Borrowers with big deposits or equity in their homes can shave more than $50 a month off their mortgage repayments as banks ramp up efforts to win low-risk customers.
Research by financial comparison site, Canstar, shows up to half of all lenders are now offering discounts to borrowers with a sizeable deposit or home equity.
Canstar group executive of financial services, Steve Mickenbecker, said banks were seeking to counter the risk posed by falling house prices on the east coast.
Canstar’s Steve Mickenbecker says customers need to ask to get the discounts. Credit: METHOD
He said the discounts were being offered by many lenders in WA even though local property prices had not failed.
But Mr Mickenbecker said it was up to borrowers to request the discount from their bank, with lenders highly unlikely to volunteer the potential saving.
The new research shows that 49 per cent of banks are offering customers with a 40 per cent deposit – or equity in their home worth the same amount – a discount on their interest rate worth an average 0.21 per cent.
Do not wait for a bank to tell you because it rarely happens
Its research states that a $470,000 loan with these banks would normally be subject to an average variable rate of 3.69 per cent interest, if the borrower had an 80 per cent loan-to-value (LVR) ratio on a mortgage for a $587,000 house.
However, these same lenders would discount the rate to 3.48 per cent for the same sized loan for customers with a 60 per cent LVR, which is worth a saving of $56 per month in interest.
”When it comes to the discount, you have to take the initiative – do not wait for a bank to tell you because it rarely happens,” Mr Mickenbecker said.
“And a 0.21 per cent discount is a decent saving.”
The research shows a smaller interest rate discount – worth 0.13 per cent – is being offered by almost a third of lenders to customers with a 30 per cent deposit, or the same sized equity in their home.
Mr Mickenbecker said borrowers should consider switching lenders if their interest rate is too high.
“With the outlook for continued economic growth clouded in the face of rising interest rates, it is not surprising that lenders are competing harder for lower risk borrowers,” he said.
In separate research, RP Data research director Tim Lawless said interest rates may start to stabilize, or potentially reduce next year.
“(T)his could be the cue for housing values to find a floor,” Mr Lawless said.
“Similar to the trajectory of the upswing, this downswing phase could be a short but sharp one, depending on how high and fast interest rate settings go.”
Spotify is updating its app to address a long-standing user complaint with music playback — but it’s asking customers to pay for the fix. The company announced today it will introduce, at last, a separate Play Button and a Shuffle Button at the top of albums playlists to make it easier to play the music the way you like. This will replace the combined button available before, which had been inconsistent across platforms and frustrating to use. However, streamers may be disappointed to find out that what should be an app update in favor of better usability is oddly being sold to them as a reason to upgrade to Spotify’s paid tier — the company says the new button is only being offered to Spotify Premium subscribers.
This seems a bizarre choice given that customer complaints had correctly identified an issue with the overall design of the Spotify app’s interface and its user experience. As one review posted last year to Spotify’s Community forums had noted, the button offered was even different across Spotify’s apps. On mobile, playlists had the combined Shuffle/Play button, but on the desktop, the button was just a regular Play Button. This was confusing for users who switched between platforms, the post pointed out. The user suggested Spotify simply offer two separate buttons so people could choose how they wanted to stream music, instead of having to tap into Now Playing screen to enable or disable Shuffle mode.
The post received 647 upvotes and pages of comments from others who agreed. It was not the only complaint of this nature on the forum site. Others posted similar requests for separate Play and Shuffle buttons or even different solutions to the same problem. For example, one person asked Spotify to allow users to configure which button appeared in the app to make it a user’s choice.
Spotify has been working on this problem for awhile. It first introduced the Shuffle/Play icon in 2020 to reduce streaming to just a click, it said, and last year made Play Button the default button on all albums for Spotify Premium users (at Adele’s request, as you may recall). With this upgrade, the Play Button will remain the default, and Shuffle will be a separate option across the mobile Spotify experience.
While arguably a minor change to the app — it’s literally just a button — it’s clearly a feature that was in need of a fix in users’ minds not a premium offering. Other major music streaming apps, like Apple Music and Amazon Music, already include separate Play and Shuffle buttons, for instance.
It’s uncommon for app makers to charge for something like a different button, especially when the reason for the change is because users were unhappy with the app’s functionality and design. One somewhat related example could be Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, which allows users to customize the bottom bar of the app with buttons of their choosing. But in that case, the option is more about personal preference and quick access to favorite features — not usability. Even without paying, Twitter’s features are still easy to get to in the main navigation on the left side of the app.
