Fri 13 May - Station staff...

Had a quick chat to a Ripponlea 07:14 regular this morning about the customer service officers on the platform every day. At least they'e not hiding in their little air-conditioned bolt-hole any more! But what do they do? The gunzellers over at www.railpage.com.au see them as a big plus, while in almost the same breath they're countering every suggestion for improvement that I make as too expensive - so how does that work? What do they do? And how is this better value than fixing up some of the more fundamental problems?

Oh and we're on time again.

Not quite so good going home though. A case of déjà vu at the entrance, the board is showing the 18:10 and the 18:12 again. Except it's about 18:30 - not a good sign. On platform 12 it's also saying 18:10 when I get there. Then the screen goes blank. Then it shows the next train is the 18:50... huh? What happened to the 18:35. A few minutes later a train pulls into platform 13 and the monitors there light up to show it's the 18:35. OK. So we leave at about 18:40 and manage to lose another few minutes, arriving at Ripponlea seven minutes late. Probably about the way you'd expect the week to end.