as the topic description states, this is the third day of public transport chaos in sydney this month. today, however, i was unfortunate enough to be caught up in the chaos, so i present to you the event from both my perspective and the factual side.

firstly though, to get an overall idea of sydney's rail network, there is a map of it here.

MY SIDE OF THE STORY:

every tuesday morning, i must go early to school due to an english enrichment class. our teacher is awesome, however he is quite strict, especially on punctuality. the class begins at 8am, and ends at 8:50am.

this morning, i arrived at hornsby station (one of the larger stations in sydney, connects sydney to newcastle and northern new south wales) earlier than usual - i was there at 7am, my train leaves at 7:17. i catch a train to epping station (the northern line (the red one)), and then a bus from there to school.

there was an all-stops train leaving hornsby at 7:13, however i did not get on because i usually catch the express at 7:17. this time however, something unusual happened. the train had just left the station, and two seconds later as it is halfway out of the station, it grinds to a halt. it remains like this for three minutes, after which the train reverses back into the station and its doors open. the passengers all escape outside. it is obvious that something is wrong, however since i am accustomed to delays, i didn't really pay much attention.

at 7:20, an announcement is made that a train has broken down at thornleigh (see the map), and hence all trains from hornsby to epping would be indefinitely cancelled. for five minutes after this, hornsby station was thrown into chaos. usually, a hornsby-epping trip would take about 10 minutes for an express and 20mins for an all-stops. however, now passengers wanting to get off at epping or stations from hornsby to epping would have to, if you examine the map, basically make a circle of sydney!

7:25, chaos at hornsby station. even the station managers are not exactly sure what has happened at thornleigh. currently, there are so many people on the station that it is literally impossible to get into or out of the station. there are over 20 schools which have a school bus leaving from epping, which accumulates to almost 800 students alone! an announcement is made that cityrail would attempt to arrange buses from hornsby to epping within the next half hour or so, however i knew by now that i would most certainly be VERY late for english enrichment. besides, it would definitely be impossible to fit 800 students plus a further 200 adult passengers onto 5 or so buses.

7:30, station managers begin mucking up the north shore line as well (the yellow one). they begin changing all trains to expresses going straight from hornsby to central (central is the largest station in sydney. it is where all trains either terminate or leave from. at any given time, there are thousands of passengers traversing the 30+ platforms of the station), so those who were originally heading to epping would take a shorter time getting there via the long route. not knowing what was going on, when the problem would be fixed or when buses would be arranged, i get on one of these trains.

7:50, 20mins later i am at central station. if hornsby station was chaos, then i cannot find any words to describe the scene at central. to me, it seemed as if the entire population of sydney were there. i take 15minutes just getting from one side of the station to the other, so i can catch my train to epping via strathfield.

8:15, i am at epping station, and see the scene for myself. later on in the factual section, i will tell you what really happened.

8:30, i am at school. i am half an hour late, and i do not think my teacher will ever forgive me.

THE FACTUAL SIDE

at 7:10, a sydney buses (the public bus company for sydney) goes out of her empty bus to buy herself a coffee. she forgets to leave the handbrake on, though.

5minutes later, her bus literally ROLLS onto the rails of epping station. luckily, miraculously, no-one was hurt.

at 8am, cityrail had finally managed to organise buses, however by then it was too late.

in the news, it was reported that some students got to school as late at midday due to this incident.


i know that this is not the fault of cityrail, however i am frustrated over two things:

1) the cityrail staff had no idea what was going on - either that, or they chose not to tell us the truth
2) this driver was not fined at all!

i don't know what you think, however i took an hour and a half to get to school this morning, where it usually takes me 40mins.

this is the official news account of the story: official article (none of the content of this post was copied)

an image:

Well if your teacher knew what the hell happened and where you were coming from, then maybe they might cut you some slack this one time....if not, that's friggin retarded. As for the bus driver not being fined, they should be fired and bared from gaining any other type of transportation job in Australia just for that incident. That moron caused a lot of unneeded havoc, which made a lot of people late to their various destinations. Also, whoever is protecting the driver should be fired for protecting an incompetent fool.

hehe, it says something about women drivers

It amazes me the way that sydney's train system is so bad. One problem anywhere on the train network can cause problems all over sydney. The government was supposed to be spending heaps of money fixing it, last I heard only some of the work was actually going to get done. Now they are too busy going on about the new north west metro line that they're spending billions of dollars on. shame I don't live in the north west.

I feel like kicking everyone who voted for the government in the last state election. I mean, everyone was complaining about hospitals and schools and transport and then they go and vote the same people back in again.

ARGH

If you haven't realised, we have a new prime minister.

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