Re: City Rail Problems 27/11

[Wollongong Quokka <quokka@zipper.zip.com.au>]

On 26 Dec 1997, Albert Alcoceba wrote:

> Interestingly enough an electrical storm on Friday 19th caused the failure
> of traction power out at Engadine.  This happened at around 1600 and I
> would estimate the outage to have been around 3 hours long. (others can
> correct me on this).
> 
> It seems that CityRail did learn from earlier mistakes and as soon as the
> problem was known it ceased running trains beyond Hurstville - all trains
> were turned back at Hurstville to form UP services.  I large contingent of
> buses was found (mainly State Transit Buses from Burwood and Kingsgrove
> Depots but quite a mixture of private operators as well) to operate express
> buses Hurstville to Sutherland, Hurstville Express to Sutherland then all
> stations to Waterfall, and Hurstville all stations to Sutherland.
> 
> Trains were running a shuttle service, Sutherland to Cronulla, and I assume
> Waterfall to Port Kembla/Dapto.
> 
> Delays to passengers were minimal (in the order of 30 - 45 minutes) and
> could have been reduced if the bus drivers had known the best access routes
> between stations - but you can hardly blame them for that.

30-45 minutes isn't a bad delay over that distance considering the
circumstances.

It just goes to show... it's a pretty workable idea...  and I didn't even
think State Transit would have that many buses spare at that time of day.

> Passenger / staff information was again poor.

It seems to be a recurring theme.  It's particularly bad because just
keeping people informed about what is actually going on can have a lot of
benefit and keep things running as well as possible.

CityRail could do well to learn the art of the apology as well.  It's not
difficult really and could well make significant improvements in customer
satisfaction.

> I would say that City Rail learned a lot from the earlier problems and
> delays were kept to a minimum. However in the area of information being
> relayed to stations - possibly some improvement could be made.

That would seem to be a huge improvement.  Last time was a complete
disaster.  If they could fix that communication problem they would almost
have it I think.

--
Robs the Wollongong Quokka
http://www.zip.com.au/~quokka/