Re: Olympic Park Timetable

["Gnome 412" <gnome412@hotmail.com>]

Tezza boosted his own ego, replying to himself in message
<39a11a1b$0$752$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>...
>> Tezza wrote:
>> > In their eminent wisdom this afternoon, Control decided to introduce
>"stack
>> > 'n pack" at Olympic Park. Trains that were due to depart several
minutes
>> > before the game actually finished were delayed 10 minutes to wait for
>the
>> > crowds. Meanwhile all the following trains were also delayed as they
>stacked
>> > up behind them. By 7pm, trains were banked up from Sydney Terminal back
>to

>Frankly it did. Stupid of me I suppose, but I thought if things are running
>great and to timetable they should be left to run as timetabled.
>

I think some correspondents misunderstand the situation.

The "powers that be" don't have the resources to produce a different
timetable for every football match.  So, to economise on timetabling, they
produced one program in STN888-2000 to handle both the 25,000 passengers
expected for last Sunday's NRL Second Preliminary Final (finishing at 4.30
pm) and next Sunday's Grand Final (finishing at 5 pm).

Last Sunday, I watched a bit of the CityRail action at Strathfield.  As
expected, there were ten full-ish trains to the City between 4.50 and 5.30.
Then a constant stream of almost-empty trains to the city ... all following
a timetable designed for 55,000 Grand Final patrons leaving Olympic Park
between 5.15 and 6.35 next Sunday.  Sure, there may have been surplus trains
stacked on the Up Main around 6 pm, but the passengers had already gone.

A typical Olympic Park event involves 15 trains scheduled to provide a trip
every 4 minutes to Central.  If the crowd is so small (say 55,000 total =>
22,500 by train to Central) that each train need make only one trip, then
it's better customer service to queue the trains up waiting for the crowd.
The only problem is that those trains that make a second round trip for the
few stragglers end up in a queue for a very disorganised Sydney Yard.

We sometimes forget that the trains are run for the benefit of the paying
punters, not for the sole benefit of the person in the front compartment or
for the sake of running to a timetable.

Rgds