Re: CityRail services for NRL finals at Olympic Park

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

WhaleOilBeefHooked wrote in message <7rsm8s$frm$1@news1.mpx.com.au>...
>Given that the two competing teams are all located on the same rail line -
>Illawarra line and the South Coast line, why hasn't anyone at CityRail
>bothered to run a few trains from Wollongong and Cronulla, via the goods
>line through Enfield, direct to Olympic Park?
>NOT a case of good planning. Of course, they cannot run direct services
from
>everywhere for every event, but surely this is a special case.
>
>DaveP
>
>
On excuse I have heard is that the train drivers demand 14 days notice of
roster changes (and on top of this, it takes another two weeks or so to put
together a 'special event' timetable before the rostering is done.

Unfortunately, the NRL doesn't schedule it's finals that far ahead so a
'generic' train service is put up before the teams are known.  Even if the
match had been Melbourne vs. Townsville, the same trains run.

A second excuse I have heard is that every special event at Homebush Bay
gets the same Sydney - Olympic Park - Blacktown service pattern because they
are all rehearsals for the Olympics.

The third story is that, at times of crush loading, two platforms serve
exactly two destinations because Olympic Park station would become chaotic.
For example, if there are 1500 passengers for Granville / Blacktown and also
1500 passengers for Cronulla via Enfield standing on platform 4, there will
be very slow loading when half those people want to get on and half don't.

Rgds

Bill ;-)