Those damn trains

Been a while since I have vented about trains, but I will be honest with you, the new timetable has been fine from my perspective and they have for some months now been on time…

However, in the last 24hrs I have made 3 train trips and they have been horrendous.

Firstly, yesterday morning coming into work, my train broke down.  The train was halfway along the platform at Redfern and I, as always, was in the last carriage of the 8 car train.  This meant I had to queue to get off the train through about 5 cars so that I could get off on the first available door on the platform, which was the rear door on carriage #3.  It took me 15mins to get off the train, queue along the skinny platform (the most northerly one with the garden beds at Redfern, for those that know), and go up the stairs to the concourse.  End result, 20mins late for work.

Then coming home, I left early so I could babysit the girls whilst Niki went out.  She was leaving at 7:30pm, so I left the office at 5:30 to get the 6:10 train from Central.  Plenty of time I thought!  Well when I got to Central at 5:55, the 5:30 still hadn’t arrived.  It did, but this train was only 4 cars instead of 8 which meant the very irate people who where supposed to be halfway home by now had to cram into the 4 cars.  Also, opportunists who had arrived for the 6:10 decided to try their luck and cram into the now 30mins late running 5:30.  I, after witnessing several aggro outbursts, decided I would wait for the 6:10.  The 4 car 5:30 then proceeded to sit at the platform with people crammed in like sardines for 10-15mins.  It didn’t leave until 6:10, and my train (the actual 6:10) hadn’t yet materialised.  I looked across and similar chaos was happening on the Wollongong and Newcastle platforms as trains were either not there or were only half the number of carriages that they should have been.  In short, the trains were pandemonium.

Then a train pulled into the platform across from me that had nobody waiting for it.  Both waiting sets of passengers for the Mountains and Newcastle lines started moving towards this empty 6 car train with the belief it would be there train.  You can imagine 16 cars of passengers moving as one towards a 6 car train with the expectation to a) get on and b) get a seat.  Well I moved with the crowd as well, like the good sheep that I am, and when I got to the platform, the station master announced that this would be the cars for the late running 6:10 Blue Mountains train.  Yay for me, but given that the Newcastle train was due to leave at 5:45, it hardly seemed fair.  But its tough on the rails, and I wasn’t offering the train up to the Novocastrians so I jumped on and managed to get a seat.  We didn’t leave until 6:25, so all in all I was home 15mins late…  This threw a spanner into Nikis plans, but she still got to go out.

Then this morning, for no better reason than I know, my train was 12mins late getting into Central.  No explanation, no apology.  It seems as though State Rail is back to its old tricks again!