Fri 26 May - It's cold...

It's cold outside and the train's fairly cold inside too. At least it's on time today.

Home on the 17:49 - it pulls in to Ripponlea about four minutes lates.

Thu 25 May - Signals...?

Seems the signals are problematic today - maybe a bit cold for them? Anyway the upshot is that we have a long wait at Ripponlea and the 07:14 pulls in seven minutes late.

Home on the 17:49 and it's on time.

Tue-Wed 23-24 May - Out of town...

We have an out-of-office strategy session for the next couple of days so I won't be participating in the daily Connex lottery. Given that the weather is now well outside Connex' preferred operating conditions we can probably expect further delays and problems in the coming days. At least we haven't got the annual "leaves on the line" excuse that the British commuters have to face every autumn!

Of course if we shifted the lines underground the weather problems would be substantially reduced. And this is the plan that's currently being proposed - thanks to an anonymous contributer for this link. I guess we'd want to see a bit more detail, and there'd sure be a few obstacles along the way, but this is the sort of thinking we need. Forget your poxy billion or so a year on bits and pieces, let's do some serious investment in 21st century public transport solutions. Just install a few hundred more speed cameras and you'll have it funded in a jiffy, Bracksie!

Mon 22 May - Ticket inspectors...?

I've not hidden my views on the role of the ticket enforcement officers, particularly in regard to the lack of necessity in the free public transport world. The aspect I rarely comment on is the stormtrooper approach to their task.

For those who didn't see it there's a comment here that suggests they are still carrying on with their bully-boy tactics. If anybody has any first-hand experience of such behaviour perhaps they could contact Kym? His details are there on his blog.

The 07:14 is more or less on time.

Not so the 18:12. Annoyingly, I could've possibly made the 18:01 but I'd hate to be racing up the platform just in time to see it pulling out, so I walk normally and get there a couple of minutes after it's gone. Then we all stand around and wait while the departure time approaches until it's fairly obvious the 18:12 will be late. Still we wait and still no announcement. Why the hell can't they just tell us where our train is? It eventually pulls in unannounced and out again about eight minutes late. We pull into Ripponlea twelve minutes late - which is the time the 18:24 is due in.

This is the aspect that really gets my goat about Connex. Sure, stuff happens that's out of their control, we all understand that. But this train must've been somewhere around Prahran or South Yarra, still heading into the city, at its scheduled departure time. And somebody in Metrol must've known that. So why on God's green Earth won't they just tell us?