Ministerial Statement: Extra Caboolture train services commence

[ozbob]

Minister for Transport
The Honourable Rachel Nolan
23/08/2010

Extra Caboolture train services commence

Two new train services for the Caboolture line start today adding capacity for an extra 7500 passengers each week.

Transport Minister Rachel Nolan said the new morning service will leave Caboolture at 6.32am and the new afternoon train service will depart Central at 3.48pm.

"Staff will be at Caboolture, Morayfield, Petrie, Toombul and Northgate train stations this morning with free water, muffins and timetables for customers between 6am-9am,"

"The new morning peak service will depart Caboolture train station, stop at all stations to Petrie, continue express to Northgate and stop at all stations from Northgate to the city.

"This new service will help ease traffic congestion, taking up to 3100 cars a week off major roads including the Bruce Highway, Gateway Motorway and Gympie Road each morning."

"And in the afternoon peak, the extra service will depart Central and stop at all stations to Petrie.

"This new service will make the journey a lot more comfortable for an additional 3750 passengers heading home each week and ease the squeeze on the 4.06pm Caboolture train.

"These two additional services are about making public transport travel easier for South East Queenslanders."

Ms Nolan said an additional Route 649 RailBus was also being trialled for passengers north of Caboolture on the Sunshine Coast line.

"The bus connects with the Caboolture line train departing Central at 8.07pm. The bus departs Caboolture at 9.17pm, stops all stations from Caboolture to Landsborough, then express to Nambour station, arriving at 10.27pm."

The Caboolture line is the busiest on the network with more than 17,500 passengers boarding between Caboolture and Petrie stations and more than 50,000 passengers including stations south to Virginia each week.

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[#Metro]

So they put 1 new service (morning and afternoon return) per day.
Improvements are always good, but it will take a long long way before it is anywhere near Perth standard.

[colinw]

Wake me up when they announce a turn-up-and-go timetable.  

Until then I'm not buying whats being peddled.

[somebody]

Staff on hand with free water, muffins and timetables to celebrate a single new service?  Do they really think we are that excitable?  I could understand them getting carried away if it was a proper timetable re-write.

[mufreight]

Now if they eliminate the free water, muffins and the staff to distribute them they could fund an additional service for two or three weeks and it would be appreciated far more by commuters.

[brad C]

The statement from 'yes minister' is misleading as there is only 1 additional train servicing Caboolture, that being the morning service.
Why couldn't the PM service be extended to Caboolture??
There are still NO additional PM services to stations between Dakabin and Morayfield than there were in 1993!!!
What 'yes minister' fails to realise is that the 1601hrs Nambour service still has a Petrie stop so that in effect Petrie punters will still opt for this mode rather than using the new Petrie 'sweeper'. This service is scale 5 every day!!
Why not some more services post 1800hrs???
And our state pollies are still in denial that the loss of so many federal seats in Queensland last Saturady was attributed to federal issues.

[Stillwater]

Much has been said about the need for a timetable review.  I think a new timetable is to be released, and will become operational by the middle of 2011.  To what extent will the public have input into the process leading to the development of a new timetable and how does BackOnTrack believe it can add value to the process?  Can this organisation get an audience with the powers that be to present its case/thoughts?

[somebody]

More to the point, why is it taking so long?  It was supposed to be all lines by 2010.  Now it is Ipswich-Caboolture only by 2011.  What is going on?

[#Metro]

Sideshow. Everything BUT frequency upgrades has been announced- new stations, new station painting and upgrades, new name, new uniform, new paint at the front of the train, a handful more people in the rail squad, new trains (but the old ones, where are they?), 1 new service, everything except more trains more often per hour.

Muffins are great, but you can't even eat or drink on the train. It's banned!

Then there is the puff factor: multiply the service x 2 (morning and afternoon) x 5 workdays, so it looks like there are 10x more services then there actually are. Unless you are a commuter that goes to work on Monday and stays at work until Friday afternoon!

Sir Joh once had a term for this. It was called feeding the chooks.

[somebody]

Sideshow.

What do you mean by this comment?

[ozbob]

Much has been said about the need for a timetable review.  I think a new timetable is to be released, and will become operational by the middle of 2011.  To what extent will the public have input into the process leading to the development of a new timetable and how does BackOnTrack believe it can add value to the process?  Can this organisation get an audience with the powers that be to present its case/thoughts?

Welcome Stillwater.   The statement below suggests consultation later this year.  We have also been suggesting improvements through the Community Reference Groups as well and direct suggestions.

Minister for Transport
The Honourable Rachel Nolan

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Welcome to the new Queensland Rail

Today marks the beginning of a new era for transport in Queensland with the launch of the new Queensland Rail.

