I saw an article in the paper today, covering CityRail's plans to cancel up to a third of all weekend train services later this year, so that more train drivers can be available for peak-hour services during the week. This just shows that Sydney's train system is getting worse and worse…
Vince Graham, the CEO of RailCorp, claims that reducing the services on the weekend will reduce congestion of the rail network:
"Mr Graham said cutting the weekend services would improve reliability of trains in afternoon peak services, ease congestion on the network and reduce CityRail's reliance on regular overtime shifts for drivers."
What I don't get is, how will cancelling trains on the weekend reduce congestion during the week? By definition, "peak hour" is when there are the most trains, so therefore congestion will be the highest then, right? Sure, they want to have more drivers available for peak-hour services, but half the problem is that the trains are never on time, which holds up trains further down the line. If they can manage to keep the trains on time, then most of the problems will be solved.
According to the article, the North Shore line (on which I live) will have 4 trains per hour on the weekends, down from 8. I don't know where they've pulled this number from, but for as long as I can remember, there have only been 4 trains per hour on the weekends, not 8.
They're also planning on cancelling an early morning train and some late night trains and replacing them with buses. I don't get the point of this move. They complain about not having enough train drivers, but cancelling the trains and replacing them with buses seems pretty pointless to me. Trains can hold many, many more people than any bus can, so wouldn't it be more efficient to just run that one train instead of, say, 4, buses?
Oh well, there goes the train system…
“Trains can hold many, many more people than any bus can, so wouldn’t it be more efficient to just run that one train instead of, say, 4, buses?”
Have you actually been on an early morning train? Generally they are quite empty.
I have also never found a night rider bus packed full of people so its no issue to me.
As for Cityrail getting worse, of course, it has to before it can get better. I am happy that they are cancelling services rather than having services never appear or run badly late. Fortunately 90% of trains rain nicely, especially on the north shore line and I doubt many/any people will be inconvenienced by the moves they are making.
Btw, your title is slightly bad engrish.
Heh. Thanks for that. I fixed it up. It was a cross between “… up to a third” and “… a third”.