Early morning commuting. Peak hour traffic. The Sydenham train to the city decides to stuff up at North Melbourne. Train stalled for ten minutes. People standing the cars start getting uncomfortable. Fidgety and such. Peeked out and I saw the train driver walking into each car informing them of the bad news. I’m left stranded, along with hundreds of other commuters. I’m late for work. So are they. All in a day’s work I must say. No love lost for Connex there.

Following Adrock’s post on Melbourne’s railway overhauls, I caught the the new Connex advertisement on TV one evening and it rocks my socks. Of course, everyone still hates Connex anyway.

It’s a great PR campaign for a network that is constantly failing, though - just blame the city that is growing exponentially.

Imagine if tomorrow you had to move a city,
Take nurses to hospitals, school kids to schools,
Futures analysts to, well… wherever it is futures analysts go.

Imagine getting all these people,
Hundreds and thousands of them to where they needed to be.
That’s what Connex does everyday.

It’s a big job, and as Melbourne grows it’s getting bigger.
Which is why we’re making changes to the network,
Adding more carriages, more staff and more services.
You can see our new plan at connexmelbourne.com.au

Connex - We’re moving more people everyday.

And the score that plays throughout the advertisement reminds me of the theme from Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Though, when the tractor in the advertisement stopped at the intersection (when everyone turned to stare in awe at the speeding Connex train), I was half-expecting a semi-trailer to come running into it and turn it into an advertisement for safe driving.

See the advertisement on Connex’s site here: http://www.connexmelbourne.com.au/index.php?id=204

More trains in railway overhaul

Clay Lucas, Transport Reporter
April 9, 2008 - 11:41AM

Yay. Time to pop the champagne and watch the fireworks.

Oh boy Melbourne really likes fucking with the Western suburbs. Have you guys not noticed how bad news from the supposedly richer and more Anglo (read: less immigrants) Eastern suburb is always lame one liners like ‘Missing Dog Found’ or ‘Fire In Camberwell Put Out No One Is Seriously Injured’ but news from the Western suburbs always come out bad.

‘Woman Found Murdered And Dumped In Footscray’

‘Gang Fight In Sunshine Believed To Be Racially Motivated’

And I remember reading this in the papers once, it went something along the lines of:

‘I was sitting in Sunshine train station, where the bus depot is, and I saw gangs of Vietnamese and Africans sitting in groups. Sunshine and the Western Suburb is a dangerous place to live. The difference races do not integrate and they clash often.’ - some bloody politician

It infuriates me when I see how biased the media is towards the Western Suburbs. I’ve been living here for over half a year now, and although I cannot say that it’s the safest area, the old rhetoric such as ‘OMG you live in Sunshine? You’re gona be fucking murdered.’ is so old.

The Western suburbs, particularly Footscray and Sunshine, have definitely cleaned up and if anything, young couples are looking towards these areas for their first homes.

But I digress.

Now would anyone believe me if I told you there’s a conspiracy by Connex to screw Western Suburbians as well?

Well, two things.

How else does one explain why at peak hour in Melbourne Central platform 3, there are 2 EMPTY trains leaving for Cragieburn within 5 minutes of each other while the PACKED LIKE SARDINES train leaving for the Sydenham line leaves every 20 minutes.

Also, why are there less Zone 1 stations in the Sydenham and Werribee lines compared to every other lines? People living in the North, East and Southern suburbs have Zone 1 stations extending as far as Huntingdale or Reservoir, while the Westies have to cough up Zone 2 fares. This isn’t so apparent along the Werribee line, as the first Zone 2 station - Aircraft - is considerably far away from the Melbourne City Loop. But along the Sydenham line, how is Ginnifer a Zone 2 stop? It’s only 9 stops out of the City Loop!

Here’s a link to the Connex train network and tell me I’m wrong!