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I'm so glad that some of the great VR lines are still with us as a passenger service and for frieght. Yes it's not what it once was and certainly imperfect. However I'm glad that the attitude (are our tax payer dollars) are slowely being funneled into new ideas for the system.

In the 1950s and 60s VR went about making expensive improvements and upgrades to staion buildings and DRs. The following year they produced financial reports showing the line costs were 100 times that of patronage. Thus the lines were closed as uneconomic. If the maintenance had been spread over the actual years of existence the cost would have looked far more reasonable (still no profit, but reasonable).

decent vid. but the audio is jarring.

bruh - it was in administration one day after 9/11

The VicRail trading name started in 1974. The teacup scheme didn’t appear until 1981. Your video makes it sound like they happened simultaneously.

I herd this train come through pakenham. I thought it was a comeng

Great video, some interesting shot Just slow down a bit, waving the camera from one view to another, lets the story down

Niec

ṯęċömâ

Upfield really needs an updated station

If you do a follow up video, cover these two nuggets: 1. Frequent flyer points - there was a lot of serious but stupid hope in the rise of Ansett Mark 2 that the original FF points would get honoured, eventually anyway. The real adrenaline came in the scramble around the first collapse, where the rumours were rampant but nothing was confirmed - specifically, some LUCKY bastards got their timing right and transferred their points via Star Alliance. This loophole was closed very quickly, before Ansett’s first shut down was even confirmed properly. But again a lot of complaints from naive customers when the rules were “changed” last minute. 2. Ansett Starship Crew - some amazing memorabilia from the 1980s, before the prices came down in the competition era. Things used to be MASSIVELY expensive before Compass and Virgin. And kids who flew Ansett got truly amazing gifts if they joined a membership club.

Did you want to mention the temporary threat from Compass? There were two Compass airline companies and they both threatened Ansett, but Qantas and Ansett priced aggressively to protect their duopoly (and raise prices again). This was exactly what they tried a third time when Virgin started, but Virgin had bigger pockets and international backing. When Virgin turned up, they knew they weren’t here to lose. And Qantas sat upright, but was going to prove it was far bigger and wouldn’t fail either, with its international routes to fall back on (all their profits came from there for a while). Poor Ansett, meanwhile, couldn’t do that. So it had to go. The real “red flag” moment came when Ansett surprisingly failed a regulator inspection and had to cancel a flight as a complete surprise. That was totally out of the blue. Maybe it was Easter 2001? Anyway the September 11 (12 in Australia) timing was a HUGE coincidence, remarkable.

Real vlocity???

ran many trains over this section in the eighties when on the loco at south dynon fords train shunting at the various sidings at somerton and having meal brakes there locos mainly t classes

Could the Ford or other sidings be big enough to use for stabling if the existing stabling at Upfield was removed to restart the Somerton link?

The sonerton line was literally behind my old workplace in campbellfield haha at 3:50 thats literally where i worked

Can't you technically still fly on an Ansett flight if you get a REX flight? I mean, they combined two of their previously owned airlines into REX so is it kinda the same?

Wow

Love this! The Somerton branch has always fascinated me and seeing it is great. Please do the disused Port Melbourne line along Lorimer Street at some point before it’s all ripped up

wow

Awesome video Zac 👍 Really informative and well put together, great job mate.

True

Private transport can make a loss, public transport has a cost. Public transport is not run on a “for profit” basis. It is a common good.

I think if the tram lines were ripped up and the lines closed as intended, it would have looked like Sydney's Eastern Suburbs and Northern Beaches. Northern Beaches still has no trains and Military Rd is extremely congested by cars. This is the same with Eastern Suburbs before the light rail was added back in - Anzac Parade was congested by cars and a conga line of buses.

sounds like adelaide

Very cool

GRRRRRR WHY NO 3/4 ES ES ARE LASHUP 😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬😡🤬🤬🤬🤬

Can you explain what happened to South Australia's rail network, how they closed down the network and why did they do that the same way you did for this video please ?

Thanks NEW ZEALAND , you destroyed a legend

Within aviation circles in the 80s & 90s, it was a well known fact that their finances weren’t their strong suit, and they were extremely ‘top heavy’ with managers (unlike TAA). Some predicted their demise years before it actually happened, and well before Air NZ were involved. Honestly it was just a matter of time.

I remember having to travel to Australia to get these aircraft airworthy. The company was haemorrhaging millions per day but yet the union wanted to more pay and threatened walk offs . It was dire. We said hey. If these aircraft can’t get into the air there will be no business. “Nah mate” was their reply. In addition the CAA rejected one 767 due to the fire extinguishers not being the correct colour of red and too many magazines. It was a shit show. When Ansett was sold it had two parts of its business. The travel holiday and tourism part and the airline. The loss making airline was propped up by the other. When it was sold this loss making part was bought by Air NZ. You can’t run an airline like you did in the 1969s like you do in the 1990s.

I worked for Ansett Air Freight up until the very night we were shut down. The demise of Ansett is one of the greatest cases of fraud and government corruption in both Australia and New Zealand ever inflicted on the workers of Ansett and the public in general. This isn't some tin hat wearing conspiracy theory, this was a multi million dollar theft which cost good people not only their lively hoods but some their very lives! Don't believe what both the government or the administrators say as Ansett's demise was for both their financial benefits.

Hold on. You’re a bit all over the place. The conversion of the Port Melbourne and St Kilda lines to light rail didn’t occur until 20 years later 4 governments later. Nothing to do with the Lonie Report.

@ 2:54. You left off the Beechworth line which closed December 1976. Plus funny on that map is no Bright line which didn’t close until the early 1980’s?

I live near Hamilton and the Ansett museum is tiny

I live in Cohuna, where rail is no longer served, 30 minutes away from the nearest rail station Pyramid Hill. The few coaches served are nearly a lifeline to me and my brother to make it to our dads on the other side of the state. PT is very important!

@3:36 Anyhow have a Winfield !

I remember watching their 747 doing a flyby when they started their service to Kuala Lumpur

I feel some responsibility for Ansetts demise...... back in the late 80's/early 90's they offered free computerised timetables that they posted out on floppy disks (I discovered this in a newspaper during a lunchtime school detention). I took full advantage of this by calling them many times and requesting 10 disks at a time (a box full) so that all staff at my (fake) company had a copy. They sent me boxes of floppy disks every month for many years :-)

I was working for PwC when they put Ansett into administration and grounded the whole fleet, including the highly lucrative hourly service each way between Sydney and Melbourne. That didn’t seem a sensible decision at all.

They also owned Hayman Island during g the 1990’s. I won one of their competitions and had 4 days there, with Business Class flights from my home city which was Melbourne at the time. What a lovely resort.

Imagine if during the 80s your regional state rail service was replaced with coaches. As a South Australian this does NOT seem like an unrealistic scenario.

"This might seem like an extremely unlikely scenario." *Cries in American*

Incredible that this report was even partly taken seriously given it was written by authors who had such obvious vested interests against public transport.

A very interesting video, if the report was followed without exceptions, just think of the horrendous cost to the tax payer today, based on the global warming situation, to re instate all the current lines that are still in use that would have been closed & ripped up, once again this should be a warning about commissioning reports only looking at the current information & thinking, without considering the future.

This sounds like en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts

yeah the kiwis enlisted people to kill the airline and hey guess what

My brother was one of the engineers for Ansett in Melbourne when it all went south. It was such a kick in the guts since they were such a great airline at the time.

Damn imagine closing the Upfield line 😢