Re: Towards a better Passenger Service [WAS:Wonderful, Customer-Responsive GSR]

[Alex Borodin <alex.borodin@qrail.com.au>]

Maurie Daly wrote:

> Heard all about the accident on the radio as it came thru Yass J.

Gee, you really a rail enthusiast, aren't you? Well, on the positive 
side, everyone was really nice to this old lady after that, and I think
she enjoyed all the attention she got from my wife, myself, and everyone
else sitting near her.

> I guess the point I was making was air travel is for most people who actually
> have to pay their own fare unnafordable in this country.
> I only fly when my employer bankrolls the fare,and indeed whilst airlines
> withing Australia carry lots of people,they are usually all public servants or
> people on business related trips.

This is true. Rail isn't terribly affordable either. In fact, it's
more expensive than air travel for a private (non-concession) fare
if you take into account the amount of money people have to spend
on food and drinks when they are sitting on a train for 14 hours
from Brisbane to Sydney.

Road, at the moment, is the King of the Hill when it comes to affordable
travel.

> Bus travel is about the worst way to go anywhere,and I wouldt recommend it for
> anyone.
> The main thing that busses have going for them is
> 1/ They are always cheaper than the equivalent trains ,if there are any.
> 2/ They actually run when customers seem to need them
> 3/ They are always faster than the equivalent trains.

Yup. 

> There is no reason at all why any of the above should be the way it is.
> The basic problem with passenger trains in Australia is
> 
> 1/ Historically they have been run by State Govt Railways who have never seen
> any reason to market their trains over the competition , ie the busses.
> 2/ They run when the Rail companies want to run them , not when passengers are
> likely to want to travel,(Worst case scenerio is the Brisbane XPT,who wants to
> arrive in Brisbane at 6-00AM in the morning.

5-00am, actually... we don't have daylight saving in summer. I don't
mind this
so much if I've got a sleeper on the way up so I'm nice and refreshed, 
but 90% of the population can't afford to get a sleeper, and even if
they 
could they wouldn't get one because there aren't enough of them.

> 3/They are slow,even the XPT is slow compared to the busses.

That's true, but that's because the busses ignore recommended speed 
limits and such like whereas trains pretty much follow them.

> The fix for all this is unfortunately beyond us ,for a couple of reasons.
> Australia has too many Railways authorities for our population and
> trackage,all sadly doing their own thing.

I think this particular problem will change (ie that of having too many 
different railways) rather quickly in the near future because
some railways are just going broke because they have no reliably 
income. Other railways in this country are perfectly poised to do
pretty much whatever they want because have the time and money
on their side.

> There is , and probably never will be , any notion of the National Good when
> Railways come to do new things , like deciding to run new passenger trains ,
> or even freights for that matter.
> Private enterprise running trains will always be hamstrung by Govt
> bureaucracies implementing rules,access charges etc , which simply make rail
> uneconomic.

These things may not change as rapidly as the previous point. But as the
former Govt run railways become businesses instead of bureacracies, 
it will still change.

> I dont hold out much hope for whatever the new National Track access crowd try
> to do to fix the problems because the underlying basis of the problems will
> still remain , ie a segregated Rail system based on State systems.

I don't think that National Track Access by itself is a fix. It's only 
when it is teamed up with an air of enthusiasm in the rail companies
themselves that things can happen. Things are happening.

> Ideally the fix would be to implement a system like Canadian National Railways
> if the Govt insists that the Railways be Govt owned ,or alternatively flog the
> whole system off to private enterprise,and create the Australian equivalent of
> the US FRA to run it all.
>
> No chance of any of this happening though.

I'm not sure that those ideals are really that acceptable in this
country in 
their pure form. 
 
> The XPTs are at the moment anyway , the best of a bad lot,much better than
> busses.

I'd like to see the QR Tilt Train. Of course, why would anyone want to
just 
go to Rocky? And a 120kph topspeed? Well, at least 1st class would
really be
1st class!

> If Countrylink cant run them properly , and Im not at all surprised that they
> cant then offer the system to private enterprise at a cost equivalant to what
> private bus companies have to pay for the use of the roads.
> Fares would then drop to bus type fares and hopefully patronage would increase.
> Ie a private enterprise equivalent of Amtrak.

That's not likely either because there isn't the population for it.
There are only
really two runs which would be worth it - Brisbane-Sydney and thence to
Melbourne.
Maybe Sydney-Canberra to keep the pollies amused, but they'll have their
400 kph TGV so why would they pay for anything else?

I think what is more likely in this country is that the most successful
ex-govt
railway (ie the one which doesn't go broke first) will slowly either
buy-out
the others, or enter their markets and take them over by competition.
Therefore, we will have a national standard eventually enforced purely
by survival of the fittest.

-- 
 o Alex Borodin B.Eng(Hons)        o Queensland Rail  
 o Software and Systems Engineer   o Ph: +61-7-3235-2482   
 o Signal and Operational Systems  o Fax:+61-7-3235-2747
"Without love, the personality is broken up into a multiplicity
of fragmentary psychological moments and elemements. Gods love is
what binds the personality together." St Fr Pavel Florensky