Commuting On CityRail Part 2; What Are We Paying Them For, Exactly?

The commuters have received an adequate gripe from me and now it's time for the staff. In the name of fairness and whatnot.

Firstly, let me pre-face this with one simple sentence; Most CityRail employees are wonderful at what they do.

Most.

Since the entertainment factor would drop if we were to talk about the good guys - not to mention the amount of people who would assume I work for them. I don't, by the way. - let's focus on the ones we can't help but want to give a piece of our minds to.

Now, I've been commuting for a number of years and I think I've seen it all on my various train journeys; People drinking, swearing, fighting, antagonizing others, having sex and smoking. You name it, I've probably seen it. Not to mention the times I've been groped, pushed past (It's not always nice to be the skinny chick) or manhandled in one way or another.

On 95% of those occasions, the only form of help near me has been other commuters. I suspect many others that have had disastrous train trips would say the same.

Yet, as I walk into the City Station I use, I see four transit officers and an orange-vested worker standing around like some kind of gossip group. And then I watch the young man jump the ticket barrier right next to them. Uh... huh? Isn't that, you know, their job to stop things like that?

I thought it was.

When I get to the platform and see the offender, I tell the first staff member I find. The response? "What am I supposed to do about it?"

OK then....

I recently learnt that, in Japan, if a train is not at the platform within forty seconds of its scheduled time, then it's considered late. I think the residents of Sydney would have some kind of heart attack en-mass if that were the case with CityRail. Could you imagine every single train being on time without fail? No, me neither.

And don't pretend you don't love how the 'Due out' time on the indicator board changes to five different numbers in the space of thirty seconds. That's half the fun of commuting, I say.

It's not just the actual train running times and the worker situation that we should be griping over. Let's consider the new trial for a 14 day rail pass. Now, I get paid fortnightly too, so I see the logic in this ticket. However, what I don't understand is why the price doesn't include some kind of discount, as most others do? And, for that matter, why did they spend so much money on advertising this "new" ticket when, if I'd bothered to read the old weekly's I purchased, they would have suggested I 'top up' my ticket at the machines. Same result. The money they spent on advertising could have gone to actually improving the service, you'd think.

Let's also not forget that, every single time the cost of a ticket goes up, we're told it's due to improved service and running time. Find me one commuter that agrees with this and I'll admit defeat, but I've yet to see any kind of improvement. I've seen trains cancelled, times changed, trains that randomly stop without announcement, lifts that don't operate, escalators that don't operate and guards that are about as useful as a stale bottle of booze.

Nothing even close to an improvement.

And then there are the announcements on the train that you can't actually hear. You get the ding-dong and then... nothing. It's OK though. After all, what possible value could you find in knowing the upcoming stations? It's like CityRail's version of a guessing game.

On the note of improving the service, let's consider this. To be able to improve something, you must first understand how it works and where the faults lie.

I suspect it's fairly unlikely to expect that the higher ups in CityRail are actually the bloke squished beside you on the two-seater, or the woman in front of you with the obnoxiously loud iPod. And remember the elections earlier it in the year? I think Iemma and friends should take a real ride on a train before they try to comment on the issues. Sorry guys, you can't sit on a city circle service for twenty minutes and then try and convince us that you "understand" our frustration. Especially for those of us with a commute of an hour or more.

So, basically, they have no idea and no way to fix things, right?

Now, don't misunderstand me; I have a great deal of respect for most CityRail employees. I've heard some wonderful stories of them coming to the rescue and I've seen them work well when necessary. I don't envy them having to deal with so many stupid people on a daily basis (You know the commuters I'm talking about) and I understand that they have stressful jobs. I don't think I'd like to be employed in an industry that really does have a fine line between life and death. (And you have to feel sorry for the driver whenever there’s a fatality on the lines.)

Having said that, as with most things in life, it's the bad apples that ruin the reputation of all the good guys. But when those bad apples make you late to work or, worse, late home from another one of those days, it's hard to keep that thought in mind.

But at least you'll have plenty of time to consider it the next time the train stops without announcement.