Re: Country(link?) - try walking instead

[Roy.Wilke@bta.bt.com (Roy Wilke)]

Umm, I think you're missing the original poster's point.

I don't think he particularly cares if NRC trains run on time - he has
managed (after great difficulty) to purchase XPT tickets for his
family (tickets which are far from inexpensive when the alternative
methods of public transport are considered).

And what did he and his family get? Far from adequate service.
A train which almost invariably arrives at the station two hours after
the scheduled arrival time, depositing passengers in the middle of the
night on the platform of an unattended station miles away from the
nearest town, a lack of catering facilities (his wife asked for a
scone with her tea after boarding the train at Wauchope, only to be
told that she should have ordered the scone before she got to Wauchope
- does Countrylink expect passengers to travel (say) 100 miles north
of their point of Wauchope, board the train, order their scone, then
disembark from the train to travel by car back to Wauchope where they
once again get on the train and can now successfully have a scone with
their cup of tea?)

I'm surprised that the poster didn't mention that the XPT's stopping
times in stations between Brisbane and Sydney or Murwillumbah and
Sydney require all detraining passengers to exit the train with all of
their luggage in the space of 30 seconds - this can be quite a feat at
two in the morning.

Personally, I can remember commenting to Countrylink's PR department
in 1997 that the lack of a dining car was a drawback for the XPT -
only to be told that dining cars can only be found on "super-luxury
trains" in the 1990s. This was the first time that I've heard the
Melbourne-Adelaide "Overland", the "Sunlander" and any number of
standard Amtrak services described as equivalent to trains like the
GSPE.

As the original poster inferred - the average train passenger expects
to receive an adequate service: especially when the cost of a
Sydney-Brisbane return ticket is equivalent to the cost of an airline
ticket between the same points. From my experience of the XPT, that
simply is not the case.

So, why do people catch long-distance coaches or airliners instead of
taking the train? Possibly because the benefits of being able to walk
around and purchase an (overpriced) polystyrene tumbler of coffee and
a lukewarm meat pie are not considered to be anywhere near as
important as getting to the intended destination on time. Passengers
might be travelling to attend a job interview, or possibly a wedding
or a funeral. The people at the other end are hardly likely to
postpone the event or the interview for up to two days because [insert
name of passenger] made the mistake of travelling on the XPT.

Okay, it is important to NRC clients for their cargoes to get to the
destination on time. But Countrylink passengers are also clients. They
are unique in that they are also the cargo which they have decided to
tranship by rail. It should not be surprising to find that a railway
passenger considers himself/herself to be an extremely important item
of cargo. It should be less surprising to find that that railway
passenger would not only appreciate - but *expects* that self-shipped
cargo to be delivered securely to its destination on time.

If that is too much for the passenger/client to expect, then
Countrylink should get out of the passenger transport business and
leave long-distance travel in NSW to operators who do care about
customer service and to operators who can guarantee that their
passengers arrive at their destination on time or within ten minutes
of the scheduled arrival.

Okay, now I've had my rant, I'll go back to the real world and the
much more important (to me) task of daydreaming about my new fiance
(and no, we won't be travelling Countrylink when we're on our
honeymoon)

Roy Wilke.




On Sat, 30 Oct 1999 18:42:40 +1000, Don Allitt <nahgfa@zeta.org.au>
wrote:

>Well if thats the case i put this to you that the system will fail  more often.
>If you close some of your options for even late running crossings a bank up must
>occur.Each crossing loop i would have thought was an insurance policy for
>smoother running.Don.
>
>Jack wrote:
>
>> Hi Don
>>
>> Don Allitt wrote in message <3819950C.7D8F3BF8@zeta.org.au>...
>> >Exactily,we were put away allbe it at the Gloucester station for 15 mins
>> the
>> >other day while a N.R.C. went thru non stop.
>> >Don.
>>
>> Cant happen anymore.... RSA has closed Gloucester loop along with others
>> after the Melinga derailment because RAC wont authorise money to be spent on
>> loops that dont accomodate NRC Trains...
>>
>> Cheers
>> Jack
>> Queensland: Perfect One day
>> Beautiful the next
>> And wet for the other 363 days of the year
>