Ironic delays

In yesterday's Herald, Peter Lyons wrote an editorial piece titled: Oh, the horrors of Auckland train travel where he commented on the current status of Aucklands rail network and the trials an average commuter has to deal with on a daily basis. The general point of the commentary was to point out how poorly run our train service in Auckland is.

In my opinion, although it made for an amusing read, it stretched the truth just a bit too far. In fact to all those who read it, if they had been considering leaving their cars at home before they read it, afterwards they would be definitely not converting to rail in the near future and I find that just a little irresposible.

The irony in my effort to defend the rail service is that my trip into Britomart this morning took about 1hr 40mins - 1hr longer than usual!

I caught the train at 7.20am in Glen Eden, right on time and with plenty of seats. Once seated I started reading my book and proceeded to get lost in the riveting saga. Before I knew it we were just outside Kingland, parked up. About 5mins into the delay a voice broke in over the load speaker asking everyone to "turn off their ipods and listen", which alone was enough to catch my attention, because the way he said it was blunt and too the point, yet managing to avoid sounding rude! Now that we were all listening he told us we were stuck behind a train which had broken down at Kingland and that he had no information about how long the delay would be at that point. He apologised on behalf of Veolia and left it there.

That was when I overheard a conversation a lady was having with here friend, that involved her saying "this will be perfect for the next chapter...", I looked over and saw she was holding a print out of the article from yesterday's Herald. She and her friend found it all very amusing and were offering the article to people around them to read to pass the time. In true Auckland fashion, no-one accepted, or barely acknowledged the offer despite her fond testimonial that it was "very well written"... eveyone more inclined to keep to themselves.

After about 20mins our train shuddered back to life, and we rolled the last 50m into Kingsland where we stopped again. Still no update from our abrupt announcer, so everyone was just forced to wait. At this point passengers started to get their phones out to call ahead to their intended destinations to let them know they were stuck on a train with no definite time of arrival. Some spoke loud enough for all to hear their frustration, others in muffled tones, trying unsuccessfully to avoid being overheard.

Finally our doors opened, and in flooded a full train worth of passengers which we were going to be transporting the rest of the trip. Still no update from the staff.

So now we were crammed in like cattle, and the train shuddered forward again. I guessed we were finally getting underway again, but no. The trained moved forward about 10m and clunked to an abrupt stop. Without being told, I assumed we were going to push the broken down train the rest of the way. This was indeed the case, and we continued on our trip.

With a fresh new audience, the two ladies with the article tried again to cut the tension by offering their print-out around for a read... unfortunately, no-one seemed in the mood. Still no update from the staff.

After Newmarket, I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking to myself "nearly there", but no. They had one more surprise for us all. Rather than continuing to Britomart we were going on a detour to drop off the broken-down train we were pushing. We pushed the train off on a side track down to the old Central Downtown Platforms. I didn't even know they were still connected let alone used.

So once again we were parked. 5mins go by, presumably while they unhitched the broken train, still no update from staff (you can start seeing the trend here) and we start to reverse back out to the main line. You'd think that would be it, but no. More waiting, I can only guess, this time to wait for clearance to enter the undersized Britomart tunnel.

Well as I said at the start, the trip took an hour longer than usual, but we got there in the end. As you might have noticed, other than the obvious long journey, my one criticism was in the lack of information passed on to the passengers. That first announcement, turned out to be the last.

The reason I'm writing this post is not to put people off riding the trains, because this sort of delay happens fairly infrequently, I can understand that the breakdown might have been unavoidable and that no-one could have predicted it was going to happen, but what Veolia Transport need to do when they are going to be inconveniencing thousands of rail commuters is at the very least keep us informed so we can make arrangements.

Further to that, the text message notification I am subscribed to for updates of delays on the Western line was of no help at all. It continues to be of little use. I even seem to be getting Southern line updates now which I have not subscribed to... I think that could be classed as a breach of the new SPAM legislation.

Come on Veolia! I'm trying very hard here to promote the trains as a great option for commuting but you keep making it difficult, some very little steps could make enduring the hick-ups so much easier.