Town Hall Station

Town Hall Station, particularly at peak hour has always given me the creeps... so many people, such a confined space you'd hate to think of a bombing or fire or even an accident in which someone goes under a train...

Luckily since I changed jobs I dont have to get off at Town Hall but going through there it is the pits still - and I simply stay on board.

This article sums it up nicely.

And yes, the noise pollution from the "community service" announcements is horrendous as well and simply adds confusion.

If there was anywhere in Australia that was a disaster waiting to happen, its Town Hall.

Trains The Way To Go

Sydney's City Rail can employ a few of these guys! Particularly at Town Hall at around 5:30 - 6:00pm every weekday evening!



* Thx to Kristie for the link

ShittyRail

Its been a while, but here goes…


CityRail is the most fucktard service in which 100 or so years of work, design and planning can be washed away with the simplest and most expected issues.

Hey CityRail engineers… it does occasionally RAIN. Don’t listen to what the Greenies say, despite the drought and El Nino, it does rain from time to time. Therefore design a system that can cope with that.


And when you have a truck crossing railway tracks, there is a possibility for a bingle. Last night a truck was struck on the tracks. Thankfully no-one was hurt, but guess what ShittyRail did? They stopped trains at Penrith – some 50kms or 1+hr away. So in the pouring rain, people had to get out, get on crappy buses and be driven all stations all the way to Katoomba.

This morning, the trains were running 35mins late because of the same problem and the accompanying signal failures from “lightning strikes” and the rain. Incompetence. Lets hike fares some more hey!

/rant off

Rail Fare Increase...

I was prompted last night by a bearded Dwarf wearing a bucket that I should write something about the proposed 6% increase of train fares and my stout friend was in deed looking forward to my rant about the hypocrisy of it all...

 

But, to disappoint him and other Dwarfs, I am actually ambivalent to it... in my personal experiences trains have improved marginally.  The new timetable does seem to work for my trains (and I cant speak for all lines) but the Mountain trains are reliable.  They leave on time and they have arrived on time in what I would consider reasonable accuracy.

 

In addition, as long as the fare increases go back into further improving reliability and other aspects such as security and cleanliness, then I dont mind the increase.  Train drivers, like anyone else, need pay increases to cope with the Howard Governments core promise of keeping interest rates low (except the 5 times that they went up) and to be honest, I am not ranting on about the trains like I used to.

 

So, fair pay for fair return of infrastructure.

 

Now that I have said this, my next train ride will be un-airconditioned, will run 30mins late and the driver will miss my stop....

Train Mess - Should Have Stayed In Bed

Been a while since I commented on the trains... but today I had one of those days...

 

Firstly I overslept... no biggie, I was in the office until nearly 8pm last night, so I needed the snooze, but then I missed the 7:08am train by a minute... I was in a bit of a slow daze this morning...

 

Then I walked down to the platform to await the 7:22 Tangara that goes direct to North Sydney only to be told that that train was cancelled due to mechanical failure and the next train wasnt until 7:40am!

 

The station guy (not Bill though, if you're an avid Lime Kettle reader) suggested to head back up the hill to the shops for a coffee... what a great idea!!

 

Walked back up the hill, in the spitting rain to the main street of Glenbrook where Cafe Cee had its table and chairs out and menus on the tables complete with salt, pepper and sugar.  Great I thought and headed in.  Unfortunately the idiots there told me they werent open until 8:00am - some 45mins away!  Why would a business with 3 staff on hand, tables set and papers spread on the counter reject a paying customer looking for just a cup of coffee!  Bizarre.  No wonder some businesses struggle.  The motto should be "if there's a customer, then we're open!".

 

Anyway, bought the paper at the newsagent and headed back down the hill... the 7:40 train arrived and was already packed with aggrieved patrons.  I managed to get a seat... and bumped into local friend Sean on his way to work for a chat (he got off at Blacktown) but it was packed all the way.  And some guy behind me thought it was a good idea to eat some form of spicy curry concoction for breakfast and stink the whole train out.... another of my pet peeves!

 

At the office, I buy a coffee (finally) and then in the lift realise the damn thing is leaking down my hand/wrist!  Joy!  What a start to the day!!

Train Follies

Ever since the work laptop was superseded by my PSP, the Lime Kettle posts have been coming from my desk at work where I have had a chance to read the papers and collect my thoughts...

