CLOSED FOREVER! The Tram Square & Railway Crossing at Glenhuntly Melbourne Australia

This week Schony747 is at the site of The Glenhuntly Railway Station and Glenhuntly Railway Crossing. The crossing is unique as the tram tracks and train tracks cross each other at this location. Located in Melbourne's inner south east, Glenhuntly Station is located on The Frankston Line and the trams tracks that cross the train tracks is Tram Route 67 from Melbourne University to Glenhuntly.

Filmed on the 5th of May, this was the last day of operation for the Glenhuntly Railway Crossing and The Glenhuntly Tram Square. While trains will continue to operate for another month, the tram square and railway crossing are now closed. From the 2nd of June, trains stop while Glenhuntly Railway Station and the tracks are relocated under ground as a part of the Victorian Level Crossing Removal Project.

Sit back and enjoy this piece of railway and tramway history. You might even learn a few things about how tram squares operate.

Have a great week - Brenden S.

New Uploads Weekly - Trains, Planes, Trams
Filmed 5th May 2023 Glenhuntly Road Railway Crossing
Filmed in 4K Canon XA60 Video Camera

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[MervynPartin]

If I was a tram or train driver, I think that I would be glad to see the end of this crossing- the trams have quite a rough ride over it.

[bewg]

i like the sound of the train wheels running by the tram tracks, has a rhythm to it

[musicalaviator]

Dah Tunkutah tunkutah tunkutah tunkuta tunkuta tunkuta tun tut
I recently did an Orchestral performance of an Australian composer who wrote a piece about Melbourne suburbs which had Orchestral "sound effects" embedded in the music. The "Cross Now" signal on padestrian crossings was a solo trumpet (me), but I was struggling to remember where that rhythm in the drums/oboe/flute was. And that's it. Tram square crossing sound.

[mce_AU]

The mechanism for the voltage change-over is interesting to watch operate. It was opposite the signal box near the shops. Shame no one has filmed it changing over.

[fan]

A great sound, when 2 trains are passing the crossing 👍🏻

[sloth]

I remember as a kid often watching the fire engine from Glenhuntly Fire Station, (an old International, but new back then), navigate around the closed boom gates at Glenhuntly station if on a call out. The driver of an up passenger train stopped at the platform would wave the fire engine through if safe. It was magic to watch back in the day. Later when I joined emergency services, we were often held up at closed boom gates, ( no more winding through them in later years), such as Glenhuntly, Ormond and McKinnon costing valuable time. Today it is a nightmare for all emergency services in general traffic, especially at peak times, as well as gates often down for ages. Arguably lives have been saved due to raised tracks and the removal of boom gates in recent times, and traffic flows so much better. I admit I liked the old manual operated gates, and how the operator, be it a signalman in the box on the big wheel, or gate attendant at the very old manual gates, (like the ones in Neerim Road back in the day), would try and get as many vehicles through as possible before closing the gates as the train approached. And still some idiots could not pull up after gates were closed for a fair while and still ran into them. Not an every day occurrence of course, but no excuse for it when it did occur.

[Rheilffordd]

I greatly enjoyed this video, thanks for being out there and capturing this moment!

[andrewpalm]

Thanks for this interesting video. Now it's very clear why that track inspection tram bounced so much in your previous video. I imagine the tram maintainers and track maintenance crew for that line will not be sad to see that crossing eliminated. The feature of switching the crossing voltage was also quite interesting. Cheers from Wisconsin!

[alanriley]

I still remember the old manually operated swing gates, the old station and station box, the old goods yard between Glenhuntly and Neerim Road and when there was only two sets of tracks.
It will be interesting to see what eventuates from the changes ...

[RGC]

Thanks for sharing this video. Another tram/train level crossing now gone. There used to be four tram/train crossings in Melbourne, which actually made Melbourne quite unique in comparison to other Australian major cities. Not sure how many tram/train level crossings still operate now. The first one that I ever encountered was at Riversdale way back in 1967, when visiting Melbourne for the first time from Sydney. Since then, I have been living here in Melbourne, after moving down from Sydney in 1981 and I was quite surprised when discovering other train/tram level crossings operating here at that time.

[Kevin-godw]

From the late 60's I would watch the action of the level crossing while mum was in a shop or the Commonwealth Bank (site is the mattress shop for lease). The signal box was on the end of the up platform, the departure signal had co-acting arms. The four road gates were mechanically operated by turning a large wheel. For a young kid, the noise of the wheels through the crossing was almost frightening. Latter, the station would be rebuilt with an additional platform and the old signal box removed and replaced with the cabinet you now see. On the up side of the crossing (where the cabinet is) use to be a siding, but I can recall little of it.
On the tram side of things, the box would control the derails and disc signals, latter the discs were replaced by lights controlled by the cabinet, and latter the derails were removed. I was lucky enough one day to go into the cabinet and see its workings (Thank you D'arcy (dec)). I also heard of stories of trams being caught by the derail, either tram driver fault or error of the signalman. One day the contactor of the tram pole got tangled in the overhead and the tram need to use the front pole (but swung over the roof of the tram) to go to the depot.

Road traffic was often held up. Sometimes over 5 minutes without moving. (Yes I did time it.) Around 6pm a freight train went through the crossing and also one, two or three passenger trains. It would be just your luck to also have a tram in front which would stop at the tram stop. For a long time there was a stop on both sides of the crossing, thank goodness that was reduced to one on the city side. The intersection at James St would also get grid locked with cars turning onto Glen Huntly Road to go across the crossing.

Now I need to wait until the mid July, to be able to travel once more along Glen Huntly Road across the railway formation.

[davidimhoff]

It's always a shame to lose infrastructure like this. I find it fascinating about the voltage between the 2. Thanks for explaining it.

[danefilander]

Now you can see why the Trams have to go at a lower speed crossing 10km/h if you watch the front and the rear of the tram very carefully it does a bit of a bunny hop.

[KenanTurkiye]

🚅 don't you all enjoy railroad
🚈 trams, trains etc are just so cool
🚞 take a ride in my ''transportation'' folder, (folder 4) :)

[LSM_Lover]

Thats super cool about the voltage change!

[metsfan]

Interesting rhythmic sounds as trains cross the tram tracks.

I was teaching LXRP, John Holland and V Line Staff amongst many others at the Rail Academy at Newport, before moving to the TAFE system as a teacher. Their is a preserved tramway squire as well as overhead from both Rail and Tramways for training purposes between the two Metro Train yards at Newport just on the UP (Side station side) of the old Tarp Shed..worth a look next time there is an open day...regards Doc

[pcorf]

Love the sound over the crossings especially when two trains pass each other. I reckon the older trams would be rattled around badly by it too.

[johnhaller]

Sensational drumbeat bogies as passenger rail crossing north or south encounters the tramlines intersections.

[MetroGaming]

In Darby PA septa route 11 crosses one similar to this and for those wondering the tram line is just being relocated so its gonna be above the train line