Spotify tells us the idea to charge for the button has to do with how it perceives the benefits associated with a Premium Subscription. At its core, Premium users are paying for the option to listen to any song they want, on-demand. The button is somewhat of an extension of that, as it’s allowing users to choose to listen on-demand in any way they want.
Australian swimming champion Kyle Chalmers has bagged another gold, in the 100m freestyle at the Commonwealth Games, but cast doubt on his future in the sport.
In an emotional week, the swimmer led the field at the turn and powered home to win in emphatic fashion in 47.51 seconds from England’s Tom Dean and Scotland’s Duncan Scott.
Aussie William Yang finished sixth and Zac Incerti came eighth.
READMORE:NRL’s rare move to explainable ‘laughable’ decision
READMORE:F1 icon’s switch opens door for Aussie prodigy
READMORE:McLaughlin keen to see SVG try IndyCar
An emotional Chalmers says even a gold medal is tough to celebrate after the week he’s been through.
“It’s special, special to win. But unfortunately, I think it’s hard to enjoy the moment when all that’s happened has gone on,” he said.
“It makes it a very, very challenging time. I’m grateful that I was able to block it out enough to stand up and win tonight.
“But I just hope that no one — I hope this is a learning point for everyone. And, you know, where no one else has to go through what I’ve had to go through the last couple of days. It’s been very challenging .”
Chalmers said he knew his soldier brother was watching the race, saying his “best mate” was the last thought to run through his head before jumping off the blocks.
Kyle Chalmers takes out the 100m freestyle at the Commonwealth Games. (AP)
He brought a finger to his lips after the race as swimming legend and commentator Ian Thorpe described the swim as a performance designed to “silence his critics”.
The swimmer said he thought about not going on but decided that he would just let “the media win”.
An emotionally exhausted Chalmers was asked about his future aspirations, but the Aussie said he could not guarantee he’ll compete at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The swim star revealed he almost burst into tears when speaking to his coach before the race, with the intense media speculation set to cloud his future from him if it continues.
“I definitely want to. That’s been my dream to win in Paris,” he said. “But if I have to keep going through a similar thing I won’t last until Paris, I know that. It’s too challenging and not something I swim for.
“I know I stand here bravely, but this has really set me back a lot. I really don’t know what’s next for me. Right now I’m on a high of racing, but I’m sure tomorrow when I wake up or at the end of the week when I get my flight home there’ll be plenty of different emotions that go through my head, but if it is the pool I think I’ll go back (to the same training set-up). “
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter byclicking here!
Commonwealth Games in pictures: Indian rider Meenakshi Meenakshi injured in horror cycling crash
The Coalition has challenged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to extend the $2.9 billion temporary cut to fuel excise in a move to exploit discontent over the cost of living when petrol prices have exceeded $2 per liter in some cities.
Liberal and Nationals MPs are preparing to back the extension despite the fact they voted only months ago to pass a law that ensured the temporary budget measure would end on September 28.
The move sets up another fight over a budget deadline after Albanese shifted position two weeks ago and agreed to extend the $750 paid pandemic disaster payment for workers with COVID-19 who had to go into isolation.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton interrogates the Prime Minister about the fuel excise and cost of living. Credit:alex ellinghausen
While the original COVID-19 payment ended on June 30, the Prime Minister agreed to reinstate it until September 30 after calls from the states and the federal Coalition.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton cleared the way for the fight over fuel by asking Albanese in parliament on Monday about what the government would do to help Australians deal with rising costs including on fuel.
“Households are facing rising power bills and your plan to address this is in disarray,” Dutton said in question time.
“Will your government compound the pressure on household budgets by not extending the fuel excise relief? Why is Labor making a bad situation worse?”
Albanese did not rule out an extension to the fuel excise cut but expressed surprise at the question and reminded parliament that Dutton was one of the federal cabinet ministers who decided on the excise cut and its September 28 expiry date.
“I point to the fact that he was in the cabinet that put together the budget, it had the end date for the measure he talks about,” the Prime Minister said.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Madison Underwood was lying on the ultrasound table, nearly 19 weeks pregnant, when the doctor came in to say her abortion had been canceled.
