Delays to services due to severe weather

Somebody in the WWW · Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:16 pm

steveo2004 · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:44 am

Signel faults hit the sandy line hard with lose of power as well

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northbritish · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:07 am

Having just got in from doing Glen Waverley rail replacement, it was very difficult due to a lack of connex staff (probably overwhelmed) but at Burnley the Connex person (station staff and not an AO) was being assisted by about four police officers. That kept the queue nice and orderly. I will post more later as I am too tired now.

Cheers

Metro Transit · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:23 am

This morning there were delays on the Pakenham and Frankston lines due to clean up still happening because of yesturdays storms.

Frankston
leaving the city from Frankston
Due to storm damage, there may be some cancellations and delays this morning. Please allow extra time for your journey.

the 08.33 was canceled, as for services before the 08.20 I wouldnt know, but roads in the Somerville/Baxter/Frankston area were still littered bad with bits of trees and other things.

Power outages were still happening in the Mentone are with Mentone station without power and the big pile of 'free firewood' was bigger than I thought, with the station receiving some damager from the falling tree.

Traffic lights were still out along the Nepan HWY between Carrum and Aspendale, with Police in attendance at one of them.

Work crews were at Somerville Station (at the level crossing) with a big hammer drill thing on caterpiller wheels hammering into the track, not sure if that was storm related or just work on the pionts maybe.

Metro II.

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Speed · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:09 am

With the Connex and Metlink websites (not to mention this one) overloaded yesterday afternoon, Melbourne's commercial radio could have reported the situation better. Unlike websites, radio stations can broadcast are not limited in how many people in a city can tune in.

The commercial radio stations to whose traffic reports I listened, reported every minor road with a fallen branch along with level-crossing failures. Their commentary on trains was no more detailed than my quote from the Connex website earlier in the thread.

It would have been better if they'd announced which lines had buses and where lines were closed.

Connex almost certainly had the information so it would seem that it could have been far better communicated.

I know that train passengers don't have car radios but enough offices have radios and, if people knew that traffic reports updated them on disruptions affecting multiple trains, they'd get into the habit of listening to the traffic reports as it neared time to go home.

MelbourneCity · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:37 am

^^^ I agree, the media needs to report train disruptions more. The only one that reguarly does is 774.
I noticed on Nine's news last night, the only mention of train disruption was "some trains were cancelled."
FM radio is particuarly bad at ignoring rail delays.

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Metro Transit · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:21 pm

Perhaps, during such weather that trains should have an internal radio played to the carrieges which is broadcast from a central location informing passengers of the situation network wide as the information comes it, that way passengers are not let in the dark until the last minute.

So you could be in the carriage, squashed up against the door and hear about what the problems are, on all the lines and the same broadcast would be the same heared in all the trains, similar to what Yarra Trams do when they announce things over the trams PA systems.

Metro II.

Metro Transit - For King and Country

Minister for Cultural and Ethnic Affairs, Minister for the Arts.

"Outstanding Contributor of the Month - September"

wongm · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:56 pm

Mainco guys on the tracks between Glenferrie and Auburn:

Dust storm at Lara:

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Metro Transit · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:40 pm

Alamein and Cranbourne cancelations, possibly weather related? Or just other causes?

Alamein
04:24pm leaving the city from Flinders Street
has been cancelled

Alamein
04:58pm city bound from Alamein
has been cancelled

Cranbourne
04:24pm leaving the city from Flinders Street
has been cancelled

Cranbourne
05:36pm city bound from Cranbourne
has been cancelled

Metro II.

Metro Transit - For King and Country

Minister for Cultural and Ethnic Affairs, Minister for the Arts.

"Outstanding Contributor of the Month - September"

steveo2004 · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:41 pm

Gwiwer · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:55 pm

Connex' website reported at 11.00am today "All lines running well".

That was the earliest time at which normality has been noted though earlier the degree of disruptions related more to where you were and whether your train set was in place.

