What happened at Roma Street Platform 8 Ipswich Line @ 5.40pm Thu 8 Nov

[Mozz]

There I was at work at 5.20pm thinking of heading home after a long day at the office (kicked off at 6.30am). I logged onto the QR website to check the available trains back to Oxley. Well 5.35pm and 5.42pm wouldn?t let me finish the work I needed to complete so I selected the 5.49pm train from Roma Street back to Oxley a simple 20 minute train ride stopping at every station. What a fateful decision this turned out to be, sit back and listen to my tale.

As I arrived at Roma Street I could hear a foreboding over the speaker of things to come, as the speakers rang out with the announcement of the cancellation of the 5.57 Doomben service, extolling affected passengers to jump on the shorncliffe train, detrain at Eagle Junction where the promise was of buses to carry passenger to their destinations. No worries I thought, Doomben isn?t the Ipswich line. The Ipswich line is the busiest city train line no way would they cancel peak hour services or their would be chaos.

As I forded the steps up onto platform 8 at around 5.44pm, I thought, hmmm something is just not right, so I checked the monitor and things started to go pear shaped. No 5.49pm train was listed, only the 6.06pm. A few minutes later the announcement came, 5.49pm cancelled, no explanation, no advice, just it?s been cancelled and advice to catch the 6.06pm train to Ipswich.

The came the first 6 car carriage phantom train, once again the speakers roared into life, with advice not to board the train as it was terminating.

The platform was quickly filling with people eager to get home, around 6.00pm another announcement on the speakers, the 6.06pm train was full and wouldn?t be able to take any more passengers.

The 6.06pm train pulled up at the platform, several hundred passengers standing on Platform 8 looked in despair at the sardine like nature of the human bodies already squeezed into the 6 carriages, it was apparent that it wasn't an option to get on this train. The 6.06pm train, came and went leaving hundreds and hundreds of passengers stranded on Platform 8.

Next advice over the speakers was to catch the 6.21pm train. Of course what the hundreds of stranded passengers were thinking, was how crowded was this train going to be. By this stage I was thinking, how many shares do QR senior mgt have in mobile phone companies, as hundreds of telephone calls were made to advise of the situation.

Then enter the twilight zone, yet another phantom 6 carriage train stopped at the station. But this time proudly displaying the words in lights ?Take it easy, Take a train? ? if only thought the more hundreds of people on the platform, if only.

Then yet another phantom 6 carriage train stopped at the platform and took off again for the depot, yet this time it was a brand spanking new citytrain, ?No train for you? I thought to myself in the voice of the infamous soup kitchen proprietor from Seinfeld.
Then the speaker shouted again, that the 6.21pm train was on the way, but it was crowded and had some space on the first and last carriages. Damn this, thought the 300 ? 400 stranded passengers and we all forced our way onto the train for a very much on time journey on the Ipswich line.

I still don?t know what happened, no one but QR knows, they won?t tell us, do they care? Weather was good, sun was shining, all the other platforms had trains coming and going. All very good questions but will there be any answers, in our supposedly first world city, should we submit to this sort of treatment. Hey maybe the smart card will help the smart state, but deep down I believe the answer isn?t actually a smart solution, it?s just ensuring we have enough trains and drivers and staff and tracks to support the booming population growth in the SEQ and the no brainer that public transport should be encouraged over driving cars to work.

[ozbob]

Thanks for your comments Mozz.  Confirms another bad afternoon/evening.

The 4.36 Ipswich from Central cancelled as well tonight Mozz, my daughter rang me from Central.

The ongoing cancellations are causing grief for all.

The government has let the staffing and equipment levels fall to a level where timetabled services cannot be maintained.  The Minister of Transport has not acknowledged this mess, other than bland excuses connected with the 'flu'. 

Hope to get some answers one of these days.

Regards
Ozbob

[ozbob]

An email correspondence has been sent to the Minister and Translink

See -->  http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=83.msg1007#msg1007

[mrciclismo]

I was on the 6:04 train from Central (6:06 from Roma Street) yesterday.  An idea came to me...why not email the minister's email every time there are cancellations?  Not nasty, but polite emails informing him of our displeasure.  If the minister receives hundreds of emails from unhappy commuters every time there is a cancelled service, maybe he'll realise the impact that this has on patrons of the QR service??

[ozbob]

Brisbane mX  9 Nov followed up Mozz's post.

[ozbob]

Always worthwhile to let our political representatives know about things Mrciclismo IMHO!  Good point.

The comments above in the mX are interesting.  QR Passenger Services Group Manager Andy Taylor has said that there was a shortage of available train crew.  That is refreshingly matter of fact and not spin.  Well done.  We know that more crew are being trained and in time there will be a good staff reserve once again, so hopefully things will improve soon.

[Mozz]

I suppose in the hard light of the day after there isn't a reason why it happened, as I stated, the weather was fine, there was not any problem with the tracks, there were ample trains available as 3 x 6 carriage trains stopped at roma street during this period.

On an average afternoon at least 3 x trains on the busiest citytrain line were cancelled in peak hour and others running unacceptably late. The resultant impact affecting many thousands of commuters trying to do the right thing by utilising public transport.

If no one else is going to ask the question I suppose I should - in my original post I actually and physically saw and could almost touch 3 x trains which obviously were being driven by train crew which could have been diverted to address the situation that QR found itself in on the afternoon of the 8.11.07.

But no, there was no intervention, no remediation, no response from QR except to cancel services, communication with commuters over speakers was limited to telling them that trains were full, or that there was some space on the first and last carriages.

[ozbob]

I think it may have been a case of those crews at the limit of their safe working hours.  Hence required to sign off.  Baffling as it may be for us mere commuters 

The sad fact is that staffing was left to run down over a long period which is a result of poor management at Government and Senior Management level.  The train crew are doing a great job keeping things going as best they can until the new crew are online, as frustrating and disappointing it is for us all. There is a program underway now to address the staff shortages I understand.

The 44 new 3 car trains being rolled out will not be enough for the increased services to met passenger loads.
Similiarly crew need to recruited and trained in a timely manner.  This is something we can keep pointing out to the powers to be 

It is important to keep pointing out  service shortfalls and the impacts as you did Mozz.  Well done, it all helps to get better long term outcomes for sure.

I am also aware that Citytrain is now taking steps to improve communication with passengers.

Regards
Ozbob

[bladesplace]

I was waiting at Roma Street for around 25 minutes on Thursday afternoon peak, and I observed that approximately 12 peak hour routes were cancelled. I think three Cleveland services were cancelled in a row, and ditto for Ferny Grove.

Ah, but of course, the Cricket was on that night. I always plan to catch a service that leaves around 20 minutes earlier when it's Monday, Friday, or the day a major sporting event it on. That way, I can usually get home the same time as usual.