Re: [NSW] Buses ireplaced of trains.........

["Ivan Smith" <ivsmith11@nospam.hotmail.com>]

"RT" <r.thomas@cqu.edu.au> wrote in message
3AD29D12.47A41423@cqu.edu.au">news:3AD29D12.47A41423@cqu.edu.au...
> Ivan Smith wrote:
> ........
> >
> > Hmm.
>
> Great!   Always a pleasure to read a long, heartfelt, detailed,
> well-written rant - one of the best things about Usenet :-)
>
> (Makes both of us feel better :-)

I'm glad someone else finds it entertaining. A certain type thinks he knows
all about the SRA when he resides in Canberra, and gets all steamed up in
the negative presumptive about everything and anyone. Hmm. :)

Further to this particular story and rant though:

I get home from work tonight and pick up the local rag and what I do I see
on the front page? Well, the main headline, reads "Commuters
furious-CityRail System Meltdown".

Now apart from the fact the it's sensationist by nature, I find it amusing
that after reading the article, I find out some really detailed information,
such as the points failure, turns out to be a pantograph messed up in the
wires at Mortdale, taking out the Illawarra Line in both directions, and
preventing other trains from leaving the sheds at Mortdale to assume their
service runs (this affected areas other than mine).

The really ironic thing; ironic in that it proves *exactly* what I'm ranting
about, is this, and I quote "A CityRail spokesman said the accident happened
at 5:30am" . So we have the Illawarra Line out from 5:30am, both directions,
stock at Cronulla (max 4 sets - 1 in reality it seems). I get to Cronulla
Station at 8:45am and.....nothing. Not a peep.

And that's the point: nothing - The SRA couldn't get it together enough,
didn't respect enough, to let the commuters know 3 1/2 hours later what had
happened, and what was being to done. To compound this I discover that a
train was indeed running between Sutherland and Cronulla, but irregularly,
and that busses were provided from Sutherland to Hurstville (quite a hike in
distance).

Compounding this minor disaster is the fact that there weren't enough busses
to ferry the passengers in both directions because the spares were all in
service at the Royal Easter Show at Homebush. In a word: PR and Operational
Disaster.

The only condolence and congratulation I will heap on the SRA for yesterday
is that they managed to keep a state of panic, frustration and shock hidden
from the general public (sans the incident where the guard and the driver
were arguing on the train which did arrive yesterday while I was there).

"CityRail said it regretted that passengers had been 'left in the dark'. We
are very keen to improve the way we communicate with our customers", the
spokesman said - So for 3 1/2 hours nothing happened. People at Kogarah
report hearing "The train to Hurstville will arrive in 3 minutes" and it
never arrived - I mean , please! Mortdale is the next station down the line
from Kogarah, and they can't get an announcement together to tell the
thousands of people there that something had happened???

To add salt to an already sore wound, this spokes person goes on to say
"When we hear that this is not happening we are very disappointed because we
see it as a service priority". All this tells me is that there is no
fundamental communication and incident strategy in place when staff are
trained. This leads me back on a trail that's too time consuming and
interwoven to rave about here, but there it is, admitted in a local paper
article.

Basically it's a free for all beyond a few people knowing what really
happened at any given time by the looks of it.

Apparently also the guards and drivers were notified by pager or SMS. On the
Cronulla Line? They couldn't be that hopeless surely ;)

Nope. The SRA is.....(insert any word that fills your head when it lets you
down).

Ivan