yeronga

my visit to yeronga station had been planned as a new station to collect in order to celebrate the first birthday of my trainspotting blog. it is amazing to think that the earth has done a complete revolution of the sun from the day i began writing the blog! the blogs birthday happened to coincide with the last day of our holidays between first and second semester of fourth year. these holidays were essentially our last holidays as students, which awesome as it is, is pretty scary to think about. our last day of freedom was the sunday before beginning our final placement, which was another four week full time stint at a location of our choosing. fourth year is structured whereby half of the cohort do a research placement whilst the other half do a community placement. having completed my research placement last term, this time around i was allocated community. i had always done my placements at my work because of my aspergers, i find it incredibly difficult to come out of my shell in a foreign environment. on average, it will take me a year at a new workplace or foreign environment before i feel comfortable enough to converse with the other humans. (i dont think i really spoke to anyone in my first year of this pharmacy degree, other than the one friend i had made on the first day.) so to do a placement in a foreign environment had never been an option for me. a few weeks in a foreign setting would see me shrink back into my shell, like nemos father and their anemone. i knew the likelihood of me speaking at all was incredibly minimal, and thus passing the placement was incredibly unlikely. the fact i recently resigned from my workplace of several years (touched on a little in my banyo and toowong blogs) meant that for my final placement of 4 weeks, i would indeed be completely out of my comfort zone. if you have followed banyo, you will know i have spoken to the dark side; and it was arranged that my final placement was to be in a chemist warehouse. so, my last day of freedom before being completely out of my comfort zone, was to be dedicated to one of my favourite pastimes: riding the trains. i was planning on visiting nicole of the helensvale blog, as i had her birthday present to give her, and we had planned on having many celebratory cups of tea after we received our first semester marks which surprised us both. (yes, despite my panicking about our final exam, i managed to pass it after all and had a descent gpa of 6.25 for the semester, so considering how much time i spend writing my blog, i think that is a fair return)

with track closures all along the ipswich line, my visit to helensvale was going to need to start somewhere other than dinmore, and i figured that this was a great opportunity to collect another new station. i picked on yeronga, which is on the beenleigh line, thus making it easier to get to helensvale. my plan was to drive to yeronga, catch the beenleigh train to altandi, then change to a gold coast and ride it to helensvale. however, as with most of the best plans, we werent able to follow through, as nicole had to cancel the night before, and this effectively celared my sunday. however, i wasnt to be free for long, as lyn from clayfield texted me a few hours later while i was halfway through an online pharmacy training module on irritable bowel syndrome to ask about catching up on sunday. (such an exciting life i do lead: saturday night pharmacy trainings while listening to the afl blaring on the telly in the next room). but seriously, how could i say no? after all, a catch up with lyn always meant tea, scones, gossip and a lot of laughter. 

and so on sunday morning, i took emmy for a drive to yeronga station for my first visit to this station. yeronga is conveniently located on the beenleigh line, three stations from park road. this essentially makes it similar to norman park, which is also three stations from park road, but on the cleveland line. perhaps yeronga could become a surrogate station for us when norman park isnt an option? my visit to yeronga was certainly worthwhile as a reconnaissance mission for scouting out the station with potential to overtake little norman park in the pecking order of stations we use the most. yeronga, as i have said, is on the beenleigh line, which makes it considerably closer to home than norman park. yeronga is the next station outbound from fairfield, meaning that i have visited the stations immediately prior to and immediately following fairfield station, since fairfield is preceded by dutton park, and followed by yeronga. yeronga is followed by yeerongpilly, which i am still yet to collect, however it is a station i plan on collecting in the near future. yeerongpilly is a station i have passed a few times as i have traveled to pace by car, and also on the evening i mentioned in my corinda blog of when i attempted to pick up karen from corinda station. sadly, that night i managed to find tennyson station which is no longer in use, but couldnt find corinda. i do plan on visiting tennyson itself some time soon, even if i cannot officially collect the station on my go card and have it recorded as a station i have visited, i still hope that i can stand on the platform and capture the station in some photos. i dont care if i have to jump a fence or two to do it, because i had been eager to collect tennyson and traveston since the inception of this blog. (sad isnt it, i have been trying to visit traveston for over a year now, and i still havent got there!!)

after spending a solid hour at yeronga getting some descent photos of the station, i caught a ferny grove train in as far as bowen hills station, where i changed trains for a brisbane airport train. the irony of an airport train is amusing, as the ferny grove train begins its journey at beenleigh and since the airport train is the inverse of the gold coast train, and thus begins its journey at varsity lakes. the airport train i rode to eagle junction would not only have traveled express through yeronga where i had earlier boarded the ferny grove, but it also would have passed through helensvale, which was my initial destination for my last day of holidays. i find that rather amusing. even more amusing was the fact that both the ferny grove and airport trains i caught, were wifi enabled trains, and i had remembered to bring my ipad with me for a change! 

and so instead of traveling from yeronga to helensvale to visit nicole, i went from yeronga to eagle junction to visit lyn. i discovered that the doomben line doesnt operate on sundays. this meant i didnt get to collect clayfield again, but since lyn lives close to clayfield station, this makes her close to eagle junction station as well, and after a short walk from eagle junction, i was at lyns place in time for morning tea. i hadnt seen her in quite some time, as she is busy managing a pharmacy and i have been busy with uni, study, blogging, working, online pharmacy trainings, reading and working on many other little projects i have going on that take up my time and keep my otherwise occupied and away from study. (i promise i will finish your plate by the end of the year jacqui!) i really am a terrible friend: in all of the time i had off between semesters, i spent all of the time between our last exam and the release of our marks studying in case i had failed (i always panic over results. apparently marie curie was the same and she won two nobel prizes, so if it worked for her, it can work for me too! i have also read that she would get so involved in what she was doing, that she would forget to eat. i have also been known to do this...) and after the marks came out and i found out i had indeed dodged a bullet, i helped out at a small pharmacy who needed an extra person while one of my friends who works there was away for a few weeks. that was the extent of my holidays. no real time for my blog, no time to visit new stations (traveston i dont know how i am going to visit you, but i will get there eventually!) and not much time at all to catch up with friends. i had to wait until the final day of the holidays to be able to see poor lyn who i hadnt visited in months. naturally, the tea and scones went down a treat, and there was a lot of discussion about the history of the pharmacy industry in brisbane and queensland as a whole. it is always interesting to talk to lyn, she has been in the industry a long time, and knows a lot of people. i am glad she was happy to go on my resume! 

tea and scones for morning tea turned into lunch, and before we knew it it was late afternoon and i still had to get a train back to yeronga and drive home to emerald hill. lyn kindly dropped me back to eagle junction station (i was happy to walk, but she insisted.) such a shame the doomben wasnt running, but i guess it isnt a very long or popular line, so i can understand the rationale behind queensland rail not running the service every day. still, it would have been nice to collect clayfield again! its funny, but each time i have been to eagle junction, has been because of lyn. when i eventually get around to writing my eagle junction blog, i am sure that her name will be mentioned somewhere in the opening paragraph. how amusing for her that this is the second blog she has been mentioned in, and it is about yeronga, which is a station she had never heard of! 

i caught a cleveland train from eagle junction as far as fortitude valley. i was actually planning on catching it all the way to park road, but as my cleveland train pulled in to platform 1 of fortitude valley, i saw none other than the gympie north train waiting on platform 2. traveston! this is the closest  have been to the train that will one day take me to traveston station. i was close enough to it that i could have touched it. actually, i wanted to, but since there was a queensland rail lady on the platform i thought she may think i was a bit strange if she asked if i was ok and i replied that i just wanted to touch that train. so instead i stood just behind the yellow line and looked longingly at it, desperately wanting to catch it, but knowing full well that a late sunday afternoon train ride to gympie north would not have a return journey to brisbane the same day, meaning i would be stranded on the tiniest platform on the network at traveston on monday morning when i was meant to be at my placement site. not ideal! so no, i didnt catch the train despite wishing i could, and stood there and watched it roll slowly out of the fortitude valley station, bound for bowen hills. my beenleigh train wasnt all that far away, which i caught to yeronga. i hoped to be able to get a few more photos after disembarking, but the station was surprisingly popular at that time of night, and it meant there really wasnt an opportunity to get evening photos of the yeronga station. so instead, i walked back to where i had left emmy many hours earlier and drove her home, custodian of my camera full of photos of my newest station. it had indeed been a fun and eventful day, certainly worth blogging about! 

how ironic that my first photo at yeronga station was taken in the carpark, and shows one of my greatest dislikes! anyone who has ever been in a car with me knows how much i loathe trailers, and will not follow them under any circumstance. no matter who you are or how good your argument as to their safety, you will not convince me it is safe to drive behind a vehicle carrying one. thankfully, i dont drive much and dont have to worry too much about these awful things, as i mainly catch the train! this carpark is to the north of the yeronga station, which is out of picture to the right. the beenleigh line is visible in the shot in front of the car parks. i managed to get a drive through parking space on this journey to yeronga. perhaps it was because i was there early on a sunday morning, but the parking lot was deserted, save for this trailer which was there when i arrived, and was still there when i returned after my day with lyn.

