getting home in the heat (part 2)
Jan. 29th, 2009 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccMy aim for getting home last night was to do it in less time than it took me the night before.
After yesterday I'd made the decision to check the website right before I left to go home to see whether it was worth trying the train, or whether I should play around with bus combinations. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea and the website crashed rather spectacularly. So now we can add "website crashing" to the list of things ("tracks buckling"; "air-conditioning failing"; "sudden loss of power") that extreme heat does to Connex. Heh.
Fortunately the site came up right before I left, and while there were 25 minute delays listed for the Hurstbridge/Epping lines they were running out of Flinders St. What they weren't doing was running through the Loop. I rang Dean, leaving a message on his work and mobile phones, then headed into the wall of heat at about 5.15pm. Again, I managed to walk out of the air-conditioned hospital just in time to catch a tram (whose air-conditioning was struggling badly, but hey, it was moving and heading where I wanted to go.) At Flinders St station I started heading towards the escalators to platform 1, then decided not to when I realised that the platforms were even more crowded than the night before and this had spilled over to the escalators which had a queue waiting to go down. Yet again the sign for the platform read "Listen to Announcements".
I headed for the stairs, which come out between platforms 1 and 14 instead. A large number of people started heading towards platform 14 as a garbled announcement that I couldn't make out at all[1] was made so I asked one of the people heading in that direction if they knew which train was leaving from there. It was the 4.49 Hurstbridge! Score! I joined the throng and made my way down towards the train. As we got past the bottleneck and near the train people started running towards it. I didn't bother, being fairly certain that the train was unlikely to leave before I got on it. I was right - not only did it not leave before I'd walked three carriages up, found a seat and sat down, but it then didn't move for another 10 or so minutes. Three times the doors beeped to say they were closing - and three times people forced them open again and continued piling on the train. By the time we left you couldn't have fitted a sardine on the train and it was becoming extremely obvious that the train had no air-conditioning at all[2].
Finally the driver just decided to go for it, and the fourth time the doors beeped they actually closed and we moved off slowly. At about 5.25pm. So the 25 minute delays notice was pretty accurate actually. The double express that the train was supposed to be had magically turned into a "stopping all stations" but by that point I think everyone was so grateful to be moving that they didn't care. Much.
So we trundled our way along the line, slowly emptying as we got further from the city. I finished my book and spent the rest of the trip eavesdropping on conversations. The woman next to me fished an icepack out of her bag (now that's organisation for you!) and she and her group of friends took turns putting it on the back of their necks. An Irish-accent guy expressed his sheer disbelief at the heat, Connex and the heat. At Heidelberg station someone had installed a minor protest - an empty VB stubby next to a t-shirt printed with "Connex. Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery." draped over a seat. I would have taken a photo with my phone but I didn't manage to get it quickly enough before we headed off again.
I came out of the station to discover 7 firetrucks and several police cars. Apparently the supermarket had caught fire. Despite stopping to find this out (and watch the pretty flashing lights) and get an ice-cream (obviously I was thwarted by the supermarket being on fire, fortunately the servo sells them as well) I still made it home by 6pm. Aim achieved!
Dean, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Unfortunately he'd missed both my messages telling him about the Loop being out of service, and due to the website being buckled under the extreme heat conditions (or something) he didn't get the information from there either. So he headed into Melbourne Central station at around 5ish to catch the train. This in itself wouldn't have been a problem. To get from Melbourne Central to Flinders St station is quite easy, there are trams down both Elizabeth and Swanston Sts. However he arrived just as Connex were directing passengers to take the train at the platform to Flinders St. So he hopped on.
The train moved 200m into the tunnel between Melbourne Central and Flagstaff stations and stopped. Five minutes later there was an announcement. "There's a short delay".
25 minutes after that the train pulled into Flagstaff station. A few passengers got off, having given up on Connex already. Dean stayed put. This was perhaps not the wisest course of action. The train became sardine-like as all the Epping/Hurstbridge line passengers piled in. This was the first time that Dean phoned me. As he finished the call the woman next to him asked if he'd been on the train all that time? Apparently the passengers at Flagstaff could see the train, but they hadn't realised there were people on it.
The train shunted very slowly and carefully around to Southern Cross - where more people piled in - and then managed to make it to Flinders St, close to 45 minutes after leaving Melbourne Central. Dean could have crawled that distance faster than that.
This was the point that Dean found out about the 25-30 (they'd increased) minute delays. He rang me again. I told him to catch whatever the next train was, and I'd pick him up from somewhere.
The third time he rang was at the station before ours, asking me to pick him up. I agreed and he made it home at 7pm. His train had also been packed, but he at least had had air-conditioning.
This morning we drove. Not because of the train system to be honest, but because I'm playing an early game and then going out afterwards. But having looked at what's happened already... I'm kind of glad I did.
Just out of curiosity here - does Adelaide's train system have this many problems? Sydney's? Perth's? Sheesh. (But it's OK, it's apparently all the union's fault. I particularly liked the quote:
Earlier this month, Mr Metcalfe blamed heat - rather than the union - for a string of Connex cancellations, describing 25 degrees as a "very hot day".
*snerk* No, that's a pleasant day. This is a Very Hot Day.
[1] Surprisingly it had nothing to do with Green Doors. And I couldn't even make out the usual "Connex apologises for any inconvenience" at the end. Heh, 'any' inconvenience.
