QR's Rail Fail - Yet more hourly shame!

QR's Train Wreck Timetables continue...

Rail Fail looks set to continue with Queensland Rail (QR) announcing yet more days of terrible hourly train services. TransLink and QR have announced that during the Spring School Holidays and Queen's Birthday Public Holiday, that they will again axe train services down to an hourly frequency on Sunday 17th September, Sunday 24th September, Sunday 1st October, and Monday 2nd October. Again, this means that Brisbane will have the worst train frequency in Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), even worse than Adelaide and Wellington (the latter only having 10% the population of Brisbane). Hourly service frequency is completely inadequate for the estimated 50,000 people who still have to use trains to get to work (including hospitality workers who have just suffered a pay cut), and for weekend shopping and events. This is likely to result in many workers being late into work, harming CBD businesses and decreasing event attendance. It is also causing severe repetitional damage to Brisbane.

Just to make things worse, there is a chance of Brisbane's Suncorp stadium hosting an NRL Finals Game. Whilst extra services will be run, many attendees (including those from interstate) will want to travel around QR's network during the day when hourly trains would be running. This will be quite a shock for those used to Sunday frequencies as good as every 10 minutes in Melbourne and every 15 minutes in Sydney and Perth.

On the good side, at least QR have kept the normal clock face timings of the remaining services so as to not break all bus connections.

The current state of Rail Fail (now into its 11th Month) is that:

• Only 2 out of QR's 333 axed weekly train services have been restored
• External recruitment has only just been advertised thanks to Union interference. 
• Less than 40 new drivers have been trained out of the required 200. 
• Citytrain Response Unit have dropped any mention of when services will be restored in their latest publication. 

BrizCommuter is very concerned. Expect more axed services during the Summer School Holidays, Easter, and of course during the Commonwealth Games. Due to the New Generation Rollingstock (NGR) disaster, Rail Fail, and the M1 being the M1, expect transport chaos during the Commonwealth Games! Just to make things worse, the October 2016 timetable might not be fully restored until October 2019!