Lived in ethelton as a lad in the 60s and 70s. Could see the station from the end of my street. Every now and then a steam train used to go past. I miss that semaphore line
Another well put together presentation, thank you! My Old Man was Post Master at Alberton Post Office in the late 40s, & my family lived in the Post Office residence right next to the Alberton railway station. Grandma lived in Short Street, Rosewater & the Dry Creek line ran past her back fence. Us kids used to be entertained with stories of the "good old days" in the Port, including a catastrophic fire in the Glanville sugar mill, when floods of treacle blocked the train line. Thanks for the memories, mate!!!
Another really interesting and well presented video man! I was really surprised to see the NR's going through Port Adelaide on the dual gauge track. I wish they continued with that sort of idea, because then the Belair line could be made double track all the way up to Belair, and it would be easier to extend up to Mt. Barker, it would renew some old abandoned platforms of stations and would be more efficient all round + it would make train-spotting easier and funner!
@@Outdoorstype It would make sense, but it would require new or converted rolling stock and since the Belair line is diesel, I don't think new trains would be an easy option and converting the old 3000's would be hard too
There is no will to change anything the state government got rid of the SAR supposedly a mill Stone around the treasurers neck. Funny though the deficit the SAR ran including all country services was at that time 18 million just look at the metro Adelaide Deficit today probably double that if no triple
I don't think railways have a problem with social licence. It's just that they're obscenely expensive. The tide will turn back to them but it'll be slow and it won't be a revival of the glory days, it'll be different. Plus, cities like Adelaide are undergoing radical decentralisation. People aren't travelling to the city like they used to. This does not help make the case for trains. Only source I could find quickly: Adelaide 2020 - "free public transport would cost city ratepayers $2-3 million weekly". Do the math on that and see where it gets ya. Thankyou as always for your insight, Max. citymag.indaily.com.au/commerce/it-is-not-feasible-for-the-city-of-adelaide-to-provide-free-public-transport-to-the-cbd/
@@Outdoorstypestandardisation actually was part of the 2008 state budget plan that included electrification. The idea was that lines would be resleepered and standardised before electric infrastructure was put up. You can notice that all the lines that have been relaid have clips for gauge conversion (ironically - the OH line was first to be resleepered yet still hasn't been sparked). One rail would've just been moved closer to the platform to become 1435mm instead of 1600, easy win. Sadly it was dropped quietly and so doing so in the future would be more expensive - sleepers would need to be relaid so that electric trains still aligned correctly with the overhead wires; this also means platforms would have to be modified as the gap between platform and rail would be bigger. It would make sense to gauge convert Belair to SG still to unlock destinations further than Belair. You'd just need to run some dual gauge into platforms 1 and 2 at ARS. Also dropped quietly was the "coast to coast" tram link, the tram line was going to extend down Port Rd all the way to Semaphore, so technically you could ride it from there to Glenelg via Adelaide. They even had posters up for it around ARS for a time.
No mention of prominent second hand dealer, Graham Hoff, who moved his shop from opposite the Semaphore station (South side - where the supermarket now is) into the Semaphore Odeon theatre (on the mentioned Northern side of the road) in the early 1970's, and then began a heavily orchestrated and concerted campaign to remove the train from the centre of Semaphore road due to the "lack of parking". Graham later admitted, many times, that it was the worst thing that happened to historic Semaphore. Of course his shop is long gone, the Odeon has resumed as a cinema and the Northern expressway and Diver bridge have now turned Semaphore into the beach of choice for the riff-raff from the North. Semaphore is now lesbian central and a hoon paradise every weekend, as every moron with an internal combustion engine in an elderly car congregate to pollute on many levels. Of course this is the work of the entrenched political party that owns the Port and uses it's amenities at it's whim to ensure a powerful political bulwark, both at state and federal level. Port Adelaide no longer exists in the federal parliament and the member for Hindmarsh, named after a man who spent less than a year on Australian soil before scuttling back to England, hosts the ANZAC ceremony at the Semaphore angel, and yet ignores the Hindmarsh war memorial completely. He know where the votes are... On a state level, take Racecourse station on the same line. The same mob sold off the Port's racetrack in order to create another suburb full of young, aspirational voters who wouldn't dream of voting for the Easterners. The same in established beachside suburbs to the south of Semaphore, up to the Torrens mouth, who are now relieved of the odious Northern bogans - who mix so easily with the unwashed proletariat within the taken for granted heartland. The Diver bridge was built purely to service industry and shipping terminals on the West of the Port river, rather than going to the hassle of removing industries from prime residential areas and sending them to the wasteland on the opposite, Eastern side of the river. How hard is it to move a cement factory, or a fuel depot, or even a container terminal. Outer Harbour is now a carpark for those redundant ICE's nobody else wants, with absolutely no access anywhere to the wharves for fishing or even sight seeing. Finally, if you think a submarine builder, a weapons manufacturer, is really sustainable, whilst also being a natural nuclear target and redundant now that we are licking Yank ass, then I have a bridge in Sydney to sell you. That's progress in Adelaide.
Semaphore Road is a joke now. Even with a train line running through the middle of it the road it was more open and safer than the obstacle course it has become.
My great grand parents lived opposite the Semaphore station
''Brutally modern looking''. Love that description. Translated you mean '' A desolate concrete wasteland devoid of anything worthy.
Lived in ethelton as a lad in the 60s and 70s. Could see the station from the end of my street. Every now and then a steam train used to go past. I miss that semaphore line
Excellent presentation of this great information, thank you very much..!
