Re: XPT Whinge,(cont)

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

>That is your decision..... the insides of the trains are not flash mainly
>because of the short turnaround times and the lack of time to do much with
>em...... if ya knew thyre cycle u might understand
>
No offence but who cares about their cycles? (Apart from Railfans and
employees.)

At the end of the day, if a person is faced with a choice between a clean
comfortable fast reliable mode of transport or a dirty noisy slow
inconsistent one, they will take the former. They won't care about duty
cycles or how little the cleaners are paid or that the staff have been on
their feet for the last 14 hours or whatever. They care about being
comfortable, clean and arriving at a reasonable time every time without the
employees treating them like second class citizens. Why are the airlines so
successful? Because planes and airports are more often than not fast, clean,
reliable and semi-comfortable, at least for short flights. As well, the
plane staff pretend that you aren't the scum of the earth and pretend to be
polite to you as if you are someone who matters. Unfortunately in these days
where railways are an economic concern, they need to be judged by their own
economic standards and in many peoples eyes they don't cut it.

On the other hand, an XPT compared to my '76 Chrysler Gallant is clean
comfortable reliable and fast although the nice policeman slapping the
yellow canary on my car is still much more polite than the Countrylink
Passenger Attendant...8^)