[NSW] Southern Highlands Blues

["David Bennetts" <davibenn@ozemail.com.au>]

A letter to bowral.yourguide

The Editor,

Dear Sir,

"What time does the 6.15 train leave?" Is this a moronic question or is it a
consequence of the Southern Highlands Interstate Train Service (I dare not
make an acronym of this as the parochial term for excrement may not be
printable in newspapers).

You see on Monday it leaves 20 minutes earlier, Tuesday it leaves at 6.15
and Wednesday, well, no one is sure yet.

But next week it will be different again and us mere "passengers" (SRA
cannot use the word "customers") must tailor our days and livelihood around
the machinations of the SRA bureaucracy.

We are told that the track upgrades are necessary to improve reliability,
safety and comfort and it is only a temporary inconvenience, which has been
going on for six years now - (please define temporary).

We are told that the proof of the pudding is that the time between Albury
and Sydney has been reduced by 12 minutes.

Now that's a tad misleading as the only beneficiaries of this extraordinary
achievement (in six years, that's two minutes a year) is freight and
CountryLink passengers.

When is this 12 minutes going to be incorporated in the timetables for the
Southern Highlands?

If it is not applicable to the Southern Highlands, why make a point of it?

While on the subject of freight and Countrylink, while we Southern
Highlanders are herded to and from trains to buses, how many Countrylink
passengers are similarly inconvenienced?

It's strange that the freighters and Countrylink may still thunder through
the track works unabated, but not our humble cattle carts.

A cynical thought is that SRA achieve more revenue from freight and
Countrylink so be damned the commuters, miss your trains, be herded onto
buses, get home later and wake up earlier but the freight must get through!

On the Sydney suburban network, and to minimise disruption, SRA carry out
trackwork at night, on the weekends or 24 hours a day to complete the work
as quickly as possible.

Can anyone assure me that these options are being used for the Highlands, or
are they too expensive and it is easier to create the bus people?

There's also a contradiction in SRA rhetoric - travel by train, safer and
less polluting than road transport yet here we are herded around on road
transport when other options are clearly available (vis-a-vis Countrylink
and freighters).

Yours sincerely,

Ian Napier

Principal Consultant

KAIB Management Services

MY ADDED COMMENTS (For what they're worth!)

The interruptions on the Southern Highlands are understandable in view of
the need to upgrade the track.  What a lot of passengers cannot understand
is the continually fluctuating times of trains (often running up to 20
minutes early!) or the replacement bus services. They can't rely on a
regular printed timetable, which BTW hasn't been available for months under
a lame brained excuse that the timetable is being revised.  They have to try
and get information by phone or personal approach at the station, and even
then can't always get it in advance.  I myself was told a few weeks back
that my train could run late but would leave Bowral on the normal schedule.
Fortunately I arrived early at the station, to see the train turn up 10
minutes early!  They also see trains still using the tracks (Countrylink and
Freight operators) and cannot understand why their trains don't run.

There's nothing in this to instill public confidence in rail services to the
Southern Highlands, if the work needs to be done, fine, but public transport
needs to run to predicatable schedules.  One day we've got trains, the next
day it's buses. Perhaps it would have been better with buses throughout the
work period, as with Dapto - Kiama.  If CityRail had produced some sort of
information leaflet on the work and why it was necessary etc, and an
alternative timetable, much of the public confusion and  resentment as
expressed in the letter above may have been alleviated.

We're not silvertails using the trains here, they still drive their Rolls
Royces and BMWs up and down the freeway.

Regards

David Bennetts