Sometimes though, you wish you can just capture something then and there on the train and pass that on to you my dear readers.  I have had a few of these train moments this week... so in summary I will share them now:

The Sex Was Awesome!
Coming home the other night, a girl sits behind me and she is already yacking on her mobile phone.  Loudly.  I fire up the PSP and I am loading my FIFA 07 Soccer game and right in the pause of the music as the game loads up I hear clear as a bell.  "We spent the whole weekend making love!  The sex was awesome!  I came about 5 times".  Now I am no prude, but why do early 20's somethings feel that the quiet train is a place to talk loudly into the phone about your sex life?  Of course I hit MUTE on the PSP and listen in to her chat, but it tapered off into discussions on shopping and so I pumped up the volume and tuned out.  Needless to say when she did get off the train at Penrith, she was still yacking.

Morning Callisthenics
Train pulls into Penrith station on the way to work early one morning and the train is reasonably full.  A lady, wearing a pastel lime green tracksuit who is in her late 40s and of a "rotund" build gets on the train and squeezes into the little single seat under the stairs.  I am sitting one seat back from her and facing her as she then stands up in the aisle and takes out some hand cream.  She rubs her hands with the white cream and then starts doing stretching exercises... reaching for the stars and then trying to touch her toes.  She repeats this several times.  She then walks briskly up the aisle.  Then she's back.  Then she's up the aisle again and back again.  I realise she is walking "for exercise" up and down the aisle.  She does this a further 3-4 times and I realise she is wearing pink bed socks instead of shoes.

She then takes out a pillow and with an air of obsessive compulsion takes out a square pillow and proceeds to wrap her matching lime green scarf around it... and its hard to describe but it took her about 10mins to do this as she was obsessed with getting it perfectly straight.  She then sits down and does ALOT of shuffling of said pillow as she goes from leaning against the window to leaning against the wall of the stair well in her little single seat.  She has also procured a large (think double bed size) pink blanket and she spends an eternity shuffling and getting comfortable.  The woman sharing the seat opposite her gets up at some stage and moves away to the next level of the train... clearly fed up with this delusional woman.  I should also say at all times this nutty lady had a massive smile on her face and her eyes looked wide... I now think in hindsight she was on some sort of medication.

When she is comfortable we're now near Strathfield and a girl has sat down opposite her.  The girl has a bad cough and keeps coughing.  The nutty lady then glares at her and tells her to take her cough outside... the girl moves away.

She finally seems to doze off in her blanket as we're going past Newtown and just 5mins from terminating at Central.  If you dont know Sydney geography, she has taken 75km of an 80km journey to get comfortable...  one of the most bizarre things I have seen on the trains.

The Silent Killer
Last night coming home I am sitting next to a young lady in her 20's.  I am playing PSP and she is reading.  Then I smell it.  A vile fart.  Horrendously bad - and I have my own benchmarks in that area - and it seems to be coming from my right side ( i.e. the girl).  She keeps reading but it is really bad but she doesnt seem fazed.  I know it wasnt me and I am sure it was her, but I cant be sure.  It passes only for it to return 10-15mins later.  Now I know it wasnt me, but what if it wasnt her?  Then she may think it was me?!  Bloody hell... it was bad.

She got off the train at Emu Plains and I didnt smell it again and I now submit this scenario to dismiss the notion that "Whoever Smelt It Dealt It".

All Stations To Mumbai

Pleasant surprise this morning... the 8 car express train to the city this morning was for some reason halved to just 4 cars.  This is a train in which people stand when there are 8 cars, so how was it with 4 cars this morning??

Well I did manage to get the last seat (I was first in the door at Glenbrook) but it was cramped, the A/C wasnt working properly and when we got to Emu Plains alot (and I mean ALOT) of people couldnt get on... reminded me of those photos of Indian trains where people hang out the doors and ride on the roof.

So that was a grand old start to Friday...

I have also registered with the Fed Govt's "Do Not Call" website to stop telemarketers... I bet it doesnt do jack shit. 

Train Pains

A small rant this morning... this concerns me travelling on trains in the evenings.

A word of advice for my fellow commuters... the train, particularly country trains given that the windows do not open and we are all enclosed together in the silver tube that is the carriage, is NOT the place for you to open up a series of the plastic Asian take-away food containers and have your dinner.

