I get what you are saying but I still don’t see the issue. The idea is that this line is easing the city loop of traffic. So putting special event lines on seems to contradict the purpose of the build.
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That’s a fair call- hopefully once it’s all up and running there will be increased frequencies on the remaining lines going through Richmond to compensate for the loss of the CranPak services (without the need for shuttles) to eventually make my argument a moot point.
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‘New chapter’ for Keolis in Australia as it completes acquisition
Keolis has completed its acquisition of Downer’s shares in the Keolis Downer joint venture and is now the sole shareholder of its Australian operations.
The public transport operator and integrator will now be rebranded to operate as Keolis.
It operates and maintains the light rail network on the Gold Coast (G:link), the integrated transport network with light rail, bus and ferry in Newcastle and more than 1300 buses in New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.
It also delivers customer service functions and maintains the fleet and infrastructure for the Adelaide Metro train services.
Keolis was established in France and is 70 per cent owned by SNCF, and 30 per cent owned by La Caisse (Quebec Deposit and Investment Fund).
(La Caisse also has a 24.9% stake in Sydney Metro)
As someone who lives in south yarra I really hope so too. We have been promised more frequent services on Sandringham and Frankston lines but I will see it to believe it. It has come at a big expense to south Yarra and chapel st. Road works, dog parks closing among a lot of other disruptions.
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South Yarra definitely got off by far the worst of any station. Can understand why they didn’t put platforms in for the Metro Tunnel in that precinct though as it didn’t stack up from a cost-benefit perspective unfortunately.
Agree that seeing will be believing with more frequent services on the Frankston and Sandringham lines- I can’t see there being much more capacity on either line as it is with Frankston already every 10 minutes a lot of the time and Sandringham having quite a few level crossings. I have family in Prahran so hoping the line gets a boost to 15-minute off-peak intervals at the very least.
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Most of those patrons go to the pub 2 hours before going to the ground, so they’re not heading direct to the stadium or ground
The first two of 60 new electric Adelaide Metro buses will be on the road next week:
https://dit.sa.gov.au/news/articles/2025/december/new-electric-bus-to-drive-change
I checked out the new city metro stations today, my thoughts;
The Campbell arcade entrance to town hall has a lot of retro character, feels like I’m a tourist discovering something new in my own city. The scale of the crypt under city square is also a highlight.
It is kind of surreal seeing that Melbourne central wall gone. The station I’ve been using my whole life in the foreground and a new world right there.
It doesn’t seem right that the Swanston street entrance is branded only with “state library station”. when you go down the escalator, Melb central main entrance is right there, state library platforms are still a long hike away.
people said the orange looks better in real life, it doesn’t. Can’t see that dating well, especially once it gets dirty.
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With the station entrance canopies already having their own colour accents (Arden red brick, Parkville blue, Anzac green…) it seems a missed opportunity to continue that colour down into the station boxes. Instead, they just made all stations orange. 
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Yep I like most aspects of the station designs but don’t like the orange. I also don’t like the very temporary looking orange lights the stations have.
Apart from that, I was very impressed with the new stations when I checked them out on Monday. Parkville is my personal favourite.
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Yeah. It means you need to constantly concentrate on signage to know where you are and when to get off. I like that in the city loop, when you see blue in your peripheral vision, it’s parliament, brown for flagstaff and open plan for Melbourne central.
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interesting move electrifying their buses before their commuter rail network has been fully converted. Costs would be high but surely the benefits outweigh the costs.
in other news, Transperth has finally moved into the 2020s with the ability to use contactless payments on services from yesterday. Still not sure on the status of virtual Smartriders but hopefully this comes soon.
At this point, I doubt the Government will be rushing to electrify the remaining train routes. The Belair line runs through very steep and narrow sections, and there are height issues with the tunnels + the ARTC, which operates the freight line next to it, apparently won’t allow the line to be shut to enable electrification.
The Outer Harbor line runs through narrow sections along the Le Fevre Peninsula + the Port Adelaide viaduct is too narrow and would need to be replaced. The Port Dock branch is also too narrow, while the Grange branch line runs through a Golf Course. In saying that though, the fencing along the section between Croydon and Alberton has apparently been replaced, and now meets standards for electrification.
More likely they are waiting for battery powered trains or something that doesn’t require all the infrastructure the traditional electric wire system does, and seeing if it will be cheaper to invest in those.
Probably more urgently though is replacing the signalling system on the Outer Harbor line - it still runs on a very old system (other lines have had it replaced during upgrades to electrification, including Belair due to it running alongside the Seaford line for the first few stops), and keeps failing at least once or twice a week.
i’ve actually ditched my smartrider lol, feels good for WA public transport to be in the 2010’s now
Good news!
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