Re: [NSW] Skipping stations - is it a common practice?

[matthew@mail.usyd.edu.au (Matthew Geier)]

In article <8ajqo7$s80$1@jedi.apana.org.au>,
C. Dewick <craigd@lios.apana.org.au> wrote:
>Hi Danny,
>
>The problem is that you, as an individual, might be on a train that is
>transposed or cancelled or delayed, and because you'll probably only look at
>it from your personal perspective, you don't see the overall picture, and
>most people assume that they've been 'done a dirty' because *their* train
>has been singled out for a change of plans. That's where the Network Control
>people come in because they see the overall picture and often if one peak
>hour train is cancelled, it might directly affect 1000 people, but that
>single cancellation could indirectly improve the situation for many
>thousands of other passengers who are waiting for other trains which are
>also running late.
>

 I've been subjected to that by one of the major airlines. The plane I was
booked on failed in another city. I and my wife spent 4 hrs sitting around
Tullamarine airport, as one by one (or 2x2) the hapless passengers of our
flight were put on other services (at short notice) as they did the final
manifests and found the 'no shows'.

 The airline had 2 choices. Pull another plane off a service and cause a
cascading chain of late services, or just cancel the service and shove the
passengers (ie us) into other services as space became available.

 I wouldn't want to work in Network Control for any large transport system,
the moment something goes wrong (and it will) there is a group somewhere
who will be mightly ticked off about your solution to the problem when it's
THEIR service that gets canceled.

 Years ago I was being given a quick tour of Metrol in Melbourne. The senior
controller showed me that mornings train graph. A large A0 sheet pre-printed
with the timetabled running graphs of the trains. It was covered with red
lines were he had plotted the movements of the out of course trains and
covered with notes about transpositions and short workings. He claimed that
was a quiet and relatively trouble free morning.  One of the major issues 
was when trains joined or divided at Flinders St. He had to make sure he
didn't transpose a 3 car hitachi for a Comeng or vis, if later in the diagram
it amalgamated with another train at Fliders St. Likewise no point sending a
6 car Hitachi into a diagram for a 6 car Comeng set that divides at some
point. No shunters available to divide the Hitachi's.

 A thankless job that requires a lot of skill.