this shot was taken from the car park at yeronga station. i promise i have not jumped the fence and entered the rail corridor! i got this photo from the fence itself which lines the rail corridor. there is a gate in the fence, you can partially see it in the above shot, and i reached through the gap in the gate with my camera to get this shot looking north along the beenleigh line towards fairfield station. it was a beautiful morning for some trainspotting!

taken from the same position in the fence near the carpark, this time looking along the beenleigh line towards the yeronga station itself. the car park is a short walk north of the station itself, and so after getting this photo, i headed south along fairfield road to the station. it is cool how despite having such short arms i am able to reach through small gaps to get photos like this which look like i am actually in the rail corridor. i have climbed many fences in my time, but none of them have been to enter a rail corridor. i know i could get some seriously awesome shots from the tracks in while in the corridor, but i am not that stupid. you would be crazy to even attempt to enter the rail corridor. if you zoom in on this photo, you can see the yeronga station right of the center of the photo. the track in the foreground is a wide gauge track for the freight trains. sometimes the gold coast and airport express trains use this track as well. the tracks behind this wider track are the beenleigh line. the track in the middle is the northbound track which continues to ferny grove. the southbound track continues to beenleigh.

possibly not the most exciting photo in this entry, but i think this shot of the sign at the yeronga station car park is still useful. the car park is on fairfield road, and when heading inbound along the road, you have to drive past the station and turn right at the traffic signals which take you into the parking lot. coming outbound would actually be easier, as you dont need to turn right across traffic! exiting wasnt too big of a drama on the evening i left the station after catching up with lyn. then again, it was early evening on a sunday night, so there wasnt a crapload of traffic on fairfield road. the signals changed pretty quickly, and i was on my way. it was kind of cool to travel inbound to the yeronga station by following the ipswich and beenleigh lines, it almost felt like i was driving to my old workplace! on the way home, it was the same, but the inverse, where i followed the beenleigh line then the ipswich. i am incredibly sorry to any colour blind people who may be trying to read my blog and been faced with the above paragraph. but trust me, i cannot help the colouring of the train lines on the network. i was pretty darn upset when the cleveland changed from purple to blue, so i cant control the contrasting green and red of the ipswich and beenleigh lines. my apologies to anyone who has difficulty! notice the faint graffiti on the bottom of the sign, it is amusing because i was recently told that my handwriting it rather cool and would make awesome graffiti. all i could think of was about how i commented heavily about graffiti in my toowong blog, and so i will not revisit old ground so soon, but needless to say, most of this appears harmless and looks like it was done using fingers as opposed to a more permanent measure.

i got this shot from fairfield road, walking from the parking lot to the yeronga station itself. since the car park is a little north of the station, there is a short walk along the beenleigh line from the car park to the station. to get to the station itself, there is a staircase on fairfield road which links the street with the station platforms, via the footbridges. one of the footbridges is featured in this shot, as is a station sign, which is a touch hard to read because of the fence.

a similar shot to the last, but this one is possibly a touch more descriptive even if it is slightly blurry. when walking along fairfield road to the yeronga station, the station can be accessed via the staircase which is on the far right of the shot. to get to the station itself, head to the right when at the top of the stairs, over the rail footbridges. the cement bridge which takes you to the left (right in the photo) goes over fairfield road and links to adjoining shops. you can get a pretty good view from the bridges, and naturally, some good photos too!

the cement bridge over fairfield road, joins rail commuters with these adjoining shops far safer than trying to scurry across this road, which gets really busy during week days. even on a sunday morning when i was here to get this photo, i still had to wait to make sure i had a traffic free photo, as i didnt want vehicles to spoil my shot. the yeronga station is to the left of the photo, out of picture. the ipswich station could certainly have used a footbridge like this to join the car park to the station. to explain: the parking lot for ipswich station is a the bottom of a hill, and to get to the station you are tasked with walking up this said hill and then crossing an insanely busy road, east street, just as it becomes pine street at the beginning of the david trumpy bridge. it is always busy, and to get across the road is a nightmare. the solution was to install a pedestrian crossing and traffic signals. not altogether a bad result, but a footbridge would have kept both traffic and commuters moving, instead of having to stop both of them. the commuters have to stop and wait for quite a while for the lights to change, and the traffic naturally has to stop while the commuters are crossing. more than just rail commuters use the crossing, but i still think a footbridge like this one would have been a better solution, even if it were more expensive. naturally, that is just my opinion, but i am glad something was done, because crossing that road of a morning could be pretty scary! 

the view from the base of the staircase on fairfield road, just outside yeronga station, looking south along the beenleigh line in the direction of yeerongpilly. the track in the foreground is a wider gauge track that is often traveled by the diesels which carry coal and cattle and sometimes other goods. the staircase is behind me as i got the photo. the building is the station office, which is located on platform 2. there is no direct access to the diesel tracks from platform 2, as the trains using this track dont stop at the station. sometimes during peak times, the express trains will run via this track, as the gold coast travels south running express and the airport travels north running express. naturally they do not run at the same time! hopefully some day another track will be installed on the beenleigh line like on the ipswich and springfield lines as far as darra, where there are 4 tracks so that express and all stations services can run at the same time uninterrupted. i think that would be really cool. on the back of the station office there is some really neat artwork, it looks a bit like the eye of sauron, i am not entirely sure what it is meant to be, but it certainly is creative. perhaps i have been reading way too much tolkien...

like the previous photo, this shot was also taken at the bottom of the staircase on fairfield road, just outside the yeronga station. no, i am not inside the rail corridor (no death wishes, i promise!) the track in the foreground is the wide gauge track often used by the diesels which carry their loads to the port of brisbane. often they will come in to brisbane on the ipswich line, where they travel as far as corinda, before traveling via tennyson and joining the beenleigh line at yeerongpilly. they then follow the beenleigh line as far as dutton park, where the track has a turnout (or points system) which gives the option of going past park road, or going over this massive bridge near park road which links up with the cleveland line at buranda. if you havent read it yet, you can see the bridge well in my dutton park blog. in the background, you can see the back of one of the shelters on platform 2 of yeronga station. there is a lot of ark work at the yeronga station, and i think it is one of the most beautiful stations i have visited so far on the network. it is certainly up there with norman park! i am not a botanist, but i think these flowers and plants are meant to be jacarandas. the station office is to the right of the shot.

not quite a stairway to heaven, but the staircase to yeronga station. at the top of the stairs, going to the left takes you over fairfield road via the cement bridge, to the right you continue on a wooden rail bridge and go over the tracks to the station. this bridge essentially travels over all tracks and both platforms, to the streets on the other side of the station which runs behind platform 1. the footbridge comes out near the corner of killarney street and lake street. there are a few streets in this area names after irish places, so that is rather cool. my grandfather is irish norwegian, so i think it is great to celebrate a few irish locations by naming streets after them!

taken from the staircase, looking south towards the yeerongpilly end of yeronga station. not a cloud in the sky, it was a beautiful day for some trainspotting! you can see the station office on platform 2, and the shelter with the jacaranda mural is in the foreground. at least i think they are jacaranda flowers! i am not a botanist, but they certainly look like jacaranda flowers. we have a lot of jacaranda trees at the university, and there was an amazing jacaranda out the front of my high school. every time it bloomed, it would leave a beautiful purple carpet. the tree itself was stunning, but the presence of the purple flowers always signaled exam block at school, and signals the same thing at university! i think i may have mentioned something similar in my banyo blog, but hopefully this exam block is the last time for me that the bloom of a jacaranda is associated with exams! hopefully after this exam block, i can enjoy the bloom of the beautiful tree without stressing to the max about the results of potentially life changing exams! 

what a beautiful view that is! i got this shot from the top of the staircase looking north from yeronga station in the direction of fairfield. actually, fairfield road itself is on the left of the shot, not exactly visible, but it is there. the yeronga station commuter car park is just behind the bend in the tracks near the center of the photo. emmy is parked in there, but she isnt visible in the photo. platform 2 is visible at the bottom of the photo near the middle, while platform 1 is on the bottom right of the shot. the wide gauge track runs almost directly underneath where i was standing on the top of the staircase where the rail footbridge meets the cement bridge over fairfield road. at the fairfield end of platform 1, there is a power box which has also been painted with jacaranda flowers. yeronga really is an incredibly beautiful station, you can see so much effort has gone into the presentation of the station. i have mentioned it before in other blogs, but i truly hope that when dinmore gets its upgrade, it is beautified with some nice artworks or murals. yeronga is such an aesthetic station, i would love to think that dinmore could be this beautiful too.  

