Melbourne Star: The wheel of misfortune is the latest of a long line. Photo: Angela Wylie
Frankly, the tragi-comic story of the Melbourne Star – our fractured observation wheel – should come as no surprise. Not with Melbourne's extraordinary track record for things that fall over, break off or crack up.
The Star (called the Southern Star when it opened in 2009) began cracking within six weeks and was shut for the next five years. Even now, the Star saga is not over – the owner-company is suing the construction-company in a $6 million insurance bunfight. "Look kids, you can see the Victorian Supreme Court from here."
The Star fiasco sure rang bells at this desk. As transport reporter on the Melbourne Herald in November 1976, I was left a message from a reader which led to a major scoop. The reader was an engineer who claimed the Country Roads Board's new Hume freeway from Wallan to Broadford – the state's first "computer-designed freeway" opened only six months earlier – was breaking up. "Not just in the valleys where they have filled in," he said, "but in the cuttings where there should be no subsidence."
I drove out and found road gangs at work. "Just teething problems," said a ganger, playing it down, "not unusual." But he was wrong. After a "NEW FREEWAY CRACKS UP" front page in the Herald the CRB admitted it had a real headache.
No comments:
Post a Comment