Did you know the Hartwell Station railway bridge features an iconic piece of graffiti painted around 1940? Or that the Moorabbin Air Museum has one of the biggest collections of Australian-built aircraft in the world?

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.

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.

From the Werribee Park mansion, the Vietnamese restaurants of St Albans and the live music scene in Northcote, the series 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.

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.

The Storytowns app is available for download on both iOS and Android devices at www.storytowns.com.au/metro. 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.