this is possibly not the best photo to follow on with my last sentence, as it doesnt really highlight the beauty of the yeronga station, but i have included this shot for practical reasons. i got this photo from the cement bridge looking back at the rail footbridge and the staircase down to fairfield road. again, you can see the station office on platform 2 and the diesel tracks which run behind platform 2. this shot, like the one two photos ago is taken looking in the southerly direction towards yeerongpilly station. i am still yet to visit yeerongpilly, and had hoped to get to visit that station for the tennis, as the brisbane international is held at the queensland tennis centre, which is at tennyson. if the little tennyson station was still open, this would be the ideal station for visiting the tennis, but since it isnt anymore (for the foreseeable future anyway, please reopen it queensland rail! please!) then yeerongpilly is the best station to visit for the tennis. i have a friend who uses yeerongpilly station almost every day, and she said that one day i will have to visit her and we can go to the tennis centre together. i didnt know you could just rock up and hire a court, but that sounds incredibly fun. i am hopeless at tennis, but hey, half the fun is hanging out with friends. this same friend organised an event recently whereby several of us went ice skating at ice world in acacia ridge. it was an eventful day, whereby i demonstrated the gravity law so frequently, sir isaac newton would have been impressed. 

i wanted to get a photo of the staircase and footbridge over the tracks at yeronga, and this shot gives a good representation of the view from the top of the staircase on fairfield road. you can go down the steps from here, and continue down to the right and end up on platform 2, or continue along the bridge and up and over the beenleigh line to platform 1. through the gap near the center of the photo, you can see the ramp which links the street with the platform. the gorgeous jacaranda flowers on the wall of the ramp are reminiscent of the animal themed mural on the ramp at norman park. it is pretty difficult to say which station is prettier, as they are both gorgeous stations. i didnt think i would find another station to rival norman park, particularly so soon, but yeronga certainly challenges norman park. i think both train stations are incredibly beautiful, and it would be awesome if more stations were beautified like both of these stations have been.

i got this photo from the footbridge over the wide gauge diesel track at yeronga station, looking in a somewhat northerly direction towards fairfield. you can see the tracks of the beenleigh line, and platforms 1 and 2. platform 1 runs through the middle of the photo, starting near the middle of the left hand side and finishing in the right corner. platform 2 is in the bottom left corner of the shot. the track in front of platform 1 is the beenleigh line itself, and occasionally trains traveling through to the gold coast will use this track as well, since the gold coast line is an extension of the beenleigh line. it is a bit like the rosewood line being an extension of the ipswich line, only far, far busier! the track in front of platform 2 goes to the city and usually continues from there to ferny grove. the ramp on platform 1 has a gorgeous mural of purple jacaranda flowers on it, and despite the glare, i think this shot shows the mural off fairly well. for me, it seems strange to refer to yeronga and purple because when i used to play footy, the yeronga south brisbane team wore pink. naturally, as opposition players, we used to rip into them a bit about their pretty jerseys! thankfully for the yeronga players, their railway station is far more attractive than their old football kit!

a perfect blue sky over yeronga, and a brilliant day for trainspotting and catching up with a good friend. this is the view to the south, taken from the footbridge. the wide gauge track runs virtually through the center of the photo. platform 2 is on the left of the shot. you can see the shelter with the jacaranda flowers on the back of it which was featured earlier when i first arrived at the station. in the distance you can see the tracks of the beenleigh line as it leaves yeronga for yeerongpilly. 

possibly not the most descriptive shot of yeronga station, but i love the old wooden footbridges that are a still used at a lot of stations. i have noticed a lot of these are being replaced lately, and when the caboolture train passes between wacol and darra of a morning, you can see the remains of some of the old footbridges, discarded along with hundreds of old wooden railway sleepers. i would love to find out if i could purchase some of the old sleepers, as they would be wonderful additions to my garden. if anyone knows how i could go about doing so, please let me know! the sleepers under this track are the new cement ones, which i presume are reinforced with some kind of metal to preserve their strength. the street in picture is fairfield road, and near the top left of the photo you can see the support pole for the yeronga station side of the cement bridge which runs over the road linking the station with the shops on the other side of the road. i love this idea, and even on a sunday morning when i was here getting these photos, there were a number of people walking over these bridges. perhaps they may have thought there was something strange about me walking up and over the bridges a few times, but i am sure if they stumble across my blog some day, it will all make sense!

finally on the platform! i set foot on platform 2 at yeronga and got this shot looking across at platform 1 because i really like the jacaranda mural on the ramp. i wanted to capture the bridge as well how it links the two platforms. the bridge is more towards the fairfield end than the yeerongpilly end, and this shot it looking mostly in the northerly direction towards fairfield. there were people on both platforms waiting for their trains, so it was hard to get too many detailed pictures until a train had been through to collect the commuters!

taken from platform 2, looking towards the yeerongpilly end of yeronga station. i got this photo from near the station office. the track in from of platform 2 continues through all city stations and on to ferny grove. platform 1 is on the left of the photo, and the track in front of platform 1 continues to beenleigh. actually, it continues even further, to varsity lakes, but the trains that stop on platform 1 will only go as far as beenleigh. if you want to continue past beenleigh, you will need to change trains there for a gold coast train. this shot shows a yeronga station sign on platform 1: yay to strong bold fonts. 

rather self explanatory, but this artwork is pretty cool i think. it is fascinating to see inside the mind of a child, and see their visions for the future. as someone who has done a lot of physics, it is amusing to see these designs, and to wonder how they are going to function. it would be interesting to hear the child engineers run through the specifics of their designs, and how they intended for them to work. i particularly like one of the images near the bottom left, which to a nerd like me, looks strikingly similar to the all terrain scout transport walker that is featured in return of the jedi. not quite as cool as my favourite, the all terrain armored transport, but still pretty close, and pretty cool. this fantastic image by students of the yeronga state school, is on platform 2, towards the yeerongpilly end of the station office. there is a seat in front of it, which i employed to full effect whilst waiting for the ferny grove train after getting my fill of photos on this particularly gorgeous sunday morning.

yeronga station sign, as seen on platform 1. i took this photo standing on platform 2, near the yeronga state school futuristic transport mural. there are some lovely gardens at yeronga station, and the station itself is incredibly beautiful. naturally, it still requires its deterrent signs: stay off the tracks! or get a fine, injury or worse! seriously people, you shouldnt need to be told to stay off the tracks. that really is pretty obvious. seeing signs like this remind me of some of the bizarre instructions i have seen on product packaging, and also remind me of some of the counseling points we have to use in pharmacy which are so blatantly obvious, but still need to be said. if anyone watches house, and remembers the asthma inhaler scene, you know what i mean!

the view from platform 2, looking south along the beenleigh line towards yeerongpilly station. recent rain has left the platform a little damp, but it is a beautiful day to be out and about, catching trains and visiting friends; after all, it was my last day of holidays! of course, a shot like this wouldnt be complete without a station sign creeping in, and naturally, i framed it to get the yeronga station sign on platform 1 on the left of the shot. there are some nice gardens which run behind that station sign, which just adds another element of charm to an already fascinating station.

look at this! a beenleigh train has come to the party! the beenleigh train arrives on platform 1, to collect the passengers who were waiting there, which freed up the platform adequately for me to then proceed to get some semi descent photos from that platform. it is incredibly difficult to get shots of train stations without stay humans spoiling my shots. such a shame that it wasnt human intervention, but the sun, which seems to have crashed this photo. alas, i cant control the sun, so this will just have to do as it is! taken on platform 2, towards the yeerongpilly end, looking back towards the fairfield end. the yeronga station office is on the left of the photo, and the beenleigh train is arriving on platform 1 on the right. i think i timed the shot pretty well, because if you zoom in a touch, you can read the yeronga station sign which is just in front of the beenleigh train.

yet another photo of the beenleigh train on platform 1 with solar interference, but still, i thought it was worth including, because it is a descent shot of the train. after all, the trains are really the heroes of this story, since they are the ones who take me from station to station. these suburban multiple units are always fun to ride in. karen refers to them as sideways trains, because of the seating configuration in the train. it wasnt long after this train arrived that an announcement came over that an express train would soon be passing the station. i got excited thinking it might be a gold coast train.

giving up on the fairfield direction for a while, i turned 180 degrees (pi radians) to get another shot of the beenleigh on platform 1, this time without the glare of the sun affecting the shot. this photo has actually captured the trifecta: a station sign (proud bold font shouting out for yeronga) a train (beenleigh on platform 1) and what is that i can see in the distance... yep, its a diesel! no gold coast express train, this was something much more exciting!

before the impending arrival of the diesel, i quickly scurried over to get a shot of the tracks it was about to travel on as it roared past yeronga station. the shadows in the foreground are cast by the station office, and the road in the background is of course fairfield road. the diesel would be arriving in a matter of seconds. i love how you can hear them in the distance well before you can see them. i believe christian doppler contemplated this back in the 1840s. i would just like to mention that no, i have not jumped any fences, i simply stuck my arm through the gap in the fence to get this photo. having such short arms doesnt exactly help in these situations, but at least i managed to shoot along the track without getting any of the white fence in the photo! 