Nurses followed and started wiping away lukewarm sonogram gel from her exposed belly as the doctor leaned over her shoulder to speak to her fiancé, Adam Queen.
She recalled that she went quiet, her body went still. What did they mean, they couldn’t do the abortion? Just two weeks earlier, she and her fiancé had learned her fetus had a condition that would not allow it to survive outside the womb. If she tried to carry to term, she could become critically ill, or even die, her doctor had said. Now, she was being told she could n’t have an abortion she did n’t even want, but she needed it.
“They’re just going to let me die?” she remembers wondering.
In the blur around her, she heard the doctor and nurses talking about a clinic in Georgia that could do the procedure now that the legal risks of performing it in Tennessee were too high.
She heard her fiancé curse, and with frustration in his voice, tell the doctor this was stupid. She heard the doctor agree.
Just three days earlier, the US Supreme Court had overturned the constitutional right to abortion. A Tennessee law passed in 2020 that banned abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy had been blocked by a court order but could go into effect.
Ms. Underwood never thought any of this would affect her. She was 22 and excited to start a family with Mr. Queen, who was 24.
She and Mr. Queen had gone back and forth for days before deciding to terminate the pregnancy. She was dreading the abortion. She had cried in the car pulling up to the clinic. She had heard about the Supreme Court undoing Roe v. Wade but she thought that since she had scheduled her abortion before the decision, and before any state ban took effect, the procedure would be allowed.
Tennessee allows abortion if a woman’s life is in danger, but doctors feared making those decisions too soon and facing prosecution. Across the country, the legal landscape was shifting so quickly, some abortion clinics turned patients away before the laws officially took effect or while legal battles played out in state courts.
Century-old bans hanging around on the books were activated, but then just as quickly were under dispute. In states where abortion was still legal, wait times at clinics spiked as women from states with bans searched for alternatives.
It was into this chaos that Ms. Underwood was sent home, still pregnant, and reeling. What would happen now? The doctor said she should go to Georgia, where abortions were still legal up to 22 weeks, though that state had a ban that would soon take effect.
Read More on Abortion Issues in America
How would her fiancé get the time off work to make the trip? How would they come up with hotel and gas money? How long did she have her until she became herself ill? A new, more terrifying question hit her: What if she felt a kick?
‘I Want a Girl’
Mr. Queen said he realized his fiancée was pregnant before she did.
She had thrown up almost every morning for an entire week and had started asking for Chinese takeout, which she normally hated. One night in May, after her shift as manager at a Dollar General store, he brought home a pregnancy test for her. I have hoped and prayed it would come back positive.
“I was ready to start our little family together and get the ball rolling,” he said.
To save money, they lived with his mother, Theresa Davis, and his stepfather, Christopher Davis, in a family farmhouse in Pikeville, a town tucked into a green valley about an hour outside Chattanooga.
Ms. Underwood crept into the upstairs bathroom. It was her first ever pregnancy test for her, and she did not want to mess it up. She spent 15 long minutes staring at her bedroom television, waiting.
Her phone alarm went off and she glanced at the test, picking it up and shaking it. A line shot across it in the positive column. For a couple of seconds, she stopped breathing.
“I hope it’s a boy,” her fiancé said.
Her heartbeat sped up. She was smiling.
“I know you want a boy! You already have a girl,” she said, laughing. “But you know I want a girl.”
Mr. Queen had a child with a previous girlfriend, and some of his income went to child support. He and Ms. Underwood had dated for the last four years; he proposed on a trip to Virginia Beach early this year.
On Mother’s Day, the couple revealed the pregnancy to both sets of their parents through cleverly wrapped “Best Nana Ever” gift baskets. At first, they dealt with some blowback for getting pregnant before being married, but with their wedding date set for late June, and the thrill of a new baby, everyone got over it.
At her first checkup at a free local clinic, they learned she was 13 weeks pregnant and due Nov. 23. The couple left the appointment happy.
Mr. Queen worked full time, but his fiancée had no health insurance. They waited to be approved for Medicaid so she could schedule an appointment with a licensed obstetrician. Ms. Underwood went about her routines, taking care of her three cats, fish and other pets, and feeding the neighbor’s goats.
Mr. Queen’s mother, Ms. Davis, hung up the ultrasound photos in her bedroom. She was staring at them when she noticed something.