Transport Minister Rachel Nolan said the new government owned corporation would be focussed on passenger services and maintaining its vast regional rail network covering more than 8000 kilometres of track.

"145 years ago the then Queensland Government Railways started with the purpose of opening up the new colony and connecting people across vast distances. The new entity will restore focus to that core purpose," Ms Nolan said.

The first service carried school children and dignitaries on the new narrow gauge line from Ipswich to Grandchester - none of those passengers could have ever imagined that from those humble beginnings Queensland Rail would carry more than 60 million passengers a year.

"Queensland Rail has a tremendous history and an exciting future. Today marks a new beginning to refocus on providing passenger rail transport and travel services right across our state," Ms Nolan said.

"The new beginning means passenger services no longer compete with freight trains and coal tracks for Government funding."

Ms Nolan said South-east Queensland's two busiest train lines will receive a 9000 seat boost next month with the introduction of four new peak services.

New peak services on the Caboolture line will roll out with new services on the Ipswich line to follow.

"Queensland Rail will also overhaul the Citytrain timetable as the current timetable has evolved in an ad hoc manner since 1997," she said.

"The current expansion of capacity between Corinda and Darra combined with the new Richlands line opening next year creates an opportunity to fix the timetable – creating more efficiency and more seat capacity for commuters.

"Community consultation on the new timetables will take place later this year with the aim to implement the timetable in the first half of 2011 with timetable reviews on other lines to follow.

"Currently, there's an average of 170,000 passengers journeys on the Queensland Rail network every day, so we need to make sure that those passengers get to where they need to go in the best and most efficient way possible.

"There will be renewed focus on meeting timetables, reliability and customer service.

Ms Nolan said the new organisation would kick-off with a $200 million makeover of a third of its train stations – the most intensive station upgrade program in the organisation's long history.

"We are serious about making Queensland's public transport system world class which is why we are investing heavily in new trains and in improving station facilities.

"This funding injection is in addition to the $30 billion being spent by the Queensland Government to plan and build a better rail network."

Queensland Rail will today unveil new trains, new livery and new staff uniforms at various stations across the network.

Queensland Rail Interim CEO Paul Scurrah said the organisation's 6500 employees would be focussed on customer service and safety for its passengers and staff.

"Today our team has been given the rare and exciting opportunity to start a new company," Mr Scurrah said.

"There has been a lot of hard work to build this new government owned corporation, to bring our new team together for this historic occasion, and I am proud of the work we have done.

"We are ready for the new challenge and look forward to getting on with the job of providing a world class rail network for the people of Queensland – not only our customers in the south east, but also to our passengers and industries in regional Queensland."

Mr Scurrah said Queensland Rail has recently been awarded the International Customer Service Standard certificate in recognition of its commitment to customer service.

"We'll continue to listen to what customers want and today all Queensland Rail senior executives will be on platforms talking to commuters about what they want to see from the new organisation," he said.

[mufreight]

More to the point, why is it taking so long?  It was supposed to be all lines by 2010.  Now it is Ipswich-Caboolture only by 2011.  What is going on?

More spin from a duplicit incompetent government that has funds for the growing hydra that is Translink but not to provide services for commuters       

[#Metro]

What do you mean by this comment?

We need two trains extra per hour, not per day.

[Stillwater]

Regarding a new timetable, hopefully the train schedulers can sharpen their thinking and, having regard to the extra train sets being purchased, look to pushing up the level of Citytrain frequency to Nambour, and even beyond to Gympie North.  Governments talk about affordable housing and the need to manage population settlement patterns.  The railway towns on the Sunshine Coast and North Coast lines offer good lifestyle and sensible mortgages for good housing, if only public transport connectivity was better.  Also, with CAMCOS being pushed back, we must look to making what we have (the Sunshine Coast/North Coast line and bus connections to coastal communities) work harder.  That means a workable timetable with greater frequency and seamless connections to buses at locations such as Landsborough, Nambour, Cooroy etc.

[Barbar]

Well said Stillwater  unfortunately for the foreseeable future any increase in Citytrain frequency to Nambour and beyond will remain just a dream; CAMCOS? it too continues to sit on the Government's dusty public transport planning shelf, waiting and waiting and waiting and ....

[ozbob]

I took part in an interview on ABC Sunshine Coast radio this morning, with Breakfast host John Stokes.  The interview was primarily about 'Quiet Carriages' but I was able to highlight the timetable issues with the Sunshine Coast line timetable and the fact that IMUs or equivalent are needed on all services because of lack of toilets on EMUs etc.

I also managed to put in a plug for more Gympie North services as well as 3 car to 6 cars and better services all round.

Thanks for the interest ABC Sunshine Coast.