To the lady who decided to have spring rolls, a mongolian lamb style concoction with another container of rice, spread over the seat beside you in which you proceeded to gorge yourself on the smelly banquet in such a confined space, you're an idiot.

Why do people have such little regard for their fellow travellers?  People who play music way too loud (and I mean you lady who this morning had what I think was Kasey Chambers squeeling at just a level of volume in her headphones that I could still hear it three rows away) and people who eat stinky food (as above) and the lovely teenage boys who decided to shoot spit balls through the air over the passengers you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

The train trip on its own is at times wearisome and boring... I dont need these type of idiots colouring it up for me.

/rant off.

Granville Railway Disaster - 30 Years On

Whilst I have "only" been travelling on the Blue Mountains trains for 9 years, today's anniversary of the Granville Rail Disaster still rings home. At the platform this morning, there was a bunch of flowers on the platform obviously left in memory of someone. Apparently a number of the 83 killed were Glenbrook residents and some of their relatives still clearly live in the area.

In addition, a number of people that are still around today at Glenbrook were also involved in the Blue Mtns train that rear ended the Indian Pacific about 3 or so years ago.

So as a 'train blogger' from Glenbrook, I guess today's post is dedicated to those who have died going to work on State Rail...

Granville railway workers honoured | NEWS.com.au

2007 Off To A Cracker

Well, here we are… Glenbrook train station, start of the year.  In 2006, the station was attended to by a chirpy guy called Bill who knew your name, processed your ticket requests no fuss and it was a sleepy hollow of niceness in a grim world of bureaucratic CityRail.  I arrived early this morning to buy my first ticket for 2007.

But Bill wasn’t there… there was a young guy wearing a tie and a badge numbered instead of a friendly name like “Bill”.  I asked politely for a “Monthly to the City” and he asked me to fill out a 2 page form!  “What’s this?” I asked.  Young Whip told me that any ticket greater than 28 days required this form to be filled in as a record for CityRail in the event the ticket is lost.  I replied “But I have a receipt?” and he said, “yes, but that’s YOUR evidence, we require a form”.  I then said the fateful words “Bill never asked for these to be filled in, is this new?”…. well all I got then from the terse tie wearer was “Well Bill was slack on a number of things around here, and I have already had some run ins about that…”

I now felt that poor Bill was stuck in the basement of the CityRail Gestapo building in town doing “paper work” for the rest of his days…. As I filled in the form, Young Whip proceeded to do his end of the transaction.  $204 please he said… “What the!  It was $172 before Xmas!!”  He said that it no longer goes on weeks and days and I have to take it to the end of the week if the 28 days doesn’t fall on a Friday which in this case it doesn’t.  I have ended the ticket on 16 Feb so that, on a daily rate, is $204.  Fark me!  I realised that I was getting greater than 28 days, but shit you’d ask first wouldn’t you…  I paid the 28 days on my Mastercard and he gets out the old fashion slider machine and I have noticed that there are now 5 people behind me waiting.  I would bet that half of them would be after a monthly… It took me 6 minutes to fill in the form and do the credit card manually.  I wonder how long this “by the book” attitude will last before we return to Bill style station management!

Welcome to 2007 dear readers…

That Eerie Feeling

Overslept… Niki was out late last night and I went to bed very late (as you may attest to my late postings last night) and I was in a bit of a rush to get to the station to catch the late train.

Well when you pull into the carpark that is normally chockers and instead of looking for a spot, I could basically take my pick, then you know something went wrong with the trains. Its an eerie feeling… is today a holiday that no one told me about is today a holiday that no one told me about or has my watch stopped or time stopped for that matter? Is it Saturday?

Anyway, something was wrong as I ended up getting to the station for the 7:52am train but instead caught the 7:08am train at 8:05am… I am very very late, but at the same time I was the only one on the carriage in which people are usually standing by the time we get to Emu Plains. I guess a lot of people must have said “fuck it” and driven in when they new the trains were screwed… but my sleep in seems justified now :-)

So, I’m not stressed… I’ll finish up here, turn up the headphones and have a relaxing snooze on my own private carriage….

Buying a Car

Decided to take the late train today as I had a pretty free morning (gets me in right at 9am) and was cutting it fine to make the station and got held up at the only set of traffic lights behind my place and the station.  By the time I got through, the train was at the platform and I was no chance.  So now I am on the “Very Late” train and wont get into the office until 9:30… oh well, its not like I haven’t been working like a biatch lately anyways.