“I called Madison and said, ‘Is your baby a cat?’” she said. “Because her head looked like it had ears.”
olivia
At Ms. Underwood’s next appointment, a nurse promised more ultrasound pictures for the family to take home. The nurse asked questions, took measurements and confirmed her due date. But then she got “real quiet,” Ms. Underwood said.
“She said it’ll be a few minutes, and the nurse practitioner is going to be in and she’s going to talk to you and ‘see what we’re going to do from here,’” she said.
For Ms. Davis, who accompanied Ms. Underwood to the appointment, and had experienced seven miscarriages, the words “set off alarm bells” in her head. “It doesn’t sound good,” she told her future daughter-in-law.
At first, the nurse practitioner said there was a mild case of encephalocele, or a growth along the back of the fetus’s neck because of neural tubes failing to close during the first month of pregnancy. Encephalocele occurs in about 1 in every 10,500 babies born in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The nurse practitioner told the family it would be able to be fixed through surgery, and that there might be an intellectual disability or developmental delay, possibly seizures. Ms. Underwood and her fiancé were “OK with that,” she said. But she was concerned the baby would have to have surgery just after birth. “I was just so scared,” she said.
They also learned they were having a girl. They decided to name her Olivia, after Ms. Underwood’s grandfather, Oliver.
The doctors referred the family to Regional Obstetrical Consultants, a chain of clinics that specializes in high-risk pregnancy treatments. The practice declined to comment for this article.
There, the family said they learned more devastating news: The fetus had not formed a skull. Even with surgery, doctors said, there would be nothing to protect the brain, so she would survive at most a few hours, if not minutes, after birth.
Even then, Ms. Underwood hoped to carry the pregnancy to term so at the very least, she could meet her baby and donate the organs if possible.
“It just felt like the only option,” she said. “Everything happens for a reason.”
But doctors told her that the fetus’s brain matter was leaking into the umbilical sac, which could cause sepsis and lead to critical illness or even death. Doctors recommended she terminate the pregnancy for her own safety from her.
“We were debating on it because I thought, maybe I can beat the odds,” she said. “But then I got scared.” She added that, “I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to regret it. Because me and Adam, we’re going to have to be the ones dealing with it our whole life.”
They postponed their wedding and scheduled the abortion at the Chattanooga location of Regional Obstetrical Consultants for Monday, June 27.
Caught in a Nationwide Battle
Before June 24, the day of the Supreme Court ruling, Tennessee allowed abortion up until 24 weeks into pregnancy, but clinics rarely performed any after the 20-week mark, said a spokeswoman for the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, one of the largest abortion clinics in Tennessee.
Outside of abortion-specific clinics, only a few medical centers in the state provided the procedure. The Knoxville Center said it stopped providing abortions the Friday that Roe was overturned in anticipation of Tennessee law changing.
That day, Herbert Slatry III, the state attorney general, filed a motion for the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to lift a nearly two-year-old injunction that had blocked an attempt to ban abortions after about the sixth week of pregnancy . The injunction was lifted one day after Ms. Underwood’s abortion was canceled.
Her parents and grandparents, who opposed abortion, took it as a sign to reconsider. They had prayed for God to stop the abortion if it wasn’t supposed to happen, and when it didn’t, they were convinced she should try to carry the pregnancy to term.
“We were just hoping for a miracle,” said her mother, Jennifer Underwood.
They said she should give birth so she could see Olivia, say goodbye and bury her.
She told them no. “I’m doing what I think I can handle,” Ms. Underwood would say later, sobbing in between words.
Mr. Queen’s mother said she supported the couple’s decision from the start. At age 12, she was raped and ended up giving birth to a stillborn baby.
“Religion has nothing to do with it. Sometimes your body just does things to you, and if you have to have an abortion, don’t feel guilty about it,” she said.
As stress on the couple mounted, Mr. Queen quit his job to take care of Ms. Underwood. His mother raised $5,250 to help with travel costs from the crowd funding website GoFundMe. The cash would also help pay for the fetus’s cremation.
‘Our Baby Is Going to Die’
Two cars left Pikeville at 2 am in early July for a four-hour drive across state lines and time zones to make the 8 am appointment at an abortion clinic in Georgia. Ms. Underwood, Mr. Queen and his mother were in one car; Ms. Underwood’s parents of her and one of her brothers of her followed.
