CityRail (Sydney, NSW) diversions (a long gunzel posting)

["Bill McNiven" <wmcniven@gunzel.ozemail.com.au>]

Recent threads have mentioned the vast improvement in passenger information
provided by the weekly shutdown posters at CityRail stations.  (These
posters also make it clear that there is a big shutdown virtually every
week!).

July 10 and 11 promised that East Hills trains would be diverted to "Martin
Place on the Illawarra Line" (sic!) and Bankstown Line trains would
terminate at Sydenham (NSW) with East Hills trains making the stops at
Erskineville and St Peters.  The poster also stated "Customers for City
Circle stations will need to change at Town Hall" (so CityRail, like Ansett,
now has customers instead of passengers?).  Wollongong trains were to be
diverted to Martin Place.

While the Eastern Suburbs line opened with Platform Indicators capable of
showing East Hills and Bankstown stops, the only workings I had ever seen
had been the trains to Punchbowl and Bankstown in the first year of ESR
operation.  This called for some observations:

Saturday was cool and cloudy.  There seemed to be no physical obstruction to
Bankstown trains at Sydenham.  The usual four-car trains from East Hills
arrived at Sydenham on the Up Illawarra Local, were announced by a machine
as "all stations to Martin Place via Town Hall", and departed to cross to
the Up Illawarra.  The only meaningful announcement on the train was
something like "Central change for City Circle".  The East Hills /
Campbelltown passengers seemed to know what was coming.  I continued to
Martin Place to check the PIDs given much mileage in this NG.

Martin Place was well organised.  The new video indicators were working.  A
Macarthur train was correctly indicated (though, since all the station names
had been keyed in upper case, MACQUARIE FI and CAMPBELLTOV were truncated).
Even though the East Hills destinations have long been papered over on the
old PIDs, they still work on the mimic indicator in the control room.

Back to Town Hall to join the Customers for City Circle stations:  there
weren't any.  The City Outer was closed.  Back to Central (High Level).

The work here was large-scale.  The Down Local through Flying Junctions was
largely missing, and blocked by track machines from Cleveland Street towards
Redfern.  Road trucks were removing spoil via a level crossing from the Down
Local towards Platform 15 at Central.  New overhead masts were being erected
at the New Southern Railway junction.  New overhead was being erected over
the Up and Down Illawarra Lines from Wells Street towards Illawarra
Junction.  While the lines from Erskineville to the Illawarra Dive were not
obstructed, I guess that the power was off.  Minor works occupied the Up
City Outer between Goulburn Street and Sydney Frame C.

Despite this, trains were running fairly smoothly.  Up Liverpool / Lidcombe
trains crossed to the City Inner to return as down Liverpool / Lidcombe
trains via Platform 18.  North Shore services ran via Platforms 16 and 18 as
ususal.  This meant that 16 trains / hour were using platform 18, and this
was carried out with minimum confusion and delay.  Only once did I hear "The
Indicator Board Has Been Changed" (now the standard Sydney announcement
which means "Don't blame me - blame the indicator") as Liverpool via Regents
Park and Glenfield via Granville trains arrived out of order.

Because of the work on the Down Local, down all-stations trains were running
on the Down Suburban and skipping Macdonaldtown, Newtown (NSW), Petersham
and Lewisham.  Town Hall had excellent and correct announcements (bus from
Redfern to Macdonaldtown, or from Central to Newtown, Petersham and
Lewisham).  Central was a little vague (showed Summer Hill, but not
Stanmore, as a stop).  Redfern was totally vague.

Caught a slow train to Ashfield.  Stopped at Stanmore but nobody joined or
alighted.  Stopped at Summer Hill.  Some passengers alighted.  Noticed
passengers waiting in the street for the Route 30 bus to Ashfield.

Ashfield is a little chaotic at the moment as the new overbridge and station
buildings are under construction.  Up trains were shown correctly as
proceeding to Musuem (NSW) downstairs, but indicated and announced as "City
Circle via Town Hall" upstairs.

