With all all the talk about late or cancelled trains, some readers may be surprised that Queensland Rail (QR) also have a chronic issue with early running trains. These early running trains are often observed during the off-peak, when the combination of QR's padded out timetables, train crew not paying attention to the timetable, and no digital train regulation methods, can result in trains running early. BrizCommuter quite often observes early running outbound trains on the Ferny Grove Line at weekends and late at night. As QR do not publish off-peak on-time statistics, then commuters and politicians are in the dark as to how often this occurs. QR can locate their trains by the signalling system, and thus these statistics can be obtained by QR.
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| 3 minutes early - unacceptable QR! |
This photographed example was taken at 09:10am, at Enoggera station. The watch was synced to a time server the previous day. The train in the photo was timetabled to depart this station at 09:13am. So the train was running 3 minutes early. In fact, the train arrived at this station 1 minute earlier than the time that it was timetabled to depart the previous station on the line - Alderley (at 09:11am)! This of course totally unacceptable, and is yet another example of QR's ongoing contempt for the travelling public.
BrizCommuter has also observed passengers jumping pedestrian level crossings to get to trains that were running early, otherwise they would have missed the train with a resulting 30+ minute wait. This isn't good in the "zero harm" department. Only last week, BrizCommuter nearly missed an early am peak train service that was running 2 minutes early (though it still ended running 2 minutes late through the CBD).
Lets hope that QR's renewed "customer focus", and new CEO Mr Nick Easy can stamp out this timetable annoyance.
Just a reminder passengers should be at the station at least 5 minutes prior to the trains scheduled departure. However this does not excuse QR for running early.
ReplyDeleteRealistically, passengers should be able to arrive on the platform 1 minute before departure and still catch their train. Any other advice is taking the piss! Obviously passengers should make allowances for being delayed on the way to the station and dealing with dodgy go card readers.
ReplyDeletea fat timetable wouldn't be so bad if the trains ran say every 10 mins. but half hourly with 10mins of fat to your trip? just so QR can boast they have a 99.9% on-time?
ReplyDelete(or is it really for the one occasion there is a wheelchair person travelling on every station ? )
The amazing thing is that even with large amounts of fat in the timetable, on time running is still mediocre at the moment.
DeleteAnd even with the levels of obesity in the timetables, most of them are actually slower than 30 years ago. Ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI think the transport system in Brisbane is generally acceptable despite delays and overcrowding during peak hours especially. The authorities are continuously making upgrades and improvements in order to provide a solution in terms of services that commuters think they are lacking of. However, unforeseen circumstances never fail to hit everybody including the transport system. Hence, delays on some days are inevitable.
ReplyDelete