were soon
re-trained to work across the whole city once more, for the most part, the trains themselves
remained stuck on their respective sides of the network. For the Comeng fleet, this was because
the electronic passenger information systems fitted by EDI and Alstom during refurbishment were
not compatible, meaning the two types couldn't be coupled – so it was easier to keep them separate.
This took about 3 years to resolve, but by the start of 2007 the EDI and Alstom Comeng sets were
allowed to mix, and began running network wide again. For the new Siemens and X'trapolis trains,
some infrastructure modifications had been made to allow their operation, and of course this was only
done where required, so they were only approved to run on half the network each.
There was no apparent rush to fix this situation, however over the next 15 or so years the government
continued to order more and more X'trapolis sets, reaching a total of 212 three-car sets by 2019.
Because they were still only approved to run on the former Hillside network, those lines slowly
became saturated with X'traps, displacing Comengs to the south side. Eventually there were just too
many X'traps to keep doing this, and in 2014 they were approved for operation on the Frankston line,
and the Werribee and Williamstown lines a couple of years later. However their dominance of the
north side has remained, and while the Comeng fleet are technically still approved to run network wide,
they haven't made regular appearances on the Hillside lines since 2018. No further Siemens
trains were ever ordered, probably in part because of their very public braking problems early on.
They have remained as a very small fleet, and only run in former M>train territory to this day,
with the small addition of the Flemington Racecourse line. It's worth noting that both
Siemens and X'traps are permitted to visit some locations for maintenance where they
aren't allowed to run in service – for instance X'traps can visit Craigieburn maintenance centre,
and Siemens have occasionally visited Epping Workshops. Over in the tram world, the C and D1
class stayed in their split-era depots of Kew and Malvern respectively, but again, there's nothing
particularly unusual about that given the way all trams are based at specific depots anyway.
An exception was the big 5-section D2 class trams which had been ordered in the dying days
of the split, and mostly entered service after the M>demise – they spent several years at Southbank depot,
but are now back in former M>tram territory running out of Brunswick. So almost two decades
after the reunification, there are still clear signs of the split to be spotted around the city.
Despite being refurbished yet again in recent years, the Comeng fleet still clearly show the
differences of their Alstom or EDI refurbishments. The former Connex network is now 100% run by X'trapolis trains,
and as a result these lines are on average served by a significantly younger
and more reliable fleet – although they are still highly imperfect trains. Meanwhile, the Siemens
sets still haunt the former Bayside network. On the streets of the CBD, you will still mostly
see C class trams heading east-west on Collins Street, and Ds running north-south on Swanston and Elizabeth streets.
While train drivers had initially been returned to being qualified over the whole network,
in recent years they have been divided up again, presumably to save on training and rostering complexity.
One driver told me that “things were very boring during the split,”
so I imagine many were not happy with this decision. Connex themselves only lasted until
the end of 2009 before loosing their contract and being replaced by Metro Trains Melbourne,
although the Connex name can still be seen to this day, hiding in the seat fabric a significant proportion of the fleet.
Yarra Trams also changed owners at that time, but the public name survived
probably reflecting their relative popularity with the public compared to Connex.
I haven't mentioned country trains yet as they weren't involved in the actual split, but it
is worth mentioning that V/line was operated by National Express along with the M> family,
but returned to government operation in 2003. V/line somehow completely avoided a rebranding,
emerging out the other side with the same name and livery they had before privatisation.
So the split was as ill conceived as it was short lived, and the effects are very much
still with us today, and probably will be for many years to come. Thanks for watching!