Re: [v] Flinders St station stuff-ups - AGAIN

[Chris Gordon <cmgord@alphalink.com.au>]

I have been lucky enough to spend peak hour in Metrol, during the one of
the platform closures (2&3 actually) last year.  Things change so
quickly and if it wasn't for the quick work of some of those people you
would not even have a train.

Something like this would happen:
A train routed into platform 4 at FSS is set to form say a Alamein
train, but then it is found out that this train had a defect and needs
to be transposed with another train in order to fix this defect, so it
is decided this train would form a Epping train off platform 1 (so that
it can go to Epping and be fixed) so the train from Eltham which was
going to form the Epping train now needs to form an Alamein train, but
because platform 2 & 3 is closed and it can't get to platform 4 to form
an Alamein train, so this train will form a Belgrave train off Platform
1 center, and the train from Glen Waverley that would form the train to
Belgrave will now arrive in Platform 4 and form a Alamein train, but
then this train needs to later divide into 2 three car trains, but this
is a Hitachi train, and so it goes on..........

It the mean time the monitor on say platform 1 has the next train as
Belgrave, but the Epping train will go first and it is not until the
train arrives and it TD number is changed, platform staff notified
etc... they get this right.  After all that the drivers also need to be
contacted and told which train they are driving off which platform
etc....

Once they have done all this then something else will happen and things
will change again.


All I can say is get permission to visit Metrol and spend an peak hour
in there and you will soon see how many people (driver, platform
supervisor, fleet controller, train controller, guy on the panel
etc.....) have to know what is going on, and how things change so
quickly.

Then you will know why this happens, and you will just have prase for
how well things are running. 



> This is getting way beyond a joke.....
> I challenge ANYONE who works at Hillside to come up with the REAL
> explanation for the following:
> 
> Who is responsible for what trains are switched to what platforms at
> FSS?
> 
> This afternoon, I had to catch a train much earlier (about 3 hours) than
> normal - at about 3pm, they couldn't make up their minds what trains
> were leaving what platforms (plat. 2, 3, & 4).  Some trains which
> normally leave from plat. 4 were switched to 3, trains which should have
> been using plat 2 or 3 were switched to 4, the display screens were
> TOTALLY out of sync with actual train movements, and even station staff
> didn't have a clue what was going on!
> 
> For example, at about 14:55, the 15:05 (15:04??) Glen Waverley was
> sitting at plat. 2, was announced as such, but the screens indicated
> "not taking passengers", and the doors were closed, so no-one could get
> on anyway. The 15:01 Alamain train was sitting at plat. 3. At 14:58, the
> 14:59 Lilydale was announced as "departing plat. 4", and passengers were
> only given a one minute warning of this fact.  Considering the mess that
> plat 2/3 is in at the moment, moving everyone from 2/3 across to 4 is a
> major pain the the a..., so why did they do it?
> 
> And why the hell can't they stop changing what platform a train is going
> to leave from?  As a typical example (and one which happens almost every
> day on some services):
> 
> One minute, the screens show that a train going to Lilydale will leave
> from plat 2, then a few mins later plat 3, then back to 2. In the
> meantime, the train arriving on plat 3 ends up being the Lilydale... Or
> worse still, the train arriving on plat 4 will be the one!  In the
> meantime, the screens on plat 2/3 will often be turned off!  With the
> so-called construction works, which restrict access for a large part of
> platforms 2/3, further delays are triggered while passengers attempt to
> move from one side to the other with the limited access caused by the
> construction works.
> 
> It is also quite common for a train to be delayed, because another train
> which is due to leave AFTER the scheduled earlier train was given access
> to the platforms first (which is also what happen this afternoon)!
> 
> Most days, I catch either the 18:04 (which may as well be rescheduled to
> 18:11, as it rarely leaves before then!), the 18:14 Belgrave (usually
> leave 18:16), or the 18:22 Lilydale from FSS.  The trains are almost
> always late, arrive at the other end even later. Even at this time of
> the evening there is almost always platform swapping as in todays
> example above (mainly between 2 & 3, but occassionally switched to plat
> 4 or even plat 1).  And of course, I usually end up missing bus
> connections due to the late running, resulting in 30-40 min wait for the
> next bus....
> 
> This is sloppy running, and can not be justified.  At no time was there
> any indication of signal problems, as trains were using all platforms
> concerned (and switching tracks quite normally).
> 
> And when are they going to FIX THOSE USELESS BLOODY
> SCREENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Can ANYONE explain how many years ago, when everything was done manually
> (computers weren't used for that sort of thing in the 50's/60's/early
> 70's(?)), there were less problems than now.  With modern technology,
> these problems shouldn't be happening, except for when there are genuine
> equipment failures, and yet in real life, things are going downhill very
> fast.
> 
> Mick.

-- 

Chris Gordon

============================================================

http://www.railpage.org.au/vicsig
e-mail - cmgord@alphalink.com.au
ICQ number: 32989450
Mobile Phone: 0409 255 620