the beenleigh train departs platform 1, as the diesel approaches the yeronga station. i would love to have a ride in a diesel some day, i remember even as a child i was fascinated by the diesels. my favourites were these blue ones; i cant remember why, but i do remember simply loving it on the rare occasions when i got to see one.

im such a nerd. as this diesel rolls past yeronga, i couldnt help but to wave to the driver. the best part was, he waved back! ive never been known for being outgoing, or social (or even having social skills for that matter!) so it was particularly rewarding to have my greeting returned with a similar wave as the diesel passed the station. my timing for seeing diesels at some of the stations on the network has been incredible. if i had deliberately tried to turn up in time to see one, it couldnt have worked out as good as this. and so yeronga can become the latest station i have blogged about which has included a few photos of a diesel passing through the station. for anyone who is interested, the diesel number is 2390.

my jedi reflexes werent quite quick enough to get a better shot of the front of the diesel as it passed the yeronga station, but then again i was busy waving to the driver, so this was the best i could get! a good shot of the aurizon logo on the side of this particular locomotive.

i know this is a slightly boring shot, but i only included this photo of the diesel passing yeronga station because it shows that this was a cattle train. the cattle cars may be empty, but it didnt diminish the bovine odour as the train passed the station! if you zoom in, you may even get to see some cow dung, which isnt really that exciting.

another highly exciting photo of the cattle train passing yeronga. this time looking northwards to the fairfield end of the station. the station office on platform 2 is what is casting the shadow over the cattle cars as they roll by the station.

this is a far more exciting picture! taken on platform 2 of yeronga station, just near the station office. i am looking in a somewhat northerly direction along the platforms towards the fairfield end of the station. if you look at the small shelter on platform 1, it has a beautiful background of jacaranda flowers painted on the back of it. behind this small shelter, the awesome railway inspired artwork using the old rail lines reaches for the sky from a cement block in the garden. i would love a feature something like this in my own garden, but the only thing i would be worried about is rust. as a pharmacist, i cant help but wonder about the potential for tetanus to be carried by these old rail lines. still, they look pretty sweet in this arrangement though! as someone with pretty bad obsessive compulsive disorder; you will be surprised by this following statement: but i actually really like that they are all at different heights. think about it! if they were all uniform heights, and uniform spaces between them, the piece would look incredibly sterile and would lose its overall effect. potential tetanus risk or not, i certainly think it adds a real element of charm to the station.

i wanted to show off just how long this cattle train really is, as it is still chugging past the station, with no end in sight to the number of cars it is pulling. i essentially havent moved from the spot i took the last few photos in. they were all taken at the same point on platform 2. again, cow dung visible on zoom if interested. the beenleigh line itself can be seen on the left of the photo. i am presuming that this train came to be at yeronga by traveling along the ipswich line, and going from corinda to yeerongpilly via tennyson.

the end is in sight. i was too busy taking photos to have actually counted the number of cattle cars the diesel was pulling, but there must have been craploads (no pun intended) because it was pretty darn long. im thinking upwards of 40 carriages at least. i actually moved to the very end of the yeronga station platform to get this shot at the extreme yeerongpilly end of the station looking south away from the station.

i waited until the last carriages were about to pass the station so i could capture them as the were about to roll on by yeronga on their way to fairfield. i am not actually sure why, but it felt like a good idea at the time!

doppler was right about the effects of sound, as soon as it has passed the observer, the source of the noise seems to carry its noise with it because it is virtually silent as i get this shot from the extreme yeerongpilly end of platform 2 at yeronga station. you wouldnt even know the diesel had been past; except for the smell which was still present in the air. i dont know if there is a rule of physics which explains the olfactory effect of malodorous moving bodies, but there certainly should be! it wasnt long before the smell dissipated, perhaps there is a relationship between the speed of the moving body and the amount of wind in the atmosphere at the time the moving body passes the observer. perhaps it could be interesting to investigate?

is that a spirit circle, or just the glare from the sun? i will elect to think it is simply the sun, as capturing a spirit circle during daylight is a bit of a stretch, even for someone as spiritual as karen! for someone as closed minded as myself to capture something otherworldly would be a bit farfetched. i got this shot of yeronga station from the extreme yeerongpilly end of platform 2 at the station, looking back towards the fairfield end. platform 1 is on the right of the photo. the ferny grove train is soon to be arriving on platform 1.

taken from virtually the same position as the previous photo, i got this shot from the very end of platform 2 at the yeerongpilly end of the station, looking along the beenleigh line in the direction of yeerongpilly itself. there isnt very far between these two stations when driving, and even less when on the train. i think it is quite remarkable that two fairly large stations are so close together. i hope that both of them receive adequate patronage.

i really like in this photo how the sun is shining down on the yeronga station sign. it actually looks pretty special, dont you think? i think this is actually one of my better photos so far for this blog. taken from platform 2 looking across at the station sign on platform 1; still at the yeerongpilly end of the station. you can see some of the nice garden which runs along the back of platform 1.

i wasnt really shooting for the artwork of the yeronga state school with this shot, as i have already featured it above, but this time i was mainly wanting to show off the fixed station sign which is on the wall of the station office on platform 2. this sign is more towards the yeerongpilly end of the platform. there is a certain charm about fixed station signs, they are so much more traditional; but i still prefer the standing ones!

taken on platform 2, looking across at the shelter on platform 1. you can see the staircase and footbridge which links the two platforms. the jacaranda style ramp is behind the staircase in this photo. i am standing near the yeronga station office as i shoot across the beenleigh line to get this photo. the ramp, staircase and shelter on platform 1 are all located pretty close to the middle of the platform. i am more towards the yeerongpilly end, looking towards the fairfield end with this photo.

i wanted to get a better shot of the front of the yeronga station office, but alas, a group of humans were waiting there for the ferny grove train which was soon to be arriving. instead, i tried to frame this shot to capture the station office, footbridge and ramp on platform 1, as well as the platform 2 sign and the public phone. you dont see many of these telephones these days, so it is good that this facility is still in existence. particularly at a railway station as emergencies do happen, and having a phone is vital in an emergency. i think it is great that a lot of stations still have public phones for this reason. it would be really handy if more stations had an australia post box so you could post your mail before getting on the train. perhaps i am a bit old school in that suggestion though, since not many people use the post service anymore.

just another slightly generic shot from near the station office, looking along platform 2 towards the yeerongpilly end of the station. the ferny grove has been announced as arriving on the platform shortly.

taken from virtually the same position as the previous photo, only this time, the ferny grove is arriving on platform 2. there were a few people on the platform by this stage, so i had to stay at the yeerongpilly end to get a descent human free shot of a train arriving at yeronga.

the ferny grove train arrives majestically on platform 2. i waited as long as i could to get a shot of this suburban multiple unit arriving at yeronga. it would be nice to get a shot of the train just that little bit closer, but i still think this isnt too bad an effort. does it make me a bad friend if i elected to skip this ferny grove train in favour of spending another half hour a the station to get more photos? i was sure lyn at clayfield would understand! besides, it was still early and she has known me long enough to know how my mind works (or doesnt work...)

as the ferny grove arrives on platform 2, the real commuters get up and ready to board the train, while i hang back to get shots of it. i must look ridiculous, but i dont really care what other people think, i gave up worrying long ago to be honest! i seem to have a knack of getting the trains on this network to look incredibly clean, despite the fact they probably arent! i wouldnt mind cleaning he trains, i know it is probably not an ideal use of my degree, but it would be a lot more fun than spending the day talking to people all day. i am not a people person at all, and i dont exactly like drugs that much either. the least drug, and less invasive; the better. i would love to help remove graffiti from trains, it really annoys me that people with too much time and not enough to do, can waste their energy defacing something that is beautiful.

bye bye ferny grove. am i a bad person for not boarding this train? poor ferny grove train, it looks so sad departing platform 2 as it continues its journey inbound to the city: next stop fairfield. the glare of the sun is making pseudo spirit circles on this shot unfortunately, but i still like the photo as the light is relatively soft and welcoming. it is still a semi descent photo of platform 2 in the foreground and platform 1 on the right, plus i have the added attraction of the ferny grove train departing the station. the yeronga station itself is one of the most aesthetic stations i have visited. people often ask me what my favourite station is, but i cant really give an answer until i have visited them all! still, out of all the stations i have visited, yeronga would have to be up there, pushing as one of the coolest stations on the network.

taken from in front of the yeronga station office on platform 2, looking across to the shelter on platform 1. check out the awesome artwork using the tracks behind the shelter! i have a better shot of it coming up, dont worry! the shelters at yeronga station are beautifully painted with jacaranda flowers, and it looks like there is a jacaranda planted behind the shelter itself. i think i may have to come back to yeronga during exam block and see if i can get a photo or two of the beautiful purple carpets that jacarandas make when in bloom. i think i said the same about banyo station, so perhaps i may be spending my study block sitting on trains going over practice exams and staring at my australian medicines handbook. if you zoom in, you can see part of the wall between the staircase and the shelter has a squiggly line on it. this design is on a few of the walls on platform 1 and i have some better shots of it coming up. it reminds me of my heart rhythm strip!