When they stopped at the third Circle K of the night, she squeezed her own mother tight and cried. Her parents de ella had made a last-minute decision to accompany her, even if they did not fully agree.
At sunrise, the couple sat in a corner booth at a Waffle House, his hand massaging her back.
She would have a two step-procedure known as a D&E, a dilation and evacuation, over two days. First, she would be given medication to induce dilation, and sent to her hotel room to wait. The next day, she would return to the clinic to finish the procedure. The Georgia clinic’s staff warned the family about protesters outside. As they pulled into the parking lot, they drove by a man with signs showing dead fetuses.
“Are all of you OK with killing babies?” I have shouted into a megaphone.
He approached Ms. Underwood’s parents’ car, and her mother rolled down the window.
“We’re on the same side of this as you,” her mother said. “We don’t support abortion, but the doctors said our baby is going to die.”
“Do you trust doctors more than God?” I replied.
The couple walked side-by-side up a steep hill to the clinic entrance. She wore headphones to drown out the protesters.
Six hours later, they came back out. The parking lot was quiet.
An aviation expert has warned travel chaos “pain” could continue into next year as the industry struggles to meet soaring demand after stripping services during the pandemic.
Flight Center managing director Graham Turner cautioned travelers to be wary of delays and cancellations until at least the end of the year as airlines contend with inexperienced and ill staff.
“Bear in mind the aviation industry, and you know travel industry generally, has two-and-a-half years when we had to absolutely cut to the bone everything and now building that back up is quite difficult,” he said on Channel 9’s Today show.
Mr Turner admitted the aviation industry was experiencing a “tough period” and asked travelers to exercise “a bit of patience”.
The travel boss noted the chaos was more manageable for domestic travelers despite the mass cancellations and delays.
On Monday, 40 flights between Sydney and Melbourne were canceled and hundreds of people were left sitting on plans after a computer outage grounded Qantas plans.
“Domestically, our experience is although there are delays, a lot of changes, quite a few cancellations, generally most people are getting away and getting to their destination,” he said.
“It is a bit harder internationally because if you get international cancellations it can be quite hard to get seats.”
Mr Turner said there would continue to be “pain” for travelers for at least the next couple of months as the industry grapples with staffing issues and the effects of the ongoing pandemic.
Happily, he predicts, traveling around Australia will be much easier by the end of the year when “all of this really settles down”.
“Domestically, it will improve and we certainly predict by October/November, assuming the Omicron does settle down, it will be much better off,” he said.
While the news will surely be welcomed by local travellers, those looking to travel internationally have no reassuring timeline for when the dust will settle.
The bleak news comes as Australia’s airports gain international attention for all the wrong reasons.
Sydney’s Kingsford Smith International Airport was recently ranked one of the 10 worst airports in the world for flight delays.
Meanwhile, social media has been flooded with angry travelers reporting lost baggage, delayed or canceled flights and staggering queues.
Spotify Premium users will get more control in the coming weeks, as the music streaming service will push out an update that will separate the play and shuffle buttons. Currently, the play and shuffle buttons are combined for Spotify Premium and Spotify Free account holders.
While it doesn’t seem like a huge deal, separating the play and shuffle buttons will give users a more streamlined experience. This will apply to users listening to albums or playlists. Although this might not seem like such a big deal, it was for one artist, Adele, who called out Spotify’s shuffle experience for an album release last year. The artist was able to have the service turn shuffle off by default, allowing users to listen to albums as intended. To make things more transparent for users, Spotify will double down on this concept, allowing its paid subscribers to get an improved user interface.
The music streaming service recently announced that it had grown its total subscriber count to 433 million, with 188 million premium subscribers. Despite its dominance, it has regularly brought improvements to its platform. For example, it recently introduced Friends Mix, Blend, Supergrouper, and more. However, while the company has succeeded with its service, it has not done so well regarding hardware, as it recently announced that it would discontinue its Car Thing accessory.
The update will roll out to Android and iOS users in the coming weeks. This will be a global release and should hit all regions. The update is for Premium users, so if you’re on a free Spotify account, you can expect nothing to change. However, if you want to try out Spotify, click the link below. The app can also be found on the App Store for iOS devices. Now, if we could only get Spotify Hi-Fi sometime this year.
