Train line at Ararat is underwater due to a severe thunderstorm.  Trains terminating at Wendouree:

Train line at Ararat is underwater due to a severe thunderstorm.  Trains terminating at Wendouree:

reports elsewhere that a lightning strike at melton has the ballarat line closed completely. VBus from Sunshine, and southern cross probably by now

This may be an all-time V/Line record: the replacement bus for last night’s 7.17pm Down Ballarat arrived at Ballarat at 1.38am this morning, with a few hardy souls on board.

This may be an all-time V/Line record: the replacement bus for last night’s 7.17pm Down Ballarat arrived at Ballarat at 1.38am this morning, with a few hardy souls on board.

I know there were no trains due to the lightning strike...but to use a 1990's vernacular....'please explain'  regarding the hardy bus folk...

M.

This may be an all-time V/Line record: the replacement bus for last night’s 7.17pm Down Ballarat arrived at Ballarat at 1.38am this morning, with a few hardy souls on board.

Reading through the Vline twitter feed is ummmm, interesting:

Some people mentioned waiting for over 3 hrs at Rockbank....

Major delays on the Geelong line with most of Melbourne services delayed roughly 30 minutes, some services now running via Werribee/Newport.

Mostly affecting the tail end of morning peak - probably the worst time for a delay.

Chaos at Castlemaine this evening. Got to the station to catch the 16.25 Up, noticed a few more people than normal. The previous service (Up Swan Hill) failed and limped into P2 at exactly the time my service was supposed to arrive. All pax were detrained and told to join the next train so now we have a 3 car Velo set with 8 carriages worth of pax shoe horned into it!

Running around 15 minutes late now and heading towards Kyneton and more passengers!

BG

More fun and games this morning with the 07.41 Dn Swan Hill a VERY late fail and replaced by a 3 car Vlocity to Bendigo with Road Coaches from there to Swanners.

The PIDS at Footscray (which were actually working this morning) had it and the South Geelong both departing at 07.57 (8 minutes late for us, on time for the SG) and of course when the first train arrived everyone jumped on despite the PIDS saying that SH was first.

Once again very poor platform announcements which you could barely hear anyway over the roar of V/Locities departing P3 but good work by the on train crew who made more than one announcement and then a follow up at Watergardens just in case. Next stop Gisborne, would be a bit of a shock it you expected to be pulling into Geetroit for that 9am meeting!

***edit, apparently the Loco haul was pulled 3 minutes before timetabled departure, V/Line managed to scramble a 3 car Velo and depart less than 10 minutes late. In another fine example of the superiority of the Velo over the N hauled trains (apart from the smoothness of the ride aiding my laptop work) we arrived into CME 2 minutes late after having been held at the Down end of Elphi loop for more than 5 minutes as we were running early for the cross***

BG

Well 'm afraid it's brickbats all around from V/Line pax at Footscray this morning. Services were running around 10 minutes late when I arrived onto P4 at around 7.30 with the 7.27 Waurn Ponds the next service due but no sign of the 7.49 Swan Hill on the PIDS. After the WP departed at around 7.37 the Warnambool came and went a few minutes later, I jumped on the App which advised that the Swanners was terminating at Bendigo again this morning (ie no loco haul and replaced by V/locity) but still nothing on the display.

The 2 empty cars movements rushed through next followed by an announcement over the PA that the Swan Hill service had been cancelled. A group of us collected around the platform entrance, finding each other as you do when you are kindred spirits - all lost souls gazing at the PIDS, reading timetables or looking longingly at the PA speakers with a sort of "say it aint so" expression.

I advised the other pax to wait a couple of minutes as the train had not shown as cancelled on the App but a couple of people headed back up the escalators, their morning / day plans in tatters. The rest of us waited, some headed for Kyneton, some Castlemaine, others Bendigo and one for Mildura.

A couple of minutes and another cancellation announcement later (sorry for the inconveniece, no talk of replacements just presume that we wait an hour and a half for the next train) a V/Locity comes around the corner. Too early to be the South Geelong surely and there it was, 3 cars with Swan Hill emblazoned on the site. Hurrah!

I immediately sought out the connie and told him what had happened and he made a very clear announcement over the internal PA that this was the Bendigo line train not Geelong as was showing on the PIDS, a couple rushed off the train but unfortunately at least 2 Geelong bound pax stayed on.

As I type we are just pulling into Water Gardens to drop off those poor unfortunates and maybe pick up some more surprised Bendigo bound passengers.

