Sardine can letter wrong? (Melb)

[pshute@melbpc.org.au]

In Friday's "Age" (28.7.00) there was a letter titled "Welcome to the
sardine can on rails". The writer was complaining that their train was
not only late, but did also not stop at his station (Hughesdale)
because it was too full to take any more passengers.

I was under the impression that:
a) a driver wouldn't have a clue how crowded it was, and
b) would have to stop anyway in case someone wanted to get off there.

Is it possible that a driver would ever be instructed to express
through a scheduled stop to save time?  I've only ever known this to
happen by mistake, but is it possible that with fines for lateness
Bayside is getting sneaky? Surely there are fines for skipping
stations?

I assume that what really happened is that the train was later than
the writer thought, and that what he saw was really the previous
express (he didn't say what time it was).

He complains that it was announced that his train was 7 minutes late,
but he finally got on one 15 minutes late.  Can anyone tell me if
Hughesdale has a green button to press to get info on the next train?

Any thoughts?