On other news, we’re buying a new car.  We’re trading in our 2001 Ford Futura Wagon and looking at a medium sized car whilst the kids are young enough to not require huge amounts of leg room.  I lease my cars so I will only keep this one for 3-4 years and by that stage Kate will be 10-11 yrs old and would be getting bigger to require going back to a Ford or Holden.

But in the interim we’re in the medium size car market.  But rather than beat the streets and legging it between car yards, I rang up “Quality Auto Search” (they have a website – google it) and I have been very impressed with their service.  Rang them up on Friday, spoke to the guy there about what we’re looking for, he agreed with my views on the kids, fuel economy etc etc and after giving him a price range, he undertook a desktop search.

He rings me yesterday and tells me he’s recommending the Camry Ateva or the Mazda 6.  Both retail for the same price and there are only marginal differences between the two and are good quality cars.  The next step is he’s ringing me today to arrange me to have an overnight test drive of each and he’ll bring me the car to my work and then we’ll also set a day in which I will drive the Ford into the office and he’ll come out and inspect it and so that he can get me a good trade in deal.

So by the end of this week, I’ll probably have had driven both cars, had my car valued for trade in and we’ll decide on which one we’d like and all of this without leaving my desk!

But where’s the catch?  When I spoke to Rod from Quality Auto Search I said “sounds great mate, but how much is all this” he said “For you, nothing.  We get our commission from the dealers” and he also assured me he could negotiate around 10% off the retail price and get some add-ins thrown in.

So… the proof is in the pudding and I will be getting prices today but so far, I have been very impressed with the service and he’s been prompt in calling me back when he said he would.

Also, if anyone has any experience with the Camry Ateva or the Mazda 6, let me know!

Listening:  Penny Century by The Clouds (an oldie but a goodie)

U2

Last night went to see the final U2 show at Telstra Stadium. It was a fantastic show, and Niki and I had a brilliant time. Seats were B Reserve which meant at the far end of the stadium but with elevation. This meant we were able to see the full (read 4 story high) video wall front on and the light show was excellent. Sound was clear with the exception that you had to strain to hear what Bono was saying when he went into his little monologues.

This all was a damn sight better than when Niki and I saw U2 at the SFS during their Zooropa tour (was that 1994??). That day, the sound was crap and the show was ruined. But last night, for the first time ever, I had a good experience at an outdoor concert. We only got the tickets on the cheap after one of the girls at work couldn’t go, so I am glad I went.

The concert itself was excellent with a mix of very old and new songs. In the very old playset was New Years Day; I Will Follow; October; and amazingly the very old B side song Party Girl. It seemed that the only people who knew the words to that song was myself and the guy on the other side of Niki. Everyone else around us was “huh?” and even U2 themselves stopped mid way through when Bono apologised for stuffing up the lyrics and called the band together half way through the song to sort it out.

“I know a girl, a girl called Party… Party Girl!”

Anyways, the night was also excellent on the transport front… drove from the city and parked at Lidcombe (across the road from Rookwood Cemetery – Niki was most impressed) and jumped on the Sprint Train into Olympic Park. Met Niki outside the bar at the Novotel and spent about half an hour inside with a beer and listening to the Rattle And Hum cover band. Then it was a kebab and straight into the stadium with no hassles.

Coming home was easy as well and I was really glad my car was at Lidcombe instead of trying to get a train back to the mountains as it was a pretty late night… the show finished after 11:00pm.

So in short, for those of you yet to see the show in other cities – enjoy!

Traffic Snarls

(First email posting with the Beta version of Lime Kettles… hope it gets through OK.)

Drove in this morning because Niki and I are off to U2 tonight and jebus what a shit fight!

Left the house around 7:00am and didn’t get in until 9:40am. Normally a 90 min run took over two and a half hours and it was hell all the way. The M4 was the worlds biggest carpark, Parramatta Rd was horrendous and it took me 20mins to get through the lights at Wattle St heading toward the City West Link. I was also forced to use the dreaded Cross City Tunnel and come into the city from the east side.

Now I am late, agitated and have not had time to attune to a Monday morning like usual… will be on the back foot all day because I want to leave early for the aforementioned concert.