Back to the City Circle.  On a cool and cloudy afternoon, four-car trains
every 7 or 8 minutes are just adequate for the City Circle.  There was a
standing load from Circular Quay, and I alighted at Town Hall.

Town Hall platform 5 has interesting indicators.  Viewed from the centre of
the platform, an all-to-Bondi-Junction train is indicated as "Martin Place"
at the south end, as "Kings Cross" and as "Martin Place, Kings Cross" in the
centre, and as "Martin Place, Kings Cross, Edgecliff, Bondi Junction" at the
north end.  See separate thread on how to change light bulbs!

Town Hall platform 4 was a little crowded late in the afternoon.  Four-car
trains for Illawarra and East Hills destinations were running to time.  A
real person (as opposed to a machine-generated voice) was making
announcements.  Passengers were confused.  I heard one customer on a mobile
phone arranging a lift from Sutherland because "all the trains are late".

Central Platform 25 had even more 'customers'.  My immediate impression from
the crowd was that it was 5 pm on a week day and trains were "running late
and out of timetable order".  In fact, trains were on time but the traffic
was busy.  I watched as people (possibly of a non-English speaking
background) studied the indicators looking for stations such as Campsie and
Lakemba, and stepped back to see if the next train went to Bankstown Line
destinations.  Incidentally, Central Platform 25 neeeds some light bulbs for
Erskineville and St Peters.

The last trip of the day was on the 16:38 Dapto, a four-car G set which was
standing-room-only until Hurstville.

Back on Sunday for another reason.  This day was warm and largely sunny.
Illawarra trains still four cars!  Caught an up Cronulla which was
standing-room-only ex Hurstville, and VERY FULL after picking up a trainload
of Bankstown passengers at Sydenham.  Changed at Redfern to see that the Up
and Down Illawarra Local lines contained a crane that had been erecting new
footbridge steps on Platforms 8/9.  Central Platform 18 was getting a little
confused as Rosehill Racecouse trains brought the traffic up to 19 trains
per hour.  Saw that the Down Local was now replaced at Flying Junctions.
Saw that four-car trains to Circular Quay are barely adequate at lunch time
on a Sunday.

Some overall impressions:

Diversions such as this are inevitable if machinery, rather than hundreds of
fettlers, is doing the work.  Terminating Bankstown trains short of the city
seemed anti-customer at first glimpse, but the alternative would have been
to send them to Bondi Junction and create confusion there.

The planning, sheduling and preliminary advertising were fairly good.  The
only obvious glitch was "need to change at Town Hall" but it seems that
nobody but I read this!  It's certainly better than the old days of
"prominent CHALK notices".

Running the usual four-car trains is risky.  Customers don't expect that,
after their Bankstown train terminates at Sydenham, they will become part of
a crush load on another four-car train.  Nor do they expect that, on their
second change of trains at Central, they will be standing up on a four-car
Liverpool train.

Abnormal workings at Town Hall and Central (Low) really need more than
loudspeaker announcements.  Even with the best announcements, a crowded
underground platform has terrible acoustics.  A few uniformed customer
service people to ask "can I help you" would have removed some confusion and
anxiety.

Finally, guards' announcements.  I'm not sure what the train guard is
supposed to do, but I heard little more than 'stanclearjawsclosing' on most
trains.  I did appreciate "Central change for City Circle" and I nearly
understood "Synmchangef'BankstownLine".  I did not hear "this is a City
Circle train stopping at Museum, St James, Circular Quay, Wynyard and Town
Hall" on a train that had been indicated at Ashfield as City Circle via Town
Hall.  I did not hear any other similar announcements at connecting or
diversion points.  Should guards be given scripts to read on these
occasions?

We've seen the State Opposition Transport Spokesperson sounding off about
safety (at Hornsby) and shutdowns (in general) over the weekend.  If
CityRail is to avoid political attacks about shutdowns, it has to ensure
that customers (voters) are not confused or anxious.  If a lack of
information means that the customers think that "all the trains are running
late" when they are in fact on time, this will evolve into a political
problem.

Yours in gunzeling,

Bill