Re: [NSW] - hilarious SMH article

[Hubert Lam <hubert@imap4.com>]

David

the Olympic timetable was based partly on the normal timetable, with
generous standing times at major locations--especially the City inner
and City outer section (City Circle).

I agree with you totally about the Main North line. i've travelled on
it (almost) every single school day for 6 years now (and am about to
finish the last trips!! HSC coming up!). However you must appreciate
that the Northern line runs at capacity in the peaks, especially with
the 15min Central Coast to Syd Terminal trains. It'll be hard to CR to
put anything else on this line without having the Central Coast trains
either making additional stops (makes Coasties angry) or additional
overtakings of slow suburban trains (a real compromise on
reliability!). That's why the all stops in the morning and afternoon
only go to Epping, that's to minimise any problems with the overtaking
business that only occurs on the Main North (and possibly nowhere else).

I think the article meant "reduction in service" in places where it now
seems unjustifyable--and the Northern line is NOT one of them. Every
single off-peak train the runs towards the City is very well loaded, at
times it even means people have to stand until Strathfield. The
Northern line is sure to get extra services in the off peak, as the
half hourly timetable has been around for ... hmm...much longer than i
can even remember (it obviously was already there 6 yrs ago!).

The additional travelling time indicated in the SMH article I think,
means stopping some more South via GRanville trains at Flemington,
maybe Burwood and possibly Croydon so that some Bankstown trains can
terminate at Ashfield--this was what was done during the Olympics.

Other than that, maybe the South Coast trains will have to move
terminus to Redfern, as it's proved to work well (Redfern Platforms 8/9
are rarely used anyway!). I have a feeling that anything that will run
to/from East Hills will go via Airport from next February (as Tezza
announced of the "rumour" that a new timetable should be in place by
that time)... perhaps the "service reductions" could be something like
from 4 * 6car trains per hour on some lines to 3 * 8car trains (no real
change in cars run, but just a less frequent service).



============================================
|Hubert              hubert@imap4.com      |
|Public Transport Ticketing @              |
|http://members.optusnet.com.au/~kiwifruit |
============================================




In article <39D9BD5D.65581BB0@veal.optushome.com.au>,
  David Burns <dpburns@veal.optushome.com.au> wrote:
> Just how infrequent should trains be?
>
> From my local station (Meadowbank) there are services every 30
minutes in
> the off peak (and on weekends). In the peak period there are trains
about every 15 minutes.
> So this should be reduced? Have you actually tried to get on a peak
period
> City bound service from this part of the northern line between 7:30 -
8:30am?
> (same for similarly popular metro stations on other lines I'll bet)
> And don't even dare ask about the average 45 minute wait when an off
peak service
> is cancelled. Or a peak hour service leaving the station without me
on it because I couldn't get
> on the bloody train after the previous service was cancelled.
>
> Complain when I can't get on a train - you bloody bet I will!
>
> The O timetable was a good timetable for the O but as many newsgroup
> participants have noted it was achieved by reducing and suspending
services
> elsewhere.
>
> Let's tune the normal timetable to make the system smoother.
> And then start figuring out how we increase services to cope with
> the expanding population. I don't pretend that this is easy.
> But we have to at least try or the dickheads at the RTA will
> turn the city into another LA.
>
> dB


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