Do you suffer from late train services ?

[Fares_Fair]

late services just go on and on !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street service was 45 minutes late getting to Central
on Tuesday 23rd June !

6:00am Nambour to Roma Street service was also 45 minutes late getting to Central
on Tuesday 23rd June !

I'm getting tempted to send them a bill for all the lost time I have to make up.
My employer is sick and tired of my constant late days into work.
Commuters are still getting tired of constant, and repetitive delays to regular scheduled trains.

In spite of all this, full marks must go to the guard on the 6:27am service for his detailed announcements regarding the resons for the delays, vis. the points failure at Beerburrum and his many apologies and explanation for the disruptions i.e. safety requires all signals go to danger when they fail, resulting in major delays to services.

We were given the option to detrain at Beerburrm and got a bus to Caboolture where we waited until our original service - now laden with the 6:00am service commuters - rolled in and we all crammed into the train ready for an express 45 min. 'stand' to Bowen Hills and Central and Roma St.

Thanks to the guard and driver for the detailed information.

Please fix the problems, we can no longer call ourselves the 'smart' state when our public transport is becoming so seriously and regularly degraded in performance.


Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Fares_Fair]

late services just go on and on AND ON !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street service was 8 minutes late getting to Central
on Wednesday 24th June !

As far as being late goes .. it's one of QR's better tardy-like performances.  

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Arnz]

10 mins late into Nambour with the Cooroy service, one of it's "better" late arrivals, but ICE is struggling yet "again" on the NCL it seems.

On a side note, a EMU did Friday's Corooy-Roma Street service.  Not suprisingly, it was on-time , despite the slower running on the High speed sections of the NCL south of Landsborough!  

[rob2144]

10 mins late into Nambour with the Cooroy service, one of it's "better" late arrivals, but ICE is struggling yet "again" on the NCL it seems.

On a side note, a EMU did Friday's Corooy-Roma Street service.  Not suprisingly, it was on-time , despite the slower running on the High speed sections of the NCL south of Landsborough!  

It was an EMU again yesterday and looked like it was on time or close to it.

[Fares_Fair]

late services just go on and on AND ON !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street service was 22 minutes late getting to Central
on Thursday 25th June.

As far as being late goes .. our service was 30 min's late arriving at Palmwoods Station due to failure of the 6 car unit - type wasn't specified but may have been the infamous ICE train which has become our regular mode of late.

When will the third-rate service improve. It's been late arriving in Brisbane 3 out of 4 days this week !
They may even "improve" on that appalling statistic by tomorrow.
That, for the Translink statisticians is a 25% success rate of punctuality.
It is getting absolutely ridiculous !!!!

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Fares_Fair]

late services just go on and on AND ON !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street service was 8 minutes late getting to Central
on Tuesday 30th June !

As far as being late goes .. it's one of QR's better tardy-like performances. 

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street service was 14 minutes late getting to Central
on Wednesday 1st July !

Cause of the delay was beyond QR's control, another incident at the Telegraph Road boom gates.
We were told that the gates were taken out by an impatient and obvious nuisance driver.

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

5:14pm Roma Street to Nambour service was 8 minutes late getting to Palmwoods
on Wednesday 1st July !

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Arnz]

The ICEs fail, again!

2:38pm (ex Landsborough) Cooroy to Roma Street service was 25 minutes late getting to Central
on Thursday 2nd July !

We were told it was a problem with the acceleration of the ICE units.  When will QR fix up the reliability of the increasingly unreliable (3rd-rate) ICEs? or failing that, replace the ICEs alltogether with more reliable IMUs.

Regards,
Arnz.

[Fares_Fair]

Dream run over ?

After almost a week and a half of generally on-time services ( i.e. within 4 min.)
late services have again reared their ugly head !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street ICE service was 8 minutes late getting to Central
on Wednesday 15th July !

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

5:14pm Roma Street to Nambour service was 8 minutes late getting to Palmwoods
on Wednesday 16th July !

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

5:14pm Roma Street to Nambour service was 10 minutes late getting to Palmwoods
on Thursday 17th July !

As per usual, no reason given for the loss of time between Central and Caboolture Stations
which is compounded by the time the service reaches Nambour.

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[brismike]

So . . nothing late since 17th July? .. Must be a record on the NCL. 

Just wondering if these constant complaints of late services are also sent on to QR or Translink? And if they are do they ever respond? 

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street ICE service was 9 1/2 minutes late getting to Central
on Monday 27th July !

