Arlington

Yes here it is, the latest in my semi regular (and semi coherent) entries on light rail stations.  Blinking in the spotlight today is Arlington.  You may recognise Arlington from such phrases as "where the hell is Arlington?", "Arlington, is that a place?" and "why does Arlington have a light rail station?"  But you probably don't.  Arlington's name is not graved deep in the history of Sydney's suburbs.  I'm not even sure if it is a suburb.  I tried googling it but I got results for hiring male strippers in Arlington, Texas before there were any references to Arlington, NSW.

The answer to the three questions above incidentally are, in order;

• The back end of Dulwich Hill
• Yes, sort of
• I suspect there was space for a platform and a little money left in the budget

Getting out at Arlington station I paused for a moment and turned in a circle to take in the view, much to the annoyance of various solid citizens attempting to get onto the tram (train?  I still haven't figured that out).  I stepped a little further from the rail vehicle and tried again.  There was a park with children's play equipment and across the road a recreation field for more organised outside activities.  The recreation field is situated on what used to be a bunch of brick pits and according to the local council is a "green space".  It's certainly green, that's the colour of the synthetic surface that covers the playing field and its definitely a space so I guess, technically the council is correct.  The park I had to walk across to get there had actual grass, growing in dirt.  At least I assumed it was growing in dirt, I didn't examine it in any great detail.

On the other side of the station was a residential area, complete with residents.  I know this because one walked past me while I was looking at it.  I have to admit its a little odd to hop off public transport and be staring at someone's back yard.  Normally public transport goes through shopping areas and other places of human gathering.  There's usually a bit of a walk before you find somewhere people actually live.  It is this more than anything else that speaks to the origins of the light rail as a goods line.  Goods lines don't have to go where people gather, they go where industry gathers.  Most of the industry is gone now and suburbs have spread so now people have a public transport link in their back yard some way from the shops.  Despite this the line is well frequented, much more frequented than planners actually planned for.  In this, if nothing else, it resembles every other piece of transport infrastructure in the state.

The presence of the light rail station has its own attractions.  At least I assume it does.  Advertisements for local real estate companies tout convenience to the light rail as a selling point and I'm sure they wouldn't do that if they didn't think it was desirable.  You don't see real estate agents in Kings Cross attempting to talk up their properties by highlighting how handy they are to the heroin injecting centre.  There is new development here (very convenient to the light rail).  In between old single story houses are some blocks of very new looking apartments.  These apartment blocks are both new and rather handsome which I actually thought was an oxymoron.  An apartment block is currently being built just down the road from me.  The designers need to be taken down to Arlington and have their faces shoved repeatedly into the apartment blocks there until they get the idea.

Not wanting to spend too long hanging out in a children's park or peering into other people's backyards (the terms of my parole are quite strict) I took a five minute walk up to the same bus stop I went to from Dulwich Grove last week and caught a bus into Newtown for lunch.