More articles being published about the dire position of melbourne's infrastructure with metro probably questioning whether the pay off for winning the tender is worth all the ball ache and blame for years of rail neglect here, which probably hampers their bids elsewhere, due to poor stats.

over crowding is a problem in key rush hour times and then trains are not even half full for much of the rest of the day except between 7 - 10 and 3 - 7

I used to live in Willesden Green and caught the jubilee line to work which would basically be 45 mins which is about the same from Mentone to Flinders St in rush hour.

for that journey I (and 99.9% of passengers) did it standing up with no problem, and due to much more punters in inner london, more trains of the same.

Wouldnt a shorter term solution for the government be to rip out the seating that has 8 people occupying a space probably 30 standing could. with seats along the side like the underground for the older passengers and disabled.

maybe run comuter trains between said times with these trains with special seating?

I just dont get why that hasnt been implemented.

you go to most asian cities and its the same, except their trains are clean and run on time.

There is obviously a reason this has not been done, but surely that would deal with the over crowding as there would be much more space per train for people.

Maybe they should get the Ryan Air guy to run melbournes trains, id be happy to pay $1 to use the toilet if i didnt have to see 50 people sitting nicely in a carriage, 50 standing and a 75 on the platform shaking their heads when they could all fit in with ease.

Sure infrastructure is farked but over crowding??

Commuters are smaller in Asia

BB

I seem to recall that a Moderator's reaction to one of my comments along those lines sparked one of my flounces

Oh no was it me?

BB

The service on my line had been absolutely diabolical over recent months, akin to anything I experienced in London, however it all changed on 8th May when the new timetable started. Now I can get on a train between 0730 & 0830 and there is loads of standing room, occasionally even a seat!

Whatever they changed was obviously fairly simple, so perhaps ripping out seats is a last resort?

Is that the Sandringham line? The wife uses that everyday into the CBD but still complains there are plenty of delays. That line has one of the worst records in Melbourne which i don't understand as it's a straight up and back line and you would think it would be one of the more reliable ones.

It is Sandringham yes. The trains are all still late, it just seems to matter less because there are more of them - there seems to have been a drop in the number of cancellations too. It's dramatically better to pre May, that I can say.

Bit of a bombshell - my line - the Paky line is ok.
Sure it fills up quickly but you just need to watch where you get on. Rarely a cancellation; maybe 5-10 mins late here and there - often later trains..

Standing room only - an issue - people would not want to stand for more than 30 mins - and many people who use a train use it for more than 30...more like an hour in many cases..

WALK ya lazy b'stards

<Rare Diplomacy On>I do not recall, it was a long time ago