As per usual, no reason given and no announcement made regarding the tardiness of arrival.
A sad indictment of the lack of communication that sometimes prevails.  

Brismike, it has indeed been quite a dream run of late, and probably is a record for punctuality on the Sunshine Coast line. For that we are all extremely grateful.

I do not send these observations to QR or Translink as they would all be drowned in the avalanche of correspondence received.
It is provided here as an ongoing record of their true on-time performance.
I hope to analyse the figures from these observations at some point in the future.

I have found that QR's customer liaison unit generally do respond (from feed-back received via other commmuters), and are trying to improve their levels of service.
Translink, however, had an ignoble record for disregarding correspondence sent to them and I have not ventured to try them for some time now.

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[ozbob]

There was another vehicle into the boom gates this morning.  See --> http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=2391.msg12364#msg12364

This may have been the reason ...   

[Arnz]

The infamous ICE continously fails again.  

2:36pm (ex-Cooroy ICE) out of Landsborough was up to 20 minutes late into Brisbane Central
on Monday 3rd August.

The Landsborough station staff acknowledged this train was up to 20 minutes late, apologies, etc.  However, the guard said nothing about the "regular" lateness of the Cooroy-Brisbane ICE service.

[#Metro]

I think these services should be replaced with a long distance, short train VFT like in Melbourne.
This would free up trains for a new Sunshine Coast Line.

[Arnz]

I think these services should be replaced with a long distance, short train VFT like in Melbourne.
This would free up trains for a new Sunshine Coast Line.

Hi,

To some extent I agree, but only for services beyond Nambour.  I would suggest transferring the ICEs to Qconnect for extended limited stops regional services beyond Gympie (to Maryborough?).  This would free up slots for more reliable IMUs on the Sunshine Coast Line when more rollingstock is built, and the ICE would be used for what it is intended for, limited stop intercity services on the North Coast Line (a scaled down version of the old Rockhampton service)

Nambour, however is of commuter length (1hr, 45 mins for a typical trip) as much as some would disagree.  Looking at the stats for the Sunshine Coast Line in the last report, Landsborough is the busiest station (Sunshine Coast main interchange), followed by Nambour and Beerwah.

Edit: Come to think of it, in the worse case of CAMCOS (the proposed Sunshine Coast Line) being cancelled, I would suggest building turn-back sidings at Landsborough and have turnbacks to Brisbane there (much like connections at Caboolture for the existing Railbus service).  Only issue would probably be one of the level crossings would have to be be relocated elsewhere.

[stephenk]

I think these services should be replaced with a long distance, short train VFT like in Melbourne.
This would free up trains for a new Sunshine Coast Line.

Given that the Sunshine Coast Line is apparently overcrowded in the peaks with 6-car trains, I don't quite see your logic for using shorter trains.

[Arnz]

A bit overexagarated, but not all services up our way are overcrowded.  However, many are overcrowded though for obvious reasons (6-car ICEs providing less seats, 3-car morning peak services to mention a few).

Edit: Also, Fares_fair said elsewhere in another thread, NCL capacity only allows for one extra Sunshine Coast service in each direction untill stabling issues or the fast-tracking of the remaining duplication is in place.

As much as I would like to see some rollingstock upgrades to specific overcrowded runs (or the extra service plugged into particular gaps), I cant see it happening as long as "Zero Harm" is in place on the Sunshine Coast stretch of the NCL.

[Fares_Fair]

Hello All,

"To alleviate the associated passenger angst regarding the boarding issues related to the current initiative, a contract has been awarded for the supply and construction of temporary longer platforms to those stations on the North Coast Line.

QR Passenger anticipates work to commence in August 2009 and be progressively rolled out until all stations have been completed."

Hello,

Just a note regarding the "Zero Harm" policy and it's (hopefully) imminent end ...

Regards,
Fares_Fair.

[stephenk]

A bit overexagarated, but not all services up our way are overcrowded.  

I was using the QR definition of overcrowding, which can be just 1 passenger standing for more than 20 mins.

Back to the point, as track capacity through the CBD is becoming limited in the peaks, then it makes sense for all trains to make the most of that track capacity and be 6-car units. The timetables should be written so that no trains have excess capacity (e.g. if an express service has empty seats upon arrival in the CBD then it should probably call at a few more stops!), but also to limit overcrowding as much as possible.

[ozbob]

For CAMCOS discussion see here --> http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=2562.0

[Fares_Fair]

QR to be commended for their greatly improved service to Sunshine Coast commuters. 
Thank You.

