Metro Trains Melbourne is partnering with Storytowns and the Department of Transport and Planning, to create Railway Stories, a series of geo-located podcasts to provide passengers and tourists with a new way to experience Melbourne while travelling by train.
Did you know the Hartwell is geographically the heart of Melbourne? Or that the Moorabbin Air Museum has one of the biggest collections of Australian-built aircraft in the world?
Well, you can learn all about Victoria’s train stations with Railway Stories.
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Metro Trains Melbourne has partnered with Storytowns Podcast Tours and the Department of Transport and Planning to capture untold stories of our city with a series of podcasts titled Railway stories. With an initial run of 43 podcasts which have been downloaded more than 14 thousand times, the program has been expanded to now include 126 podcasts covering the entire metropolitan rail network.
Metro Trains CEO Raymond O’Flaherty said “With more than 14 thousand downloads already, these new podcasts are making train travel a more unique and interesting experience for our passengers.”
From the Werribee Park mansion, the Vietnamese restaurants of St Albans and the live music scene in Northcote, Railway stories covers a variety of themes, including local food, street art, travel tips, fun facts, and interesting stories about each suburb’s history, culture and train stations.
The use of geo-located podcasts along the city’s train lines is an Australian-first with the podcasts playing automatically as you approach a landmark or point of interest across Melbourne’s one-thousand-kilometre metropolitan train network.
Jarrod Pickford, Storytowns’ founder, embarked on global hitchhiking trips in his 20s and 30s. His travels inspired a passion to link travellers with local communities via geo-located audio, infused with local insights. Since launching in 2019, Storytowns has offered hundreds of free geo-located podcast tours throughout Australia, transforming the way people explore and connect with their surroundings.
“Melbourne is like no other city and we have loved bringing the suburbs to life with these podcasts,” Pickford said.
Users can access the podcasts for free and start their journey right away. This initiative recently won an IABC Gold Quill Award of Merit and was announced as a finalist for Excellence in Marketing and Communications Content in the Gartner Marketing and Communications Awards, with the winner to be announced in September.
The Storytowns app is available for download on both iOS and Android devices.
