Re: [Fwd: No-kiss area for Flinders st Station]
Michael Walker (walker@hotkey.net.au)
Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:38:43 +1000
>Does the loop direction change happen at the same time on all lines?
>
>It is a long story.
>
<snip long interesting account of PTC stuff up>
Admittedly, the PTC have a long history of not making their minds up until
the last minute. The problem with this is the number of people making the
decision.
I can give a very recent example from either Thursday or Friday night.
For non-Melb residents there is more or less double track between the city
and Greensborough (except for two brief stretches of single track). From
Greensborough to Eltham is single track, scheduled to take 7 minutes and can
take around 6 if the driver pushes it a little or 5 if he/she is finishing
his/her shift 8^). The other night a train was running around 12 minutes
late around Rosanna and Metrol ring Eltham to say push the next up through 3
minutes early. Eltham safeworking officer doesn't like this as it tends to
create complaints, especially given the down will be at Greensborough by the
time Metrol want the up to leave Eltham because the driver has caught up
some time. After about 10 minutes of arguing, Metrol gives in, especially
after Eltham gets Greensborough to ring Metrol to say the train has caught
up some time. To cut a long story short, the up was only 5 minutes late at
Greensborough (although I believe the TR book was more favourable to show to
anyone who was interested that the station staff have a better idea of how
to run the trains than Metrol). Whilst in this case, I believe the station
staff were right and Metrol was wrong, in theory Metrol has a higher
authority than safeworking officers.
To get back to my point, in this case 3 people were fighting over which
decision to make up until the train left Watsonia, 3 minutes before the
altered move was supposed to take place. How the hell can anyone tell
customers what is going on if staff don't know until just before it happens?
Also, what is the deal with running trains early? It is one thing to be 5
minutes late because the train is late, it is another to be 33 minutes late
(this happened when trains were running at 30 minute frequencies to the
city) because it is operationally convenient, especially given the train can
make up most of those 5 minutes on the trip to the city and won't be late on
its next run as it will probably be waiting for a while anyway. Hence the
difficulties in keeping customers informed and why the Met has a long way to
go to cope with extraordinary events, much like Sydney going by last
Novembers posts.
>They used to have destination marker lights until around 1990. Even
Cabramatta
>residents knew which train was theirs!
>
Melbourne trains did too. However for novice users who probably don't
realise that 1. the lights are there, 2. What the lights are for, 3. Which
light indications are for which lines? Or to put it another way, did
Cityrail / SRA / PTCNSW / NSWGR actively publish posters or other info
explaining this system?
I think I still prefer a nice unambiguous 'Eltham' on the front of my
train.