On 25th June, 2009 - and after complete frustration with the continual lack of punctuality on the Sunshine Coast services.
I wrote to the following MP's. (We had been on time a mere 40% that week)
Hon. member for Ipswich, Ms Rachel Nolan MP, Minister for Transport
and the Hon. member for Glass House, Mr Andrew Powell MP
and the Hon. member for Maroochydore, Ms Fiona Simpson MP, Opposition Transport Spokeswoman.

I wrote because the delays were not caused by idiots crashing through boom gates or actions out of the control of QR.
Those actions are beyond QR's control and for them they are not culpable.
I wrote because they were within the reasonable scope of QR and TRANSLink.

Copy of correspondence shown below :

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you out of the extreme frustration I experience almost every day, travelling via QR to work in Brisbane.
The punctuality of the services from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane have become abysmal.

I live in Palmwoods and commute down every day.
This week so far we have been late to work 3 days out of 4 so far - with times ranging from 8 minutes late at best through to 45 minutes late.
This is not just a particularly bad week, these delays are occurring more often.
I have been travelling via train for over 8 years now and clearly things are getting worse.

At the same time I see that QR claim to have a 82-95% on-time performance for services this week.
I cannot believe that these figures are true in light of the realities I experience travelling.

Would it be possible to investigate the criteria used to produce these seemingly unrealistic figures.
If this information is incorrect and decisions are based upon incorrect or misleading information,
then what hope is there to improve the situation and rectify public transport.

Any help to highlight or remedy these matters would be greatly appreciated.

Yours Sincerely,

I received correspondence back from TRANSLink (at the direction of the Minister) apologising for the unsatisfactory delays.
Reasons given were train defects, speed restrictions caused by weather conditions
and passenger boarding problems ! (those pesky passengers again causing delays)
I don't agree with the 3rd reason, given that a minute or 5's delay can be very easily made up in a 45min. express train.

I am however, grateful to the Hon. members mentioned for pursuing the points I raised.

Our services have been on time (within approx. 4 min.) for a calendar month today.
Congratulations to QR and all those who helped make it happen.
Well done.

Sincere regards,
Fares_Fair.

[ozbob]

August has seen a dramatic improvement in general terms across the network.  Good work Fares_Fair in highlighting the particular issues on the Sunshine Coast.  RAIL BoT has consistently raised the issues publicly and privately too  There were a number of signal failures as well and the ICE sets have been causing issues as they haven't been able to maintain timetables.   

The ontime figures represent a whole of network performance.  On Wednesday, when the Ipswich line collapsed during the peak the performance overall was only descreased by a couple of per cent.

The August figures are here for interest -->   http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=2561.0

Apart from the network issues: track, signals and power, the other significant factor is fleet utilisation.  In 2007 virtually all the Citytrain fleet was out in service during peak (98%) and a maintenance back log was built up.  This was one of the reasons we had so many failures and cancellations at that time.  With the new units being progressively added the fleet utilisation is now to around 91% or so.  Huge improvement and this facilitates proper maintenance.  I think we are finally starting to see the benefit.

Of real concern to us is the ongoing network reliability issues.  Other factors that impact are passenger illness/events, crew illness, and of course on the lines north of Brisbane in particular the level crossings.  As trains become overloaded dwell times increase which in turns causes a chain of problems as well.

There will be more dislocation and disruption as track capacity is built up.   But, it is good to see the real efforts going on to improve performance and hence 'customer' satisfaction.

[mufreight]

From the commuter perspective untill such time as QR Passenger is given total control and responsibility for the commuter network and adequately funded to provide the required levels of service things will not improve.
Let Translink act as the co-ordinating body and have responsibility for the intergrated ticketing system but allow QR Passenger to operate the commuter network, there is no useful purpose in having Translink try to micro manage the rail operations other than to create another level of bureaucracy and provide employment for more overpaid and unnecessary and otherwise unemployable bureaucrats who attempt to justify their existence by obstruction of actual commuter operations.

[Arnz]

the ICE sets have been causing issues as they haven't been able to maintain timetables.

ICE's are still causing problems today.  Outbound Cooroy-Brisbane service (operated by ICEs for all of last week) was 10-20 minutes late for each service of last week, and was 27 minutes late this afternoon coming into Brisbane.

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

5:14pm Roma Street to Nambour service was 20 minutes late getting to Palmwoods
on Tuesday 1st September !

Original service halted at Caboolture.

It was announced that there was a small problem with the train.
Then a few minutes later we were told the service was terminating but we
were able to quickly hop onto another north bound train on platform 2.

