Re: NYE Fireworks in Sydney

["Bill McNiven" <wmcniven@gunzel.ozemail.com.au>]

David Johnson wrote in message <386DCE46.96E98BFE@ozemail.com.au>...
>Bill McNiven wrote:
>> The timetable, being the standard Saturday afternoon service plus extras
>The timetable on the Illawarra line was extremely wierd and nothing like
any
>other timetable.  Without a copy of STN 1999-99, you would get confused
very
>quickly.  One Waterfall train stopped all to Sutherland, Mortdale, all to
>Arncliffe, Sydenham, Redfern, all to Bondi!
OK, that was another glitch.  I was trying to give an overview of the
operation and its success (or otherwise), not to examine every stupidity in
the timetable.

The 6pm-5am Illawarra timetable was a strange effort to turn a standard 6
trains/hour service into 8 trains/hour.  I have no idea whether preserving
existing bus connections or existing rosters had anything to do with it.

Another real oddity was the overtaking movements scheduled at Central
platforms 22/23.  The ones I looked for at 01:32 and 02:02 didn't actually
happen.

Another I didn't mention was running Blacktown - Richmond as a local
shuttle.  Another was the complete absence of 'Cumberland Line' trains.
(Hey!  Do people really use the 'Cumberland Line'?  If so, why is it
cancelled every time there's something more 'important'?).  These reduced
the daytime frequency between Blacktown and Parramatta from 8 trains / hour
to 4 trains / hour.

If the purpose of CityRail (like that of McDonalds) is to turn out a
standard product with consistent levels of customer service, then things
like stopping patterns on the Illawarra Line and a through trip from the
Quay to Sydenham without being refuged at Central should be important.  But
then, from my observations, a majority of the customers were not regulars,
so maybe this is irrelevant.

Rgds

Bill