[2] Hitachi. But most of the Melburnians had guessed that already.
After yesterday I'd made the decision to check the website right before I left to go home to see whether it was worth trying the train, or whether I should play around with bus combinations. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea and the website crashed rather spectacularly. So now we can add "website crashing" to the list of things ("tracks buckling"; "air-conditioning failing"; "sudden loss of power") that extreme heat does to Connex. Heh.
Fortunately the site came up right before I left, and while there were 25 minute delays listed for the Hurstbridge/Epping lines they were running out of Flinders St. What they weren't doing was running through the Loop. I rang Dean, leaving a message on his work and mobile phones, then headed into the wall of heat at about 5.15pm. Again, I managed to walk out of the air-conditioned hospital just in time to catch a tram (whose air-conditioning was struggling badly, but hey, it was moving and heading where I wanted to go.) At Flinders St station I started heading towards the escalators to platform 1, then decided not to when I realised that the platforms were even more crowded than the night before and this had spilled over to the escalators which had a queue waiting to go down. Yet again the sign for the platform read "Listen to Announcements".
I headed for the stairs, which come out between platforms 1 and 14 instead. A large number of people started heading towards platform 14 as a garbled announcement that I couldn't make out at all[1] was made so I asked one of the people heading in that direction if they knew which train was leaving from there. It was the 4.49 Hurstbridge! Score! I joined the throng and made my way down towards the train. As we got past the bottleneck and near the train people started running towards it. I didn't bother, being fairly certain that the train was unlikely to leave before I got on it. I was right - not only did it not leave before I'd walked three carriages up, found a seat and sat down, but it then didn't move for another 10 or so minutes. Three times the doors beeped to say they were closing - and three times people forced them open again and continued piling on the train. By the time we left you couldn't have fitted a sardine on the train and it was becoming extremely obvious that the train had no air-conditioning at all[2].
Finally the driver just decided to go for it, and the fourth time the doors beeped they actually closed and we moved off slowly. At about 5.25pm. So the 25 minute delays notice was pretty accurate actually. The double express that the train was supposed to be had magically turned into a "stopping all stations" but by that point I think everyone was so grateful to be moving that they didn't care. Much.
So we trundled our way along the line, slowly emptying as we got further from the city. I finished my book and spent the rest of the trip eavesdropping on conversations. The woman next to me fished an icepack out of her bag (now that's organisation for you!) and she and her group of friends took turns putting it on the back of their necks. An Irish-accent guy expressed his sheer disbelief at the heat, Connex and the heat. At Heidelberg station someone had installed a minor protest - an empty VB stubby next to a t-shirt printed with "Connex. Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery." draped over a seat. I would have taken a photo with my phone but I didn't manage to get it quickly enough before we headed off again.
I came out of the station to discover 7 firetrucks and several police cars. Apparently the supermarket had caught fire. Despite stopping to find this out (and watch the pretty flashing lights) and get an ice-cream (obviously I was thwarted by the supermarket being on fire, fortunately the servo sells them as well) I still made it home by 6pm. Aim achieved!
Dean, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Unfortunately he'd missed both my messages telling him about the Loop being out of service, and due to the website being buckled under the extreme heat conditions (or something) he didn't get the information from there either. So he headed into Melbourne Central station at around 5ish to catch the train. This in itself wouldn't have been a problem. To get from Melbourne Central to Flinders St station is quite easy, there are trams down both Elizabeth and Swanston Sts. However he arrived just as Connex were directing passengers to take the train at the platform to Flinders St. So he hopped on.
The train moved 200m into the tunnel between Melbourne Central and Flagstaff stations and stopped. Five minutes later there was an announcement. "There's a short delay".
25 minutes after that the train pulled into Flagstaff station. A few passengers got off, having given up on Connex already. Dean stayed put. This was perhaps not the wisest course of action. The train became sardine-like as all the Epping/Hurstbridge line passengers piled in. This was the first time that Dean phoned me. As he finished the call the woman next to him asked if he'd been on the train all that time? Apparently the passengers at Flagstaff could see the train, but they hadn't realised there were people on it.
The train shunted very slowly and carefully around to Southern Cross - where more people piled in - and then managed to make it to Flinders St, close to 45 minutes after leaving Melbourne Central. Dean could have crawled that distance faster than that.
This was the point that Dean found out about the 25-30 (they'd increased) minute delays. He rang me again. I told him to catch whatever the next train was, and I'd pick him up from somewhere.
The third time he rang was at the station before ours, asking me to pick him up. I agreed and he made it home at 7pm. His train had also been packed, but he at least had had air-conditioning.
This morning we drove. Not because of the train system to be honest, but because I'm playing an early game and then going out afterwards. But having looked at what's happened already... I'm kind of glad I did.
Just out of curiosity here - does Adelaide's train system have this many problems? Sydney's? Perth's? Sheesh. (But it's OK, it's apparently all the union's fault. I particularly liked the quote:
Earlier this month, Mr Metcalfe blamed heat - rather than the union - for a string of Connex cancellations, describing 25 degrees as a "very hot day".
*snerk* No, that's a pleasant day. This is a Very Hot Day.
[1] Surprisingly it had nothing to do with Green Doors. And I couldn't even make out the usual "Connex apologises for any inconvenience" at the end. Heh, 'any' inconvenience.
[2] Hitachi. But most of the Melburnians had guessed that already.
