My first bad train experience

Todays ride home was the second of my bad train experiences (the first was a couple of months back from Britomart, but it didn't really turn out to be that bad so I let it slip and decided not to write about it). The train was approaching New Lynn when I got a text from the screwed train notification service, informing me that all trains would be running 30 mins late due to a mechanical failure. Our train seemed to be still moving, so clearly it wasn't going to affect us, right? We sort of paused for 5 mins at New Lynn which made me worry, but when we left I thought all was well. However at Henderson, we were all ushered from our train after another 5 mins of waiting at the station, and were informed there would be another train along for us shortly. There was a moment where there were 4 trains in sight around me (which I'm guessing is a high percentage of the total fleet), all sitting there not going anywhere, however it was hard to pick which one had experienced the mechanical failure. After about 25 mins the next train came along, we boarded, and eventually I got home.

What should have been a 40 min train ride ended up taking almost an hour and a half. What always strikes me with the Auckland trains is that there is such a lack of communication built into all of the network's "systems" (and you need to use that word loosely). The conductors need to run up and down shouting out things to the passengers, and anyone with headphones on is pretty screwed. None of the stations apart from Britomart have LCD screens, so all passengers will just sit about lamely and wait for the next train to trundle on, unless they managed to interpret the text message as being so bad that they should make alternative arrangements (and they're often so badly worded that it's hard to make a call on what to do).

I realise all this stuff costs money, but they really need to start putting ETA displays in some of the stations. The fact that the train network is running out of Wellington is probably going to make this slightly harder, but oh well. Failing that, getting more trains out there so they can run more services during peak hours would be a good second best step, and of course finishing the double tracking (not too much more to go there!) is going to help all this too. Finally, it wouldn't have been quite so bad if the break downs didn't occur on a Friday evening - any other day, ok?

 Print | Posted on Friday, November 17, 2006 6:55 PM |