West Indies evened its Twenty20 series with India after Obed McCoy skittled the visitors for a record 6-17 in the second match of the series.
McCoy, a left-arm seamer, produced the best West Indies bowling figures in a T20 to help bowl out India for 138 in 19.4 overs.
West Indies made hard work of the chase in the end at 141-5 in the last over, three days after losing the first match by 68 runs.
READMORE:Video bluff of Storm giant’s non-penalty stuns
READMORE:F1 icon’s switch opens door for Aussie prodigy
READMORE:McLaughlin keen to see SVG try IndyCar
The five-match series is at 1-1 with the third game on Tuesday staying in Basseterre.
The change in venue from Trinidad to Saint Kitts invigorated the West Indies, but also caused a three-hour delayed start because of the late arrival in the country of the teams’ kit and gear.
Brandon King, in for Shamarh Brooks, crushed the first ball of the chase to the deep point boundary off Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Obed McCoy took 6-17 in a huge win for the West Indies. (Getty)
King’s partner, Kyle Mayers, went for 8 in an opening stand of 46, and captain Nicholas Pooran for 14, but after 10 overs West Indies was 73-2 and cruising.
King kept going until the 16th over when he was bowled by Avesh Khan, India’s extra seamer for the match. King scored a career-best 68 from 52 balls, eight fours and straight after his second six.
When he left at 107-4, West Indies needed 32 more runs from 27 balls. What should have been a comfortable win turned into a nervous end with 10 needed off the last over.
The finish came quickly when Devon Thomas, West Indies’ other change from the first T20, hit a six and four to give them a five-wicket win. Thomas was 31 not out from 19 balls.
India captain Rohit Sharma defended giving main striker bowler Kumar only two overs, both in the powerplay.
Romanian cricket cult hero taking world by storm
“We know Bhuvneshwar, what he brings to the table, but if you don’t give opportunity to Avesh or Arshdeep (Singh) you will never find out what it means to bowl at the death for India,” Sharma said. “They have done it in the IPL. (This is) just one game, those guys don’t need to panic. They need backing and opportunity.”
After West Indies chose to bowl, McCoy’s bounce took out Sharma with the first ball. He also bagged Suryakumar Yadav with the first ball of his second over.
Shreyas Iyer slashed at Alzarri Joseph and edged behind, and Rishabh Pant was caught on the boundary after 24 from 12 balls. India was 61-4 in the seventh over but began to crawl.
Joseph, who conceded 17 runs in his first over, rebounded to finish with 1-29.
India went almost six overs without hitting a boundary, and McCoy returned to mop up.
In the 19th over, he got Dinesh Karthik to mistime, Ravichandran Ashwin to hole out in the deep, and Kumar to edge behind. India was 129-9 and McCoy’s 6-17 including a maiden over was West Indies’ best figures, and the seventh best all-time in T20s.
“Great feeling to do it against a top side like India,” McCoy said. “Went in with a clear mind. Was overthinking in the previous game.”
Jason Holder yorkered Khan for 2-23 and ended India’s innings with two balls to spare.
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter byclicking here!
Commonwealth Games in pictures: Indian rider Meenakshi Meenakshi injured in horror cycling crash
Joe Dietz has loved trains ever since riding the railways of Europe on family holidays as a child.
As a young man now living in Cairns, he has turned his boyhood passion into a unique career on and off the tracks.
His day job is driving locos during the far north Queensland sugarcane crushing season, which stretches from May to November.
Joe Dietz has been driving cane trains, or locos, in far north Queensland since finishing high school.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
Mr Dietz, aka TrainGuy 659, says winding his way through the neighborhoods and farmlands on the cane train tracks of far north Queensland is a dream job.
“I’ve just always had a thing for trains,” he says.
“I’ve always wanted to work on the railways.”
Mr Dietz’s family moved to the region when he was in high school.
“I was just lucky that, after graduating, I ended up getting a gig on the cane locos,” he says.
“You get the best of the city life, but you also have the countryside too and making connections with the farmers and the community in those areas is something unique.
“I’m living the best of two worlds.”
Mr Dietz is also living in two worlds when it comes to train driving — the real world and the online world.
Joe Dietz says driving trains is his dream job.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
During the other half of the year, he drives miniature Lego trains on intricate tracks around his family home, and millions upon millions of people watch him do it.
