Cityfail - how bad is it?

Bwana · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 7:55 am Post subject: Cityfail - how bad is it?

First a confession - I rarely use cityrail services. It's not that I don't want to, it's more that I live on the East Hills line, and don't often need to go to the city. What else can I get a train directly to from Revesby? The Airport I suppose, and I have used cityrail the last 2 times I've flown, but that is only once a year. Shopping? The only major shopping centre on the line is at Macarthur, and there are at least 4 shopping centres closer to home. The nearest railway station to work is about 5km away, there's a bus from Sutherland to work but that would be a roughly 2.5 hour trip to work instead of a 30 minute drive.

I hear repeatedly from the media and Bwanette (who works in the city so does find cityrail a handy way to commute) how terrible the service is. A comment by Riccardo makes me wonder how bad it really is though. I've asked Bwanette in the past, and her response is always second-hand stories of bad trips or what she's read in the paper (which I don't read as much as maybe I should, or according to another thread maybe I read too much).

So how bad is it, really?

Now in answering that question, I don't want to hear about:
- How great it is overseas. I've no doubt that will be quickly rebutted with an argument about population density and/or GPD that will derail my question.
- How great it could be - same as for overseas. I will, however, accept how great it used to be, along with where it isn't as good anymore
- "The labor/liberal party stuffed it all up" or "[insert minister/CEO] screwed it up". I don't want fingers pointed, I just want to hear about the result.
- Technical shit that the GP wouldn't know and don't give a shit about.

I just want to know if a non-gunzel lifelong Sydneysider could honestly say cityrail isn't as good as it was in the State Rail/SRA/PTC/NSWGR days, and in what ways the layman could see it as worse. ie, the only benchmarks are Sydney, present or past.
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Somebody · The Peanut Gallery Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 304

I'll add my thoughts which are from a different point of view from the "it used to be good" crowd.

My issues with it are not about the "trains are late" or "trains are too crowded" issues that peak hour commuters whinge about, but that it really just provides a fairly lousy public transport service (no matter if every train is on-time and with ample seats).

Services are too infrequent, sometimes too slow, and everything has been designed around the notion of everybody wanting to go to the CBD.

Of course most rail patronage is to or from the CBD, but that's just where most present rail passengers go. It's not where most people want to go.

I also think that the network is overstaffed and subsidised too heavily, which relates to both the overstaffing issue and some long distance fares and PETs being too cheap.

Skraw · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject:

I reckon you could sum up the whole thing in one word: timetable. The trains themselves are okay and tend to turn up (unlike buses). They are usually cleanish and if graffiti fuctards haven't done their usual shite then you can see out the windows.
I went about 12 years living here only occasionally using the train but then I dumped a company car for the dough and caught the train for about 18 months. It was pretty reliable - only about 3 'late' trains in that time - more than 10 minutes. This is the Main North and North Shore so I can't speak for other lines.

The bugbear is always the fact that with connections there was only one train I could feasibly catch to work and it only got me there with minutes to spare. I could catch a train to Hornsby 25 minutes earlier that would only get me there about 8 minutes earlier than the other service due to lack of connections at Hornsby for the Shore - there was one service that connected but didn't stop at my station. Afternoons were similar. Connections between 5 and 530 weren't bad but then there was this utter prick of a service which arrived at HBY at 554pm in time to wave to the service heading home on the Main North. Once in a blue moon they would connect but usually the train would be arriving in plenty of time and then do a 5kph crawl into the station while the other train left. The station staff made a point of not waiting for the connection most times. Then there was a 15 minute wait for the next service. So what's 15 minutes you say? Well that's 15 minutes I could be home with the family rather than sitting on a freezing cold station doing SFA. Have crapped on about this at length on RP.

Service on the Main North is too infrequent - 15-20 mins in off-peak would be okay. I'd love to not have to look at a timetable and just turn up knowing I'd never wait more than 10 minutes. If you don't check though it's likely you'll have a 29 minute wait which sucks arse big time. Whenever you post this comment some poor bugger from Cowan chimes in with "well we have it tough! We DREEEAAM of 29 minutes waits!" etc.

More frequent services, services that actually connect - I hate changing trains at the best of times - make it easier, probably something about connecting with bus services as well but I never catch buses so dunno.

It's still a cheap way to the city for me. Went in last week for $6.40 return off peak. Tolls would have cost me something like $18 return and parking another $30 not to mention fuel. However the car would have me in there in 35 minutes while door to door with the train is always one hour 20 mins. There's that valuable time again. On the train I can read and work I guess while the car sucks with having to listen to James Valentine being the only highlight.