this shelter is on platform 2, just to the north of the station office. i had to wait for the ferny grove train to leave yeronga so that i could get this photo, since there were a few people hanging around which prevented me from getting this picture. look at those gorgeous jacaranda flowers! it is a fairly generously sized shelter, and at this time of the morning the sun was just gorgeous. the staircase to the right, just out of picture.

i think this shot is potentially shot of the blog so far. i have managed to capture the yeronga station sign (yay for bold fonts!) and the beautiful shelter on platform 1. the artwork on the walls of this shelter is simply beautiful, i wish i had some degree of artistic skill. the beenleigh line is in the foreground of the shot, and behind the shelter is the amazing rail line abstract artwork. you can also see the metallic stripping on the wall behind the station sign that looks like a really trippy heart beat. the blue and white stripes on the platform indicate the recommended waiting area. i think this shot is pretty descriptive and shows off a number of cool elements of the yeronga railway station.  

i got this photo from underneath the shelter on platform 2 that is near the station office, and am looking along the beenleigh line in the direction of fairfield. you can see the footbridge and staircase on platform 1, as well as the ramp behind the staircase. the awesome rail art of platform 1 is also visible on the right of the photo.

yeronga station, yo. this shot is on platform 2, i just wanted to capture the staircase and bridge which link the station with the other side of fairfield road. there is a cute little station map to the right of the station sign, right near the go card terminal. my goal is still to have collected every station on this network on the one go card before it expires.

such a shame the sun elected to spoil this photo, as i really wanted to show off the artwork on the ramp on platform 1. this reminds me a lot of norman park, an how amazing the artwork on the ramp (and the subway too) at that station is. i am totally in favour of more artwork at more stations. make them beautiful, make the communities attach themselves to their station and own it and look after it. some people may say that yeronga is overdone, i disagree, and believe it has the right balance of physical art and painted murals. it is a pretty station, and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

moving further along platform 2 to get another shot of platform 1, and the sun is still interfering with my photography, but i wanted to include this shot, like the one above, because it highlights the artwork on platform 1. behind the station sign, you can see the metal stripping of some really bizarre repeating line. the repetition makes me wonder if it is stylized as an abstract electrocardiogram. whatever it is, is gives a nice, albeit odd, finish to this wall. i really like it. yeronga, you are incredibly cute!

as has become a cornerstone of my blogs, along with shots of station signs, i like to get a shot from the end of each platform, looking along the tracks. this shot is at the extreme fairfield end of platform 2, looking away from yeronga station in the direction of fairfield. again, the sun is leaving its mark on my photo, but it is still a descriptive shot, so i wanted to include it.the wide gauge diesel track is on the left of the photo. the track towards the center is the northbound arm of the beenleigh line, which runs to ferny grove. the track on the right is the south bound beenleigh line.

taken from the same position as the last photo, this time looking back at yeronga station from the extreme fairfield end of platform 2. the northbound stretch of the beenleigh line which continues through the city and on to ferny grove is in front of platform 2, and the beenleigh line runs in front of platform 1.

still on platform 2, at the fairfield end of yeronga station. this time i wanted to highlight the wide gauge track which runs along behind platform 2. this track is mostly used by diesels and the express services, such as the gold coast and airport trains. the gold coast and airport are inverse services, so naturally they dont run along this track at the same time! hopefully in the future another track can be installed on the beenleigh line so that these express services can operate separately in both directions, and the all stations beenleigh and ferny grove trains can operate on the main tracks even more frequently.

here is another shot from platform 2 looking south along the yeronga station. you can see the staircases and footbridges which link the two platforms with the roads which run either side of the station. platform 1 is on the left, and its beautifully painted ramp can be seen near the station sign.

i think this shot is one of the shots i have taken that could be worthy of wikipaedia, because it captures the essence of yeronga station beautifully. train lines in shot: check. station sign: check. station defining artwork: check. i really like this photo, and it probably goes close to being shot of the blog. this shot provides a slightly more descriptive view of the decorative metal stripping along the garden wall. it is repetitive and unusual, i do wonder if it actually has a meaning or not?

it wouldnt be my blog without a few token shots of station signs at what appear to be epically artistic angles. the fact i am short makes it hard for me to get shots that arent from angles like this! this yeronga station sign is towards the fairfield end of platform 2.

for station defining artwork, yeronga station blows every other station out of the park. of all the stations i have visited so far (still a few more to go) yeronga has certainly raised the bar in terms of aesthetics. i couldnt believe how awesome platform 1 was until i saw it for myself. yes i had been through the station before on a few occasions, but to actually stand on the platforms and explore the station, is something incredibly worthwhile and i thought it was really rewarding. i think i chose well in deciding to visit yeronga on this particular day!

another darth staple is the token photo from the footbridge (where a footbridge is provided!) alas, not all stations have footbridges, and until i can afford a drone which will support the weight of my camera, this style of shot will simply have to do. i saw an amazing youtube video of some cool things you can do with drones, so perhaps some day you may see one of these and you will know its me. (dont worry, i wouldnt fly it at a train! that would be dangerous! much more fun to target humans!) i got this shot from the footbridge at yeronga station, looking north along the beenleigh line in the direction of fairfield station. platform 2 is on the left of the shot, platform 1 is on the right. i have to stand on tip toe at full stretch to get these photos. the only other way would be to stand on a milk crate, though i think i would look a bit silly lugging a milk crate around the network, and that would also cost me my anonymity. we cant have that!

rotating by pi radians, i got this shot from the footbridge looking south along the beenleigh line towards yeerongpilly station. this time you can see the station office on platform 2 on the right of the photo, as well as the shelters on both platforms. i really like how the shelters have the small signs saying platform 1 and platform 2, with their destination on them. sunday mornings are one of the best times for visiting different stations, as there are fewer people about, which makes my job a hell of a lot easier!

i got this shot from the footbridge on platform 1, so that i could show off yet again the lovely ramp which leads down to this platform. the bridge is right beside the ramp, and is an elevated flat bridge which then has a staircase. i got this photo from the flat part, looking towards the fairfield end of the station. it was a great morning for photographing the beautiful yeronga station.

looking in the opposite direction, this time towards the yeerongpilly end, i wanted to show the shelter and the station sign on platform 1. the amazing rail art is behind this shelter. the station office on platform 2 is in the background of this shot. i just noticed there is a 7eleven there too on fairfield road. had i noticed it at the time, you can be certain i would have got a slurpee. i think i love those things far too much!

dude! how cool is this!? seriously, isnt that one of the coolest things you have seen at a train station? perhaps i need to get out more, but seriously, this is the bomb! i love it! for once, i think my semi dodgy photography actually helps to reinforce just how cool this really is, as i somehow managed to capture the right amount of light and the right amount of greenery from the gardens. this freaking awesome feature is on platform 1 at yeronga station. i got this shot from near the fairfield end of the station. i would love to have something like this in my garden! i think it would look rather awesome near the statue of archimedes leaping from his bath that i really want to commission to have built once i graduate. i want something that closely resembles the statue of him at expo park in daejeon. it is one of the coolest things i have ever seen, and i really think this feature is up there with the statue. perhaps you agree?

the ramp on platform 1 at yeronga station is painted with beautiful jacaranda flowers. it really is beautiful, and is certainly competing with the entrance to platform 2 at norman park station in terms of aesthetics. it makes the station look so clean and tidy, and really inviting. far more exciting than bare bricks or cement! i love railway station artwork!

i wanted to get another view of the ramp on platform 1 to really show it off, and this shot shows the detail in the jacaranda flowers fairly well. it is great that there is a ramp on platform 1 for people who have disabilities to use to enter and exit the station. im not sure how they are meant to get from platform 1 to platform 2 though, as the footbridge has stairs, but at least they can access platform 1. it would be great if more stations had this access. perhaps because yeerongpilly is the next station on the beenleigh line after yeronga, commuters needing assistance mainly use that station since it has elevators?

it is quite amusing for me to look at this decorative stripping, because the first thing i thought of upon seeing it was my own electrocardiogram reading. i have an incredibly alien heartbeat, and whilst it isnt exactly like this, it is actually pretty close. for anyone familiar with the humble rhythm strip, i dont actually have a p wave, which is pretty trippy to look at! (though i do have a qrs complex, which is decidedly lacking in this strip!) this shot was taken on platform 2, and this cardiology inspired decoration is towards the fairfield end on platform 1 of the yeronga station. i dont actually know what it is meant to be, a river perhaps? it doenst really resemble the brisbane river though as far as i can tell. if anyone can shed some light on this, please do so, but in the mean time, i think it is incredibly cool, and makes an otherwise slightly boring wall interesting to look at. i suppose we all see something different when we look at these abstract art things dont we; and they say more about the interpreter than they do of the artist.