Our connie was great, grasped the situation straight away and did his best but what an absolute shambles.

BG

When I dropped by Footscray last week one morning I noticed two platform staff on P4 wearing V/Line purple train-proof vests.

Are these a regular feature or did I stumble on a rare occurrence? And if they are regulars, why the hell do they seem to have so much trouble getting passengers on the right train?

When I dropped by Footscray last week one morning I noticed two platform staff on P4 wearing V/Line purple train-proof vests.

Are these a regular feature or did I stumble on a rare occurrence? And if they are regulars, why the hell do they seem to have so much trouble getting passengers on the right train?

Good morning PIMM, there is always at least one at P4 during afternoon Peak, making announcements, helping pax with needs but never in the AM that I have seen, I guess they consider that there is not enough pax demand to justify. What time were you there?

BG

When I dropped by Footscray last week one morning I noticed two platform staff on P4 wearing V/Line purple train-proof vests.

Are these a regular feature or did I stumble on a rare occurrence? And if they are regulars, why the hell do they seem to have so much trouble getting passengers on the right train?

Good morning PIMM, there is always at least one at P4 during afternoon Peak, making announcements, helping pax with needs but never in the AM that I have seen, I guess they consider that there is not enough pax demand to justify. What time were you there?

BG

Ah, you've reset my poor old memory - it was an afternoon now I think about it a bit harder.

Certainly agree that there isn't enough demand to "justify" platform staff, but at the same time, given it's V/Line's only true junction station, you'd think there might be a case for full-time staff to help pax.

I dunno; BG and PIMM just don't get it. Don't you both understand that V/Line regards passengers as an incidental unpleasantness?  It would be much more efficient without them - rather like the completed hospital with no patients of "Yes, Minister" fame.
I have mentioned this before, but I still marvel at the V/Line Board comprising people with no railway background at all. Yes; the old VR was not the marvel of efficiency, but at least the people running it knew a bit about railways.

The Swan Hill service really has been a bit of a joke of late.  So many bustitutions, 'Long-Term' Temporary Speed Restrictions North of Bendigo (get your head around that one), throwing in the towel on hot days, etc etc.

The service is 10 or so minutes slower than it was over 12 months ago...

The service is 10 or so minutes slower than it was over 12 months ago...

Imagine how bad it would be if they hadn't singled a lot of the line, "to give better service."

The Swan Hill service really has been a bit of a joke of late.  So many bustitutions, 'Long-Term' Temporary Speed Restrictions North of Bendigo (get your head around that one), throwing in the towel on hot days, etc etc.

The service is 10 or so minutes slower than it was over 12 months ago...

@Carnot are you saying it is timetabled to be 10 minutes later to take account of the myriad restrictions? If so I don't mind that as long as there is a plan to fix the TSRs at some stage, better to have a realistic TT and be able to stick to it that doing silly things like timetabling an N class SC > Footscray via the flyover as 7 minutes and pretty much never achieve it!

But as you say, it really is a joke when the Swan Hill is either straight out cancelled, subbed for a Velo / bustituted beyond Bendigo or not running due to extreme heat so often.

The Velo to Bendigo is much quicker but today we had a heap of pax with suitcases clearly going beyond Bendigo and it's not pleasant for them.

BG

The Swan Hill service really has been a bit of a joke of late.  So many bustitutions, 'Long-Term' Temporary Speed Restrictions North of Bendigo (get your head around that one), throwing in the towel on hot days, etc etc.

The service is 10 or so minutes slower than it was over 12 months ago...

@Carnot are you saying it is timetabled to be 10 minutes later to take account of the myriad restrictions? If so I don't mind that as long as there is a plan to fix the TSRs at some stage, better to have a realistic TT and be able to stick to it that doing silly things like timetabling an N class SC > Footscray via the flyover as 7 minutes and pretty much never achieve it!

But as you say, it really is a joke when the Swan Hill is either straight out cancelled, subbed for a Velo / bustituted beyond Bendigo or not running due to extreme heat so often.

The Velo to Bendigo is much quicker but today we had a heap of pax with suitcases clearly going beyond Bendigo and it's not pleasant for them.

BG

The issue is North of Bendigo.  i.e. Timetable has been changed from a departure of 7:10am, to 6:58am today for the morning Up.  And even then it's often a struggle to get to Bendigo before 9:20am.

And it's later arriving in Swan Hill too.  Used to be 22:51, now 23:01.