My 2 bobs. Bring on the trolls.
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Oldfart · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:51 pm Post subject:

In my estimation it hasn't really changed all that much. The general 'vibe' is very similar. It still has an "70's" (and I mean 1870's) feel about it. Rail services in Dublin and Liverpool (UK) felt similar, but friendlier. Merseyrail is a small network, but has some curious parallels to Cityrail. Their website has some interesting sections dealing with their attitudes to anti-social behaviour and railfans/photography. London tube is very convenient, but somehow often felt much more 'menacing'.

There are more lines and services during the peaks now, but they are slower and sometimes more crowded. As a kid, I travelled most days from Strathfield to Liverpool (changed address but finished off primary at old school). There would not usually be seats available until Fairfield (much as now). There are less off-peak services now (especially weekends) and, of course, all EMUs are DD and have powered doors. More trackwork seemed to be done during normal ops. I can't remember lines being shut down for weekend maintenance until about the early 80s, but I could stand corrected on that.

Passengers seem a bit weirder now, especially off-peak. Kids were probably just as noisy and rowdy, but not as foul-mouthed. There were no transits, but the odd Ticket Inspector. There was no tagging, but a bit of political graffiti. The main aim of vandals was to rip seats. A much wider variety of people seemed to use PT, not just those that had no option or worked in the city. Country and interstate trains seemed to carry many more passengers.

Best memories are of the DMU operations between Liverpool and Campbelltown during early high school days. A handful of crews; some friendly, some complete bastards. Some made the control of schoolkids into a fine art; knew the names of most kids, which teachers they feared being reported to, and let the more responsible ones help operate the service. We often rode the in the Guard's compartment and took turns operating the bells. Even drove a couple of times. During the only big delay I can recall, (fatality at Ingleburn, IIRC) we got held at a signal several Km back. After they confirmed what was happening, they evacuated the train, arranged a couple of railway vehicles to pick up the less mobile and organised the school prefects to shepherd not only the kids but all the adult passengers on foot out along the corridor service track. They also had the signalers (I assume) contact our schools, told them which kids were on the train and asked them contact nearby parents to pick us up where the track reached the next station. My dad was already there when I arrived and took about 5 of us home. I don't know if something like that would occur today.

IMHO, it all went downhill when they stopped issuing 'proper' tickets, EMUs lost their front route indicator code lights and drivers traded their Gladstone bags for retro-reflective rucksacks.

Oh yeah; almost forgot. There's no 'Miles to Griffiths Bros Teas' signs any more. What a tragedy!
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flathog · Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 57

In my experiences, Cityrail is a acceptable for the short/medium commutes, long distance such as Lithgow - Sydney is hell, admittedly, in the last few years I've only really used Cityrail to travel between Lithgow and Zig Zag ( Shit-eating grin

), but I've never had any trouble bar one incident where I got an extended trip to Mt. Vic. and a free cab-ride back to Lithgow...but thats another story.

Tom

Bwana · Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 5:25 am Post subject:

Warks, I think you've hit pretty close to the centre of my one gripe, both with off-peak frequencies and with lousy connections. And the annoying thing is that it shouldn't be that hard to fix up both. Bad connections happen down south too, last time I did it I think my trip from Oatley to Panania involved 28 minutes admiring the view from Wolli Creek station. I suppose I I was coming from Cronulla it would have been a decent connection though. Off peak frequencies, well the trains are there, all you need to do is get a few people to drive and guard them.

The reason, at least in part, for the poor connections is (IMHO) highlighted by Somebody's post - the CBD-centrism. It just doesn't occur to these jokers that someone might actually want to go from Oatley to Panania, or from Thornleigh to Turramurra. God help you if you need to travel between Fairy Meadow and Dapto! And that feeds into why PT is only used now by, as OF put it, "those that ha[ve] no option or worked in the city".

Finally OF, you've got some great memories there, I'd have loved to lived in your time! I'm sure I would have recieved the cane far more often than I did, but the reward would be to live in a society where, if you showed respect and responsibility, you were treated with respect and given the chance to look after yourself using common sense. Your comments on trackwork are interesting, I first started following (and using) trains in the early 80's, so would be interested to hear what happenned before that, but even in the 80s it was done sensibly - close one line, use staff and ticket to run trains in both directions on the other line. Even if the power had to be cut, just whack a diesel at the front to get you through that bit. One of my first outer-urban trips was coming home from a scout camp on a V-set, which stopped for a long time at Waterfall. When we got off at Sutherland, we saw a loco (too young and ignorant to know what class, but it was a brick) being taken off and put in a convenient siding to wait for a a southbound train to drag back to Waterfall. These days it would be bus from Wollongong to Sutherland (or more likely, Wollongong to Sydney, but you could change at Sutho for a suburban if you like).
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Mickonthehill · Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 30 Location: 30.151

Somebody · The Peanut Gallery Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 304

Building new park and ride carparks at stations is silly (except maybe on a rural/urban fringe for people on acreage to get access to the system) - run better feeder buses.

As to the Carlo - why anybody who has a choice would use such a pathetic service is beyond me.