Article: Rail service delays

[ozbob]

From Northside Chronicle click here!

Rail service delays

SHORNCLIFFE, April 16:

Rail service delays

Rail commuters along the Shorncliffe line were left in the lurch six times since the beginning of March after services were cancelled without warning.

March 10 was hardest hit, with one outbound and two inbound trains cancelled because of equipment failure.

A Queensland Rail spokeswoman said only one of the incidents, on April 7, occurred during a peak period. State Member for Sandgate Vicky Darling said she would continue to campaign for more resources on the Sandgate line.

"We certainly need more services," she said.

"The ones we have are getting crowded and cancellations of services are completely unacceptable.

Despite the Shorncliffe and Caboolture lines recording the largest passenger growth in South-East Queensland, no new services have been promised and Queensland Rail was refusing to release data on overcrowding.

The organisation had just finished its annual passenger count on all peak hour train services but had refused to make the results public, with a Queensland Rail spokeswoman saying the information was for use "internally" to allocate resources.

"It (the count) is designed to provide an in-depth snapshot of patronage for the entire urban rail network," she said.

Rail Back on Track spokesman Robert Dow said there was no reason not to release the counts.

The group had done its own research and come up with a rating system that ranked the Caboolture and Ipswich lines the most congested on the network.

Mr Dow said it was not unusual for trains to arrive in the CBD carrying more than 1000 passengers.

The comfortable carrying capacity ranked by Queensland Rail standards was 750.

[ozbob]

The Standard Congestion Scale put forward by Derwan can be found

here --> http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=557.0