Seven years ago, I started the YouTube channel TrainGuy 659.
His unique work-life balance has allowed him to build a massive audience and become a professional YouTuber.
“When I first started, I wasn’t getting paid or anything from YouTube, so every season, I go back [to the cane trains],” Mr Dietz says.
“The YouTube audience grows every year because I have that time off, so I’m just lucky to work six months on, six months off.
“The YouTube thing pays the bills but isn’t something I can live off independently… but there is more potential.”
Massive miniature feats of engineering
Mr Dietz became an internet sensation when he began producing his annual Christmas Lego train videos, all of which have attracted audiences in the tens of millions.
loading
These involve constructing about 120 meters of Lego train track around his parents’ home, across obstacles including the backyard swimming pool, and even through the neighbours’ yard.
Joe Dietz’s train videos involve constructing around 120 meters of Lego train track through various obstacles.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
Mr Dietz says it is a painstaking process that can be up to a month of work.
“It’s like building an actual railroad but in miniature,” he says.
“It takes three to four weeks to set up. It takes about a week or two to film, and it’s packed up within three days.
“There’s a lot of trial and error, and you do a lot of testing too. There’s a lot of time that goes into it.”
Mr Dietz says there is no shortage of derailments during the shoots, which have resulted in some highly entertaining blooper reels, usually featuring cameo appearances from the family pets.
The Dietz family’s dog, Matilda, has been responsible for numerous Lego train derailments, which appear in the TrainGuy 659 blooper videos.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
“We’ve got a blue heeler, and you know what cattle dogs are like… they go after the train… [in one video] she’s nipping at it, she’s knocking it over,” he says.
“They actually end up doing better than the main video — everyone loves bloopers.
“There’s one time the train accidentally fell in a pool, which was like, ‘Oh no!'”
loading
He says the odd, stray Lego piece also poses hazards for his supportive but long-suffering family.
“The amount of sore toes around the house during Christmas and New Year’s, it’s not funny,” Mr Dietz says.
The secret building blocks of internet stardom
Mr Dietz’s YouTube channel has amassed 660,000 subscribers, while his combined views are in the tens of millions.
Joe Dietz is a professional YouTuber having attracted an audience in the tens of millions who watch his Lego train videos online.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
He’s often asked what the secret is to becoming internet famous. His answer to it is relatively simple.
“Find something that’s unique that hasn’t been done before,” he says.
“And if you’re doing something that’s already out there, find what makes you stand out to make it different to the others.”
In addition to his annual Christmas specials, Mr Dietz began producing a series of Lego train road trip videos.
“I started doing these tunnels with some PVC pipe, the Lego train goes through this, and it’d transition to a different scene,” he says.
“I did this one around Australia, and that really took off.”
loading
The initial concept film in 2019 was well-received, attracting 10 million views, but his grand plans were ultimately derailed by COVID-19.
Now that national and international borders have re-opened, Mr Dietz says he is hoping to get his Lego train road trip dream back on track with plans to take his train set through Europe when the crushing is over next season.
“It smelled electrical, you know you can smell that,” said Christina Lawlor, who was in the building Friday.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — The fire that destroyed Jim’s Steaks on South Street was caused by an issue with the electrical wiring, fire officials said Monday.
The fire was first reported around 9:15 am Friday at the popular Philadelphia cheesesteak shop on the 400 block of South Street.
The fire reached two alarms before it was brought under control. Officials say it was a difficult battle because the flames were moving through the heating and air conditioning system.
Christina Lawlor was in the building Friday morning, opening Jim’s Steaks for the day.
“I knew it when I walked in (Friday) morning something wasn’t right because it was too hot,” she said.
“I started smelling something. It smelled electrical, you know you can smell that,” she continued. “So I’m like, ‘something’s not right.’ We looked up and saw smoke coming down from where the walk-in is and it was smoke pouring down.”
In all, the fire department says more than 125 personnel responded to the scene, along with nearly 60 vehicles.
“With us not being here it’s hard on everybody,” said Kenneth Silver, owner of Jim’s Steaks.
Silver vows to rebuild.
“We won’t know exactly what started the fire until the actual electrical investigators get in here,” said Silver. “Structurally, we know the building is sound so at least we know we can rebuild.”
Jim’s Steaks South St. just celebrated its 46th year at the beginning of July, opening its doors for the first time in 1976.