Most lines had a few cancellations early on but these thinned to 100% service by mid morning.

The few reported evening cancellations were not account storm damage.

It was noticeable that traffic volume was significantly lower than a normal evening peak. Standing at Flinders Street from 4.30 to almost 5pm tonight custom seemed to be down by at least 1/3 over normal levels. Some of that would be account school holidays but not all.

My own train home, normally one of the busiest on its line, was very lightly loaded by its own standards with seats available at all times apart from Richmond - Cheltenham. Normally there are no seats available between Flagstaff and Mordialloc, sometimes as far as Carrum.

CEO Penhayle Bay Railway. Ferroequinologist. BA Hons (Honourable Bachelor of Aquatarts

)
The wise yet mysterious Sir Gwiwer Greybeard

Tonzo · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 4:17 pm

BMTA511 · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:35 pm

Instead of having a dedicated fleet of railway buses. A number of better ideas could be employed.

1. Train the train drivers to drive metro buses so that they can be used during times when the trains cannot run as these people are highly trained as it is. It would not take much to teach them to drive buses. A couple of passenger vans could be kept at their rest areas around the network. These vans could be used to ferry them to bus company's to collect the unused buses. This would require a lot of integration and trust between the railways and the bus companies but could work. This is based on the fact that most bus companies have excess buses but not drivers.

2. The other way is to have high frequency metro bus routes along most major routes leading from the inner city to the outer edge of Melbourne. These route will allow some people to get home by bus instead of train. also these routes in there own right will increase mass transport usage in Melbourne as they provide frequent direct services to the inner city. For it to work the peak hour frequency would need to be at least every 5 mins with most trips having spare seats and no standing passengers.

A combination of both would do wonders to 1. reducing the wait for rail buses and 2 offering alternate routes to most areas without disrupting other services too much. It may not solve the total problem but at least reduce the disruptions.

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tomohawk · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:21 pm

On Wednesday, at about 5:30 to 5:45 on High Rd just west of Cotham Rd in Kew, was anyone on a tram and see a bloke on a blue Honda motorbike hit a tram line and go A over T and crash it and dislocate his shoulder?

That was me.

NO kudos to the *#&^wit of a tram driver who was gonging at me and used his external PA to tell me to "GET OFF THE TRACKS" rather than making sure i was OK.

Thanks to the two girls who came and helped me up, popped my shoulder back in, and called an ambulance. And thanks to the bloke who wheeled my bike off the road.

Gwiwer · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:30 pm

1. is unlikely to be workable. Not only do bus operators not have "excess buses" (most depots are just about empty at peak times) but neither would they want to be loaded with the burden of having to buy, tax, insure and maintain a fleet of vehicles just in case something happened in their area.

Train drivers need to be available to drive trains for when ever the blockage is cleared. In most cases it takes as many drivers to run shuttles stopping either side of a blockage as it does to provide the full through service. There would not be drivers spare.

Train and bus driver hours and regulations differ. If you ask one driver to do both jobs during a shift which set of rules applies? If you think that is easily overcome ask any UK local bus driver who suddenly has to comply with European Rules as soon as he / she drives any route longer than 50kms or does any private hire or express work.

2. is a worthy aim. The reason why Melbourne does not have buses parallel to trains must lie in the history of having formerly a single Government-run system where if a service was provided by one mode there would be no other competing with it. For the same reason you tend not to find bus and tram routes parallel on the same streets though there are exceptions.

The Smart Bus and orbital bus route networks which are under development go some way towards this aim though on the whole the bus routes still do not parallel rail routes nor do they run at 5 minute headways. Melbourne is a low-density city and is unlikley to be able to support such service levels under normal conditions. As with item 1. you simply cannot have a whole fleet of buses sitting around "just in case" so the service must be provided to meet normal expectations.

CEO Penhayle Bay Railway. Ferroequinologist. BA Hons (Honourable Bachelor of Aquatarts

)
The wise yet mysterious Sir Gwiwer Greybeard