Another well put together presentation, thank you! My Old Man was Post Master at Alberton Post Office in the late 40s, & my family lived in the Post Office residence right next to the Alberton railway station. Grandma lived in Short Street, Rosewater & the Dry Creek line ran past her back fence. Us kids used to be entertained with stories of the "good old days" in the Port, including a catastrophic fire in the Glanville sugar mill, when floods of treacle blocked the train line. Thanks for the memories, mate!!!
Thanks for sharing your memories too!
Nice share fam ! Those old engines really looked very sick 🔥🔥
Thanks for checking in, Mysterious.
Excellent Mike great job for those enough to visualise the before and what remains now its remarkable the changes Max
Excellent video!
Thank you very much!
Another really interesting and well presented video man! I was really surprised to see the NR's going through Port Adelaide on the dual gauge track. I wish they continued with that sort of idea, because then the Belair line could be made double track all the way up to Belair, and it would be easier to extend up to Mt. Barker, it would renew some old abandoned platforms of stations and would be more efficient all round + it would make train-spotting easier and funner!
Somebody suggested they just convert the metro Belair line to SG. Makes sense.
@@Outdoorstype It would make sense, but it would require new or converted rolling stock and since the Belair line is diesel, I don't think new trains would be an easy option and converting the old 3000's would be hard too
There is no will to change anything the state government got rid of the SAR supposedly a mill Stone around the treasurers neck. Funny though the deficit the SAR ran including all country services was at that time 18 million just look at the metro Adelaide Deficit today probably double that if no triple
I don't think railways have a problem with social licence. It's just that they're obscenely expensive. The tide will turn back to them but it'll be slow and it won't be a revival of the glory days, it'll be different.
Plus, cities like Adelaide are undergoing radical decentralisation. People aren't travelling to the city like they used to. This does not help make the case for trains.
Only source I could find quickly: Adelaide 2020 - "free public transport would cost city ratepayers $2-3 million weekly". Do the math on that and see where it gets ya. Thankyou as always for your insight, Max.
citymag.indaily.com.au/commerce/it-is-not-feasible-for-the-city-of-adelaide-to-provide-free-public-transport-to-the-cbd/
@@Outdoorstypestandardisation actually was part of the 2008 state budget plan that included electrification. The idea was that lines would be resleepered and standardised before electric infrastructure was put up. You can notice that all the lines that have been relaid have clips for gauge conversion (ironically - the OH line was first to be resleepered yet still hasn't been sparked). One rail would've just been moved closer to the platform to become 1435mm instead of 1600, easy win.
Sadly it was dropped quietly and so doing so in the future would be more expensive - sleepers would need to be relaid so that electric trains still aligned correctly with the overhead wires; this also means platforms would have to be modified as the gap between platform and rail would be bigger.
It would make sense to gauge convert Belair to SG still to unlock destinations further than Belair. You'd just need to run some dual gauge into platforms 1 and 2 at ARS.
Also dropped quietly was the "coast to coast" tram link, the tram line was going to extend down Port Rd all the way to Semaphore, so technically you could ride it from there to Glenelg via Adelaide. They even had posters up for it around ARS for a time.
No mention of prominent second hand dealer, Graham Hoff, who moved his shop from opposite the Semaphore station (South side - where the supermarket now is) into the Semaphore Odeon theatre (on the mentioned Northern side of the road) in the early 1970's, and then began a heavily orchestrated and concerted campaign to remove the train from the centre of Semaphore road due to the "lack of parking".
Graham later admitted, many times, that it was the worst thing that happened to historic Semaphore.
Of course his shop is long gone, the Odeon has resumed as a cinema and the Northern expressway and Diver bridge have now turned Semaphore into the beach of choice for the riff-raff from the North.
Semaphore is now lesbian central and a hoon paradise every weekend, as every moron with an internal combustion engine in an elderly car congregate to pollute on many levels.
Of course this is the work of the entrenched political party that owns the Port and uses it's amenities at it's whim to ensure a powerful political bulwark, both at state and federal level.
Port Adelaide no longer exists in the federal parliament and the member for Hindmarsh, named after a man who spent less than a year on Australian soil before scuttling back to England, hosts the ANZAC ceremony at the Semaphore angel, and yet ignores the Hindmarsh war memorial completely. He know where the votes are...
On a state level, take Racecourse station on the same line. The same mob sold off the Port's racetrack in order to create another suburb full of young, aspirational voters who wouldn't dream of voting for the Easterners. The same in established beachside suburbs to the south of Semaphore, up to the Torrens mouth, who are now relieved of the odious Northern bogans - who mix so easily with the unwashed proletariat within the taken for granted heartland.
The Diver bridge was built purely to service industry and shipping terminals on the West of the Port river, rather than going to the hassle of removing industries from prime residential areas and sending them to the wasteland on the opposite, Eastern side of the river. How hard is it to move a cement factory, or a fuel depot, or even a container terminal. Outer Harbour is now a carpark for those redundant ICE's nobody else wants, with absolutely no access anywhere to the wharves for fishing or even sight seeing.
Finally, if you think a submarine builder, a weapons manufacturer, is really sustainable, whilst also being a natural nuclear target and redundant now that we are licking Yank ass, then I have a bridge in Sydney to sell you.
That's progress in Adelaide.
I also have a bridge in Sydney to sell you. Strange coincidence!
Semaphore Road is a joke now. Even with a train line running through the middle of it the road it was more open and safer than the obstacle course it has become.