here is another view of the rhythm strip, more towards the fairfield end than the previous photo. when we covered cardiology in third year, the tutors were quite alarmed by my readings when we got to do an electrocardiogram in the labs. my doctor has said that i dont really need to worry unless i can actually feel it murmuring or if i black out. perhaps next time i am there i should inform him of the fact i feel it whenever the footy is close or when i have to give an oral presentation at uni. i swear my football team is taking years off my life by killing my cardiomyocytes whenever we are involved in a close game! i really hope the coenzyme q10 ive been taking for a few years will help prevent major damage!

taken from the extreme fairfield end of platform 1, looking north towards fairfield station. i like to get a shot from the end of each platform looking in both directions. i find that these shots are some of the most fun to get, because i get to fully explore the station to get them. by default, these shots encourage me to thoroughly examine each station

again rotating by pi radians, this shot from platform 1 looks south along the yeronga station in the direction of yeerongpilly. platform 2 is on the right of the photo. in the distance we can see  the brisbane airport train is about to pass through yeronga. this is a wifi enabled train, which you will quite often see on the gold coast and airport lines. i think this model of train looks majestic as it glides across the rails.

the brisbane airport train glides through yeronga station, on its way to park road where it will make its first stop since altandi. the airport train stops all stations from varsity lakes to beenleigh, then runs express to park road stopping only at loganlea and altandi. doesnt this shot look awesome with the suburban multiple unit approaching the station on platform 2.

smu 296 passes by yeronga station on platform 2. how majestic does that train look?! i think this model is train is incredibly beautiful. it is very rare to get one of these trains on the ipswich line (see my toowong blog...) so i only ever get to ride in them on the very odd occasion that we do get one of a morning when we board at dinmore, or if i miss the beenleigh train and catch a gold coast to park road and walk to pace from there. it is rare to see one of these trains on the beenleigh line, so you would be lucky to see one parked at dutton park. actually, getting one of these trains on the beenleigh line is almost as rare as getting one on the ipswich line! i dont really think it is anything against these lines, it is probably more so to do with the fact these trains are needed on the longer distance lines, such as the gold coast/airport and the nambour line. still, you do see them on the doomben line every now and then, which really doesnt support my theory!

the brisbane airport train doesnt stop at yeronga, she just keeps flying through on her way to park road. nicole once told me that there was a problem with the airport train one morning when she was trying to get to class. she normally rides it to park road then changes to platform 1 of park road for a beenleigh train back one station to dutton park. on this particular morning she said the airport train was delayed and began stopping at other stations on the beenleigh line. no one was attempting to get off the train and people were complaining amongst themselves. when the train got to dutton park, she thought she had nothing to lose, and pressed the button to open the doors. the doors opened and she was able to get to class on time. she said people were looking at her strange for getting off the train at dutton park, but the fact it was actually her stop meant she could catch the airport from helensvale to dutton park without changing trains! she thought it was pretty cool, and i think she is a touch disappointed it has only happened on the one occasion!

the airport train has left the station. it will continue north running express through fairfield and dutton park, before stopping all stations from park road to bowen hills. from bowen hills, the airport train then runs express to eagle junction (skipping poor albion and wooloowin) and then on to the international and domestic airport stations. i have seen these airport stations when i have been to airport with family and friends, but i still havent collected them yet. plenty of time still left for that though!

this is a similar shot to a few photos earlier, only this time, no train passing through the station. i got this shot on platform 1 looking south along the platform towards yeerongpilly station. i think this shot is almost worthy of wikipaedia, as it gives a good overview of what the station looks like. shots like this can be incredibly hard to get, because stray humans on the platform tend to ruin my photos. waiting until trains have been through on both platforms is the best way to get such photos, and it also means you get to spend good quality time at the station.

i couldnt resist by to get another shot of this trippy metallic cardio rhythm strip running along the garden wall on platform 1. this section is right near the jacaranda floral ramp near the staircase (right of the photo) and is more toward the fairfield end than the center of the platform. it is pretty close to the center though.

this is the view on platform 1 of the wooden footbridge where it joins up with the road at the junction of lake street and killarney street. the ramp to join the station is just to the left out of picture (though you can see some of the jacaranda flowers i partially cut off with my dodgy photography!) im pretty sure the trees in the background behind the bridge are jacarandas, so i will certainly make an effort to return here to yeronga (and to banyo as well) during exam block and see if i can get a photo or two of the lovely purple carpet that these trees create.

another really cool shot of the yeronga station sign on platform 1 near the shelter. i love how the shelter has a sign saying platform 1 and beenleigh. that way anyone who isnt familiar with the station at least has a chance of choosing the right platform to wait on for their destination. sadly this shot is a touch dark, but you can sort of make out the rail art in the background behind the shelter and station sign. platform 1 of yeronga is awesome!

platform 2 of yeronga isnt quite as exciting as platform 1, but it does have the station office, so it probably does trump platform 1 in that regard. the ticket machine is just adjacent to the office, so if it is unattended, you have no excise for traveling without a valid ticket or having enough money on your go card.

yeronga station makes it really hard to pick a favourite photo, because it really has so many angles that are simply stunning in terms of railway stations. this is another classic example. taken on platform 1, looking north along the platform towards fairfield, platform 2 is on the left looking amazing in all its jacaranda purple glory. the footbridge between the platforms is casting a nice shadow over the beenleigh line and the shelter on platform 1 declares that this is the platform to wait on for stations between here and beenleigh. this shot could only have been improved with the addition of a train or a station sign.

at least this shot has a station sign! here is a fun fact: did you know you can write the name yeronga using the periodic table? i know at least one person who reads this blog occasionally would have picked up on it. for those who havent, check out the chemical symbols for yttrium, erbium, oxygen, nitrogen and gallium. (is it even sadder if i knew those without looking them up? i study pharmacy remember!) there is another interesting fact about yttrium and erbium: they come out of the same mine in sweden. there are actually 4 elements which are all sourced from that one mine: yttrium, terbium, erbium and ytterbium. (notice anything cool about the names? anything similar? here is a clue, the mine is in a town called ytterby. i really hope i can go there some time, i have had a fascination with the periodic table since i memorised it in year 10 when i was bored in class.) anyway, back to my other great love, and this shot was taken on platform 1 towards the yeeronpilly end of the station looking south along the beenleigh line.

more proof it is still me writing the blog, another one of my usual shots taken from the end of a platform looking away from a railway station. this time taken on platform 1 at the yeerongpilly end of yeronga station, looking south along the beenleigh line as it departs the station. i think there is something incredibly beautiful in the simplicity of the extended euclidean geometry of railway tracks leading into the distance.

another of my end of platform shots, this time simply rotating 180 degrees from the previous photo (or pi radians if you prefer. i like radians myself in case that wasnt already obvious!) taken from the yeerongpilly end of platform 1 of yeronga station, looking north along the beenleigh line. platform 2 is on the left of the photo. the beenleigh line itself is in the foreground running in front of platform 1. the track in front of platform 2 continues to ferny grove.

have karens spirit circles come back to screw with my photos, or is this just an effect of the sun? i am going with the sun on this one, but i still cant quite explain the interference i collected at toowong station. very trippy indeed. some of the stories she tells me about spirits are indeed spooky. i swear she has another sense that most humans dont have. she swears i lack a sense most humans have: common sense! i tried to get this shot to show off the gardens running along behind platform 1, but the sun didnt want to play nice!

this is how i had wanted the previous photo to look! yay for outsmarting the sun and standing with my back to it! these gardens run along platform 1 at yeronga. i am no botanist, so sadly i cannot identify any of these plants (aunty marie would be incredibly disappointed in me) the only plants i really know are the herbs that are used to make drugs. i am not sure if that is a good thing or not though! i actually think botany would be a pretty interesting field of study. in my first year of university i chose extra biology subjects to attempt to top up my brain to an acceptable level as i hadnt done biology in high school. one of the subjects involved the creation of a dichotomous key to identify a large number of plant species. it was tedious, but pretty enjoyable when the results came out favouring my teammates and i!

i guess this shot of smu 266 approaching yeronga station goes to show just how long i have actually spent at the station exploring! this is a gold coast train, heading south along the beenleigh line where it will continue running express until it gets to altandi. the gold coast always passes through a station before the beenleigh, simply because the beenleigh is an all stations and is thus a slower service. it would be a bit silly to send a beenleigh then a gold coast that would only chase the beenleigh down within a few stations! the fact a gold coast is passing through, means a beenleigh cant be too far away, and i have shots of the previous service earlier in this blog! proof i have far too much fun at train stations!