Meanwhile, it looks like a fire has suspended the Bendigo line at Harcourt this afternoon:
https://emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/#!/incident/ESTA:190206436

https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/5910621/fire-in-harcourt-trains-stopped-on-bendigo-line/?cs=12

Not really V/line's fault, but almost a record late Swan Hill Up train this morning:

But for the life of me I cannot understand why they describe 83 minutes late as a minor delay!

This posted on Twit ter at 08.51 AM "Services on the Bendigo line have been cleared to resume. Further service changes may occur as we recover the network. Current communicated service changes will remain in place. Any additional changes will be communicated individually. Thank you for your patience this morning."

Firstly, why the hell do they always thank us for our patience? We don't have any bloody choice!I for one am not patient at all, nor are any of the others on this coach who are an hour plus late for work and other appointments.

Secondly why will current communicated service changes remain in place? The cancellations / disruptions announced run right through until the early afternoon. There is nothing on the tracks, a bunch of trains out of position, surely you would just start to move trains about on the line picking up and dropping off pax as you go starting with a clean sweep (SAS) each way and going from there.

If anyone can offer a rational explanation for this nonsense I would love to hear it. It is now 11.00 so I am over 90 minutes late and CME is still no where in sight and it is over 2 hours since the line re-opened according to the above tweet.

Yours impatiently,

BG

If anyone can offer a rational explanation for this nonsense I would love to hear it.

V/Line Board with no idea of how to run a railway and whose only skill is in meeting artificial KPI targets. Who have been encouraging management more strongly in the last 24 months to run services to minimise impact on percentages, rather than minimising impact on passengers.

In that mode of thinking, running trains ad hoc is completely impermissible and cancelling a few so the afternoon peak runs “on time” is preferable.

If anyone can offer a rational explanation for this nonsense I would love to hear it.

V/Line Board with no idea of how to run a railway and whose only skill is in meeting artificial KPI targets. Who have been encouraging management more strongly in the last 24 months to run services to minimise impact on percentages, rather than minimising impact on passengers.

In that mode of thinking, running trains ad hoc is completely impermissible and cancelling a few so the afternoon peak runs “on time” is preferable.

Thanks PIMM but I did say a rational explanation

BG

Thanks PIMM but I did say a rational explanation

Try winning Tattslotto - your chances are better.

So after yesterday's V/Line debacle I headed in to Castlemaine to get the 17.07 to Footscray. Checked the app first, marveled at the number of services reduced from 6 to 3 cars due to "an earlier animal strike and maintenance requirements" (2 on the Bendigo line and at least one other on the Ballarat/Geelong corridor, must be a lot of animals out and about), sat down and waited.

Train arrived into platform around 5 minutes late, pax boarded and then nothing. We didn't move. Next thing the conductor comes over the PA "due to an unconfirmed grass fire on the line" we are not going anywhere.

Really starting to ask why I put myself through this misery. It is just one thing after another, since Christmas I have had more bustitutions / major delays than on time train trips.


*** edit, got underway around 30 minutes late and headed straight for Elphinstone loop for the expected cross. That the opposing service was waiting at the Down end of the loop was no surprise at all. What WAS a surprise was that as we approached the Taradale Viaduct we were again slowed by a caution signal and next minute a second Down service went past.

Well impressed, I didn't think that was possible, do any drivers or others out there know what the headway is for following services in that section? Pretty good work from Centrol trying to untangle the mess in the single line sections from Kyneton to Castlemaine. I didn't think that the next service would get the Green out of Kyneton until the proceeding service had cleared the loop, I wouldn't have imagined that this section was signalled for close following services ***

BG

Secondly why will current communicated service changes remain in place? The cancellations / disruptions announced run right through until the early afternoon. There is nothing on the tracks, a bunch of trains out of position, surely you would just start to move trains about on the line picking up and dropping off pax as you go starting with a clean sweep (SAS) each way and going from there.

If anyone can offer a rational explanation for this nonsense I would love to hear it. It is now 11.00 so I am over 90 minutes late and CME is still no where in sight and it is over 2 hours since the line re-opened according to the above tweet.

Yours impatiently,

BG

If you have drivers and conductors out of place (some of whom have been deployed onto other lines or sent home), it becomes much harder to get trains set up to be in position for their runs.

I think it is poor that they scheduled so many changes, but once you have a plan in place it is probably better to stick to it then try to mess things around again.