Thank you for the announcement QR - it is appreciated.

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[Otto]

Another 2 trains to Cleveland were cancelled today.. ( Seems to have been quite a few during the last week on erailupdates sms )

[#Metro]

Sorry, but I just couldn't help but think of advertisements for painkillers when I read this thread's title...
I'm a chronic sufferer!!!

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street ICE service was 6 1/2 minutes late getting to Central
on Thursday 10th September !

Regards,
Fares Fair.

[justanotheruser]

there is only one thing I hate more than no announcement saying what is happening and that is WRONG information. My wife recently took three and half hours what is normally a 45 minute trip. While she was annoyed at many things what really got her steaming was that the announcements said it would be 15 minute delay then half hour delay etc. If they said we do not know how long the problem will take to fix I would be happier than them giving wrong information.

[justanotheruser]

Don't know if other arrangements were made but the 4:51pm Ipswich to Caboolture train was changed to a shorncliffe train. Announcement first made at Goodna. Anyone know if the Caboolture train was replaced or just cancelled?

[Arnz]

QR Passenger #1972 from Nambour formed the 11:51am Corinda train today.  We were held up for 5 minutes at Bowen Hills as a result from waiting for the previous Corinda train, and passengers swapping trains.  

Previous Corinda train (from Shorncliffe) terminated at Roma Street.

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street ICE service was 9 minutes late getting to Central
on Wednesday 23rd September !

Passengers were informed that the delay was caused by "signal problems"
just north of Bowen Hills Station and a back-up of train services ahead.
Thank you QR for the timely announcements.  

Regards,
Fares Fair.

[mufreight]

Raises the question will QR Passenger be fined by Translink for this late service delayed by a QR Network failure that is beyond the control of QR Passenger.
Further justification for QR Passenger being given full control of and responsibility for the area covered br the commuter network.  Gympie - Robina - Rosewood and other passenger lines within those boundries.

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

5:14pm Roma Street to Nambour service was 58 minutes late getting to Palmwoods Station
on Friday 9th October !

Original service halted at Narangba due to signalling failure between Elimbah and Caboolture.
This was followed by another signalling failure between Petrie and Caboolture.
Another train then proceded to take us to Burpengary and Morayfield, before terminating at Caboolture.

Messages were received via eRail updates, these were timely and received minutes before
any announcements were made on the train.

Commuters from the earlier 4:28pm service from Roma Street were also bussed with us.
They had endured an obviously extra-prolonged wait !

Peak hour commuter chaos ensued as we were shepherded off the service at Caboolture
without instructions for further travel north.
An announcement was made after all commuters had left the train (overheard thru' an open door).

Buses were then announced for Caboolture to Nambour commuters, via (shouted) word of mouth.

Arrived home safely at 8:00pm, over an hour later.

Thank you QR for getting us (eventually) home but the circumstances of multiple major signal failures
warrants an investigation.

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[ozbob]

Media Release 10 October 2009

SEQ:  Rail commuters concerned with rail network reliability

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport commuters has suggested that the regular track and signal failures on the suburban and urban rail network needs to be addressed.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"There are many factors that impact on the ontime train performance.  Some of these factors are network problems particularly signal and track failures, power problems, level crossing incidents, Citytrain and freight train failures, crew and passenger illness, increased dwell times due to overloading and other police incidents."

"QR Passenger's ontime train performance is being significantly impacted by what seems to be almost daily signal and track failures. Most of the factors that are impacting on the ontime train performance are not under the direct control of the operator, that is QR Passenger."

"Why are we suffering these constant signal and track failures?  Is network maintenance being properly performed?  These are questions frustrated rail commuters would like answers too."

"Yesterday evening, more signal failures on the Sunshine Coast line again caused major disruptions. QR Passenger managed these disruptions well but these now almost regular delays and disruptions must be turned around (2)."

References:

1.   http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?board=20.0

2.   http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=1999.msg14649#msg146490

Contact:

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org

[Derwan]

There was also as "signal fault" on the Gold Coast line on Saturday 2 October that caused a 40-minute delay.  We often don't here of events outside the peak period.

[Fares_Fair]

late services !!

6:27am Nambour to Roma Street service was 12 minutes late getting to Central
on Monday 12th October !

It was reported that there was a problem with one of the doors not closing properly
and by the time it was corrected we were placed behind a non-express service.

The driver kept us fully informed.
Thank you to QR for the announcements. 

Regards,
Fares Fair.