darn, this is a far blurrier shot than it appeared on my camera when i took it, but this is the gold coast train as it speeds past yeronga station. again, this is another wifi service on the gold coast line. these trains can travel faster and are thus far better suited to the longer gold coast line than the older emu model trains. i dont mind having my humble little emu trains of a cold morning at 5:30am in winter when karen and i board at dinmore. they are significantly warmer, and never fail to make me smile when i see the configuration of the lights as it approaches dinmore station from the bend in the tracks between dinmore and ebbw vale. give me an emu every cold morning, and i am very very happy!

the gold coast express service passes by me on platform 1 at yeronga. it actually looks like it has stopped here in this photo, but i can assure you that didnt happen. within a few seconds of coming into view, the gold coast was gone from sight and the sound had dissipated into the stillness of being the only person at the station again.

these trains really do look magnificent, and i cant wait to see what the new generation rollingstock trains will look like when they are gradually introduced to the network after the completion of the maintenance center at wulkuraka. i plan on doing a complete upgrade of my wulkuraka entry once the facility is up and running, as the blog has evolved so much that it makes my wulkuraka entry look rather poxy in comparison to the standard of blog i am churning out now when i should be studying for my final ever exams....

doppler effect well and truly in force in this shot, you can still see the gold coast train, but you cant hear it anymore. even though my blog doesnt come with an audio feature, and you are a skeptic of my comment, stand on a platform and observe a passing express train for yourself and see how long the sound lingers once the service has passed you. i think you will find that in most cases, you cant even hear the train until it is virtually on top of you, and once passed, the sound virtually ends straight away. the fact the trains are so quiet really does give you a very limited chance of survival if you are casually spray painting your graffiti in the rail corridor, especially if you have your music playing in your headphones as you do to. if fines for entering the rail corridor arent a big enough deterrent for some people, perhaps some laws of physics might be? (or perhaps i am too optimistic!) regardless, the gold coast train has passed through yeronga and has almost disappeared from sight.

wow, this really is a bit of a dutch tilt isnt it! no, i am not drunk! i dont drink, it is always amusing when i get pulled over by police for a breath test and i tell them this. i am sure everyone says it, but in my case it is true. i am of the school of opinion that alcohol is best used topically for the removal of germs from hands and surfaces, or for the removal of permanent marker from laboratory glassware. this shot was taken on platform 1 of yeronga station (station sign with bold font, oh yeah!) looking north along the platform towards the fairfield end of the station.

this is the shelter on platform 1 at yeronga as a slight close up of the jacaranda artwork. the footbridge is just out of picture, but is located to the left of the shot, slightly further along the platform. the emergency phone is something i figured i should include, just in case you ever get stranded in an emergency situation, at least you know the help phone is here for your assistance. i have noticed that most of the human population use smart phones (im not one of them, and am proud of that fact) and i have noticed that smart phones tend to not hold their charge and need to be charged daily. that would drive me crazy! i charge my phone once a week at the most, and i never turn the thing off (even in exams....silent is good enough as far as im concerned. im sure most of the university students alive today who sit exams and are asked to turn their phones off would agree with me in this!). the point i am making is that smart phones have dumb batteries, and as they need very regular charging and are prone to sudden death, an emergency help phone is not as redundant in this day and age as you smart phone holders may think.

i got this shot on platform 1 from the shelter, looking across at platform 2 to capture the bridges and the station sign. the go card terminal make an appearance too, how sweet. in the bottom right of the photo there is evidence of plant material growing up against the platform. i have seen something like this before at another station i have visited, ironically or not, that station was norman park. the similarities are getting spooky now!

if this isnt one of the coolest things you have seen at a train station, you dont catch enough trains! this is seriously awesome. i wonder how long it takes to make something like this, and how much it costs. if you happen to know, please let me know, as i think it is freaking amazing! it is a must for any train buff to have something like this in their backyard! yeronga station, you have completely amazed me with this artwork!

the yeronga station sign on platform 1, with a doppelganger on platform 2. yttrium, erbium, oxygen, nitrogen, gallium. we have all three states of matter here: solid, gas and liquid at room temperature. i could give elemental facts like these all day. if i actually liked speaking, perhaps i could have been a science teacher, though i dont think i could handle the kids! i am not a people person at all, and children really annoy me. if you think that is harsh, you try sitting in a quiet carriage of an afternoon reading, then the train pulls in to south bank and several schools effluent converge onto your train and flood your carriage with their loud and distracting chatter and overpowering bodily odours. dealing with that for a few stations is bad enough, but all day, every day: hell no! teachers are underpaid in my opinion for having to deal with that. pay them more, educate them more, attract the best students to teaching, and you will get better teachers who churn out better students. one can hope! the footbridges in the background of the shot make it look more exciting i think. perhaps this is another shot that could be worthy of wiki?

jamie durie and co, eat your heart out. these established plants really add to the feel of yeronga station. perhaps they could do a show on the telly called station make over, and people from landscaping companies, painters etc could come in an overhaul some run down looking railway stations. i dont necessarily mean on this network, or even this country, but in various locations around the world. perhaps it would have a limited market, but seriously, to get an effect like this, it really does bring life to the yeronga station. i am sure most people find train stations incredibly boring locations they have to stand at and wait impatiently for their train, but if the station itself is more aesthetic, it makes the wait a little less painful, would you agree?

taken from just outside the yeronga station itself, i wanted to show the rail art from another direction, this time with platform1 in the background. i got this shot from right near the entrance to the station on the corner of killarney and lake streets. 

not only do they share jacaranda trees in common, but yeronga and banyo also both have one of these cute monuments which proudly shout the name of the station to all who walk by. at least this one doesnt have anything stuck to it like the banyo one! i wonder if that goo is still on the banyo one? if it is i might make a special journey there myself to clean it up! this yeronga one is in a great position, right behind platform 1, with the rail art just visible behind it.

taken from a similar position as the previous three photos, near the corner of lake and killarney streets, i wanted to show off the entrance to platform 1 of yeronga. i am pretty sure that is a jacaranda tree in the foreground on the right. the entrance to the station is via the footbridge staircase to the left of the photo, or the ramp entrance just behind what i assume is a jacaranda. i am presuming it is a jacaranda due to the paintwork at the station. hardly a level of evidence that would pass peer review, but as i dont have a spare botanist nearby to ask, i am happy to go out on a limb (yeah that was bad, i am aware) and call it a jacaranda. i like the queensland rail poster as the focal point of the photo here. do you know which station is featured in the photo? its pretty easy to tell. i have already bogged about it. here is a clue: its on the ipswich line. there is a tell tail (haha) feature near the crossing which gives it away.

back on the footbridge again, this time looking south towards yeerongpilly station. i wanted to show off the wide gauge track that the diesel with its many cattle cars traveled on earlier. on the left of the photo platform 1 with its gardens has the beenleigh line run in front of it. platform 2 in the center of the shot has the inbound line which continues to ferny grove, and the diesel track is on the right. as i have said earlier, this track is also often used by the express services running north from the gold coast to the airport of a morning, or in the afternoons/evenings the gold coast train often uses this line to travel south from the airport with its human cargo.

well done, darth. this is a poorly framed shot of the view looking north from the footbridge. i was going to toss this one from my blog, but it managed to make the cut somehow. its a shame i have a pole through the photo, but i can put that down to 4 letter: a.d.h.d. besides, at least this shot shows the yeronga station on the right of the photo with the sun shining over it beautifully. platform 2 runs through the middle of the photo, platform 1 is on the right.

directly over top of the express line/diesel track, looking south towards yeerongpilly. i wanted to include this one as it shows off the back of the shelter on platform 2 really well, and shows fairfield road with very little traffic (rare indeed, but it was early on a sunday morning. it would be a different story had i taken this same photo 24 hours later, i assure you!)

and of course the complementing northern photo, to again show fairfield road essentially trafficless, platform 2 extends through the photo from the bottom right corner, platform 1 is to the right of platform 2. this is actually a pretty descent view along the beenleigh line, and is much better than my previous northern attempt: no pole this time! to the left of the photo, in the small shopping precinct across the road from the railway line.

i went over the bridge and down the other side, to get a shot looking back at yeronga station from the opposite side of fairfield road. it was actually difficult to get this photo with the odd car and also a few stray humans who happened to be around at the same time and no doubt were wondering what on earth i was doing there. the eye of sauron is ever watchful from the back of the yeronga station office, while the jacaranda flowers behind the shelter near the staircase offer a distinctly more relaxing feel to the station.

i also got this shot from fairfield road, looking across at the yeronga station. i really wanted to get another shot of the ramp and its purple jacaranda glory. i have also included a station sign and the station artwork on the left of the shot, just behind the sign. this is probably one of the better shots i have of the ramp.

hardly exciting, but the cement footbridge linking yeronga station with fairfield road is a unique feature of the station, and one that i thought should probably be included. i am trying to be thorough! for example, you could disembark from the train, take this bridge over fairfield road and walk a short distance to 7eleven for a slurpee. sounds like a descent idea to me! wish i could have a slurpee right now actually!

the tolkien fan in me had to get another shot of the eye of sauron on the back of the station office on platform 2. this eye keeps a watchful eye over all the happenings on fairfield road. i got this shot from the footbridge over the road, not from my broomstick note the rack which runs in front of the eye is the wide gauge track. the bunches of flowers either side of the eye remind me of the start of the show rosemary and thyme that used to be on telly years ago and has recently made a comeback. do you know the show im talking about? its these two old ladies who solve crimes using plants and gardens. i first watched it when i was in hospital for an extended stay and my neighbour (an old woman) was watching it. its actually pretty good.  

