City trains delayed for under an hour
I’m sure some of you are bored about reading about train or tram delays, on the blog. But it is part of our life, I was inclined to write “everyday life”, when I realized that Connex isn’t really that bad.
I needed to get to the airport today, so I grabbed the train like I would usually do. Except this time, at South Yarra, the train stopped and didn’t move. Then the driver came on to announce that there was a “signal failure” and signalling throughout Melbourne was down (basically, to and from Flinders Street). That really meant that there was some form of power failure.
Expected delays of 10 minutes, and this was at 6.10pm. Kudos to the driver for being rather jovial about the whole situation (he told us not to jump trains, as the one next to us would be in no better position), and then he said something that struck me: “You can probably read about this in the news tomorrow!” As always, Connex apologizes for the inconvenience they’ve caused.
And then it hit me. Because with the way the Internet works, and the community we really should be building, we don’t need to wait for tomorrow’s papers to talk about today’s news. We can do it right here, with more user participation. Blogs, and the comment system is like IRC to some extent.
Anyways, maybe I’ll save that rant/thought for another post. I reached Flinders at about 6.55pm, and I heard an announcement, which basically said, “The 6.20 Cranbourne is now departing from Platform 6″. I grinned sheepishly.
Were you affected by the signal failure, due to a loss in power? Tell us about it.
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You were right but reported only 2 hours after.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/power-surge-halts-melbourne-city-loop-trains/2006/10/02/1159641259058.html
Why not hop on the bus or a tram up to the city?
Yep. Was going home from uni and was already in a crappy mood, from a crappy day! I think it was about the 6:05-6:10pm train, didn’t depart until about 6:45-6:50pm. Got home around 8pm in the end, after having to wait an age for my second train at Richmond. Sigh.
@neil: heh, i’d have reported it sooner, if only I had access to the Internet. Left the laptop at home, and my phone isn’t up to scratch for this mobile blogging (I do sincerely hope to change that, seeing my contract is up and its time to get a new mobile)
I wanted to hop on a tram from Sth Yarra to the city, but almost everytime I contemplated it, the train driver announced that it was probably going to be fixed in the next 10 minutes. Good thing I didn’t, traffic was massive around the Richmond area, so I might have waited 30-35 minutes to get to the city…
@cec: hope your mood has improved today!
We stopped twice for a few minutes each in the subterranean part of the loop this evening at the begining of rush hour. It was weird a feeling… with nothing but a dark tunnel to look at outside. No space to jump out the window!
Everyone kept their calm… though there were some uncomfortable faces.