Mon 6 March - A before B...?
After we had the kerfuffle (© Lou) with the 17:49 delayed while the 18:01 is ready to go (Thursday 23 Feb blog entry) I wrote to Connex requesting an explanation. Here's the main part of it -
"By way of background, the 1749 service (TRAIN A) is timetabled to terminate at Sandringham at 1817 and goes on to become the 1827 Flinders Street service. The 1801 service (TRAIN B) is timetabled to terminate at Sandringham at 1829 and the train then goes out of service. Due to the configuration at Sandringham station, TRAIN B must enter Sandringham after TRAIN A has left the station, as the 1827 service, in order to be parked.
As this is the case we are unable to run TRAIN B in front of TRAIN A, as this would effectively stop TRAIN A from arriving at Sandringham until TRAIN B has been parked."
Did you follow that? My reply was -
"And of course it would've been out of the question to just make Train A become Train B and Train B become Train A?!"
The 07:14 pulls in late enough to crack an orange this morning. The boom gates are malfunctioning at Ripponlea - that doesn't seem to have any material impact as the train comes through as normal, just a bit more slowly. But that won't stop Connex claiming it as a reason for lateness.
Home on the 17:38 and it's more or less on time.
"By way of background, the 1749 service (TRAIN A) is timetabled to terminate at Sandringham at 1817 and goes on to become the 1827 Flinders Street service. The 1801 service (TRAIN B) is timetabled to terminate at Sandringham at 1829 and the train then goes out of service. Due to the configuration at Sandringham station, TRAIN B must enter Sandringham after TRAIN A has left the station, as the 1827 service, in order to be parked.
As this is the case we are unable to run TRAIN B in front of TRAIN A, as this would effectively stop TRAIN A from arriving at Sandringham until TRAIN B has been parked."
Did you follow that? My reply was -
"And of course it would've been out of the question to just make Train A become Train B and Train B become Train A?!"
The 07:14 pulls in late enough to crack an orange this morning. The boom gates are malfunctioning at Ripponlea - that doesn't seem to have any material impact as the train comes through as normal, just a bit more slowly. But that won't stop Connex claiming it as a reason for lateness.
Home on the 17:38 and it's more or less on time.
posted by Connex Whinger at 7:45 pm
8 Comments:
It's a way of minimising further disruptions, preventing that substitution. Train A and Train B might be two different train types, or one of them might be defective and require transfer. Simply swapping them over for your personal convenience could position them in the wrong place for their next run or what they are required to make the next day. It might also mean that they don't get serviced and instead sit defective at Sandringham, and result in more cancellations for you later on.
And the train can't go fast through a defective level crossing - some idiot motorist might decide to dodge the gates so caution is required.
Simple answers for simple people, CW.
-ConnexwhingerHater
Given the frequency of cancellations and last minute or late substitutions, I can't see how they'd ever get anything done if that were the reason! Funnily enough, I was not the only one who was put out that day, so it's hardly all about my personal convenience.
The cops were controlling the crossing. The driver slowed to come through, probably adding about 15 seconds to his time.
Agree, simple answers for simple people, CWH.
How do you know you hate me, we've never met (to my knowledge)?
What's not to hate about you? Narrowmindedness, idiocy, selfishness...
I also love the way you couldn't disprove any of my points there (Because they're all valid).
And cancellations for february were actually down on the average by anyones' standards if you check the stats. 99.0% for the whole month, I believe.
And there's more than one ConnexWhingerHater. We have a whole posse.
OK, so you've decided, based on what you've seen here that I'm narrow-minded. Seems a bit narrow-minded to do so, but your choice.
What makes me an idiot? Because you disagree with me?
Why do you conclude I'm selfish? Self-centred perhaps, but this is about holding Connex to account for all commuters, not just me.
I still don't understand why that would make you and your posse hate me, but if that's your bag, enjoy.
And no, I can't disprove your theories, but neither have you proved them. Stalemate I'd say.
I'll have to take your word for it on the February stats, since they're not yet available on the website. You obviously have staff access? Since the stats are hogwash anwyay - ie 5 min 59 secs still counts as on time - they are not a reliable measure of Connex' service delivery.
The "figures" that are produced by Connex are fudged and can not be interpreted as a true representation of whats going on out on the platform. Connex monitors themselves and provides those figures with no due diligence in respect to accuracy. For the "simple people" that means no one double checks the.
So here you have a corporate organisation who is hardly going to stand up and say "Ah shit! We screwed up a shitload of trains and thus we're informing you that we underperformed AGAIN and thus you need to be aware of this so you can give us a fine."
Uh huh. Connex reports what it wants to report. Simple as that.
You may be a hater of what hes doing but theres plenty of us whose happy that he does this blog and I reckon theres more of us than there is of you. We hate connex is always late or canceled and they never tells us whats happening and we should not pay our tickets like sydney did then see what they say
Wow Phil - seems like you have a fan. The question is - are they a Connex employee or one of the fifteen year old kids who loves spotting trains? My guess is the latter.
Sam
Putting aside any issues of hate, CWH's point is one that any sensible person would recognise. You can't just make Train A = Train B and vice versa - talk about messing up scheduled maintenance.
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