First Stop Central?

[Paul Hogan <pghogan@bigpond.com>]

Here's one for all the CityRail experts - on Weds this week I caught a
diverted Intercity peak hour service from Hornsby via the Up shore, 
partly out of curiosity as to how well the system was coping with the 
Concord derailment aftermath.

The journey was about as slow as expected, due to the difficulty 
of finding  extra paths on the Shore at that hour of day (8.10 am 
ex Hornsby). It took a full hour to get to Central, with the last 20 
mins spent between Milsons Point and Central, including lengthy stops
WLC in the tunnel outside Town Hall and Wynyard.

The service was advertised at Hornsby as "first stop Central" , and
that strategy successfully deterred most regular City via shore commuters
from boarding. On arrival at Central 18 Platform, I estimate that about 
40% of passengers transferred to 16 platform and joined an already
packed Down shore service to go back to Town Hall and Wynyard!

There must be a logical reason for this, although I've noted in 
emergencies that operational dictates take precedence over passenger
considerations and sometimes common sense. The two popular theories 
seem to be  -

a.  Additional stops, even if "set down"only will increase delays
     and congestion at the underground stations. However, the back-
     loading I witnessed on the next down Shore service seems to 
     defeat this argument somewhat.
b.  An 8 car V set is too long for the platforms in the underground 
    and having unlocked doors on carriages still in the tunnel
    is deemed unsafe. (Even so, this situation still arose at Central
    suburban platforms, resulting in passengers having to walk through 
    the train to alight.)

Any alternate theories or explanations? I'm sure David Johnson has one!

Cheers,

Paul Hogan  (no, not that one).