 

cant include sauron without balancing it with a touch of botany. here are some beautiful jacaranda flowers. i actually really like the jacaranda trees, i used to climb tress a lot when i was younger, and many a jacaranda was climbed in my time. nowadays they tend to associate themselves with exams as they begin to lay their beautiful carpets around end of semester exam time. not a great association, but one that will certainly outlast my degree! they are such beautiful trees, though its a shame i cant enjoy them for what they are. whenever i see one in bloom i will be thinking about exams!  

this isnt a bad effort at all, almost worthy of wikipaedia fame. i got this photo from the cement footbridge, looking across at the station, and went for the added effect of including part of a tree on the left of the photo, to add to the botanic effect of yeronga station (just in case it needed further reinforcement)

why not include one more shot of saurons watchful eye on the back of the yeronga station office? yeah thats what i thought too. again taken from the footbridge over fairfield road, looking south towards the yeerongpilly end of he station.

how botanic is that ramp? i think it is amazing that there is so much time, effort and detail put into something as simple as the ramp access to platform 1 here at yeronga. i love the artwork at norman park as well, the mural along the back of platform 1 at norman park and the ramp artwork on platform 2 is simply stunning (and dont get me started on the subway, it is simply something to behold! if you havent walked that subway, make a special trip just to do it, you wont regret it!) in a way it is a shame that yeronga station doesnt have a subway to make it even more user friendly and to provide yet another blank canvas to the artists to produce another stunning piece of station art to rival the work on this ramp. in case it isnt obvious, i really like railway station art. as someone who has a complete lack of artistic skill, i truly appreciate art or all kinds. my grandfather is an artist, and i grew up appreciating his works. ironically: he is irish, though not from killarney.

the train arriving on platform 1 is the beenleigh train, stopping all stations. another beautiful suburban multiple unit arrives at yeronga station. sadly for this train though, the platform wasnt exactly bursting with life, as there werent very many people at the station.

i waited until the train was a little bit closer, so i could get another shot of it as it arrived on platform 1 at yeronga station. the arrival of the beenleigh train meant that a ferny grove train wouldnt be too far away either, so i would have to make my way back down to platform 2 shortly if i had any chance of catching it to get to visit lyn!

i got this photo of the beenleigh train on platform 1 from near the junction of the bridge and staircase on platform 2. this angle gives a rather nice view of the train. alas, i wasnt able to turn and get a shot from the opposite direction looking along the platform towards yeerongpilly, as there were commuters on the platform by this stage, and i really am trying incredibly hard to avoid unnecessary humans from being in my photos.

back on platform 2, after descending the stairs. looking north along the platform towards fairfield, i got this photo of the beenleigh train as it waits on platform 1. there are people behind me in the shelter as i take this photo, making it hard to get a more descriptive shot looking towards the south.

i walked past the humans waiting near the shelter at the bottom of the stairs to get this photo of the beenleigh train before it departs platform 1, where it will continue its journey stopping all stations to beenleigh. next stop: yeerongpilly! how awesome is it that there is a public phone here at yeronga station, right near the station office. when i was growing up phone boxes and public telephone terminals in shopping centers were common place. now it is rare indeed to see them apart from at railway stations, so i am glad to see that there is on here on display for all to see, and use. you never know when you may need one!

bye bye beenleigh. the beenleigh train departs yeronga bound for yeerongpilly station. it wouldnt be long before the ferny grove train was due to be arriving. i figured that by now i had probably got enough photos of yeronga station to satisfy my standard quota with a few extras thrown in for fun and good measure as well. its amusing, this is almost the exact same position i was in earlier when i saw the diesel!

the beenleigh train has left the station, it would have been so much cooler if i had got a shot of it as it turned the corner, but i wasnt paying quite enough attention. after all, the ferny grove was due to be arriving any moment. in case it isnt obvious. i got this shot at the yeeronpilly end of platform 2.  

again, i really havent moved position (objects at rest like to stay at rest; things like to keep doing what they are already doing. ask any mother of teenagers how hard it is to get them off their computers to come to the table and eat dinner. see, physics applies to so many aspects of life!) the ferny grove train is approaching yeronga station, and would you look at that! its a new suburban multiple unit from the 260 series, which roughly translates to: new train with wifi. i still get excited when i see one of these trains approaching a platform, particularly if it is a service i intend to board! did you know that it is possible to use the wifi from a wifi enabled train even when you are standing on an adjacent platform, and you arent boarding that train? (done it a few times when i have needed to check email in a mad hurry to see if i have missed any assessment pieces! obviously when the train departs, it takes it wifi signal with it, but it can be handy for those of you who havent worked that trick out just yet!) i think that all the travel i have had on the ipswich line has made me appreciate these trains even more than i used to when we were on the cleveland line, where it was common to get multiple services per week in wifi trains.

majestic isnt she. smu280 arrives at yeronga station, ready to take myself and the other commuters to our destination anywhere between yeronga and ferny grove. in my case i was needing clayfield, but since it was a sunday, and the doomben line doesnt operate on sundays, my destination was to be eagle junction. and so i caught this grand lady to eagle junction, where i then walked the short distance to lyns place for tea and scones. naturally i enjoyed my journey from yeronga to eagle junction by employing wifi connection with my ipad to do what all uni student do: troll social media and catch up on general internet gossip, answer email and check out the status of the rail network. (ok so maybe not all students do that last one, but a few of my friends do as we are so dependent on public transport to get to where we need to go!) i love the free wifi!

my final photo taken at yeronga station. i was almost going to toss this one and finish with that last shot because it is in the mildly awesome category (not quite as awesome as those amazing banyo photos but close enough. still, this is historic, because at this point, i have set my big feet up from the yeronga platform and into the train. i had to turn back and get one last shot of yeronga station, looking along the length of the train just for fun. i would have got a photo looking forwards in the direction of travel, but sadly, stray humans again, they always seem to want to ruin my potential photos! i dont mind looking back though, it is symbolic of looking back over how far we have come, or in this case how far the train has come. (beenleigh to yeronga is a pretty fair journey!) perhaps i have become too philosophical (or reflective??) since i started my blog, but since this particular sunday was to be my last day of holidays as a student, ever; it was kinda poignant to look back at how far i had come, before looking forwards to the final leg of the journey. i have one semester left to go of this degree (providing i pass everything that is!) and then i will be out in the world on my own as an intern. it is a scary proposition indeed. by looking back and thinking about how far i have come, i still feel like there is an incredibly long way to go. i couldnt have thought of a better way to spend my last day of holidays before beginning my final ever placement, than by spending it with lyn. she is a very amusing woman who never fails to make you laugh (if she can make me laugh, she must be funny. i am notoriously stoic). she has a way of keeping things in perspective and helping to break things down into smaller and manageable goals. looking at a very daunting placement in a foreign environment (for the first time) was an incredibly scary proposition, yet she helped to set my troubled mind at ease. we would go on to spend virtually the entire day together, and afterwards when it was time to leave, she dropped me back to eagle junction (didnt want me walking in the dark, despite me protests that i would be fine). i caught a cleveland train to fortitude valley, as the cleveland was the next train to be coming through eagle junction at the time i arrived. i had planned on catching it all the way to park road then waiting for a beenleigh train to yeronga; but when our cleveland got the fortitude valley, there was an unexpected surprise waiting for me there. the gympie north train was waiting imminent departure from fortitude valley. my word it was tempting! i made a snap decision; i left the cleveland and got to walk up to the gympie north train. i was close enough to touch it (i didnt get to, queensland rail employees were looking at me strange, i am used to that, but all i wanted to do was reach out and touch the inter city express!) this moment was the closest i have been to that train, and while i am still yet to get to traveston, with each station i visit, and each blog i write, i am one station closer to my goal of visiting every station on the network. the gympie north train departed, leaving me heartbroken on the platform; but my beenleigh was shortly to arrive, which took me back to where emmy was waiting patiently for me in the yeronga car park. it was pitch black outside, we really had spent most of the day together! i had hoped to get some nocturnal shots of yeronga, but the station was surprisingly popular that evening (just my luck) so i have to settle for this shot, looking back from where we have been to see how far we have come, as my final shot from yeronga. perhaps one day i will be back again to see the jacaranda carpet, im not sure, but i hope so. right now i am looking back at how far i have come in this degree, and absolutely crapping myself at how much i still want to learn before i am out on my own. one thing in life is for sure, no matter how far you have come, or how far you have to go, there is always time to catch up with a good friend for tea and scones.