Bye for now!
Been quite a few months since my last blog about Vline.
It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that the service has not improved or been anything but woeful since October last year. The past few weeks have been particularly bad, what with train delays, track work (on a track only a few years old?) and general cock-ups that wouldn't be out of a place in a bad b-grade comedy script.
Add to that the myopic view of our state government and senior management in Vline when it comes to overcrowding. Duh ... petrol prices go up, (and will continue to do so) means you better add more capacity to the network at a rate faster than ONE carriage per month (see the recent trumpeting announcement which if you read it carefully means it will actually take close to TWO years for the "extra" 1600 seats to come in operation).
I really don't care anymore and I've not cared about the performance of Vline for quite sometime. I know eventually I will either get home or get to work, but I know it will never be on time! And I know there will be inexplicable delays at various points of the journey as Connex always gets priority in signalling, a signal system that is more suited to the 19th Century than the 21st ... come on ... 3 days to fix a fault signal at Werribee?
There are too many examples of complete incompetence to write about here from the past few months, but I can say this on behalf of my fellow travellers on V/line. They are all fed-up with the service, the overcrowding and the delays.
Will things improve? To be honest I do not believe they will. I've spoken to the complaints line (hello to the lovely Wendy), I've spoken to the "show the flag" senior managers and talked about the issues I've written about here and nothing has really changed.
Vline just doesn't get it. The government & the cloth-earred Kosky doesn't get it. Maybe one day they will actually have an idea and a vision and cut the bullshit and fix the problems and provide a world class service.
In the meantime, I'm taking two months off travelling on the trains, and indeed working and going to enjoy myself on a holiday to Europe.
I may be back here, who knows ... but in the meantime farewell & good luck to everyone still stuck on the trains of hell run by Vline.
Oh, as an addendum, I don't have any problems with the conductors on the trains (mostly) they are stuck doing a thankless task, so hopefully none of my blogs can be seen as an "attack" on the guys and gals on the coalface!
It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that the service has not improved or been anything but woeful since October last year. The past few weeks have been particularly bad, what with train delays, track work (on a track only a few years old?) and general cock-ups that wouldn't be out of a place in a bad b-grade comedy script.
Add to that the myopic view of our state government and senior management in Vline when it comes to overcrowding. Duh ... petrol prices go up, (and will continue to do so) means you better add more capacity to the network at a rate faster than ONE carriage per month (see the recent trumpeting announcement which if you read it carefully means it will actually take close to TWO years for the "extra" 1600 seats to come in operation).
I really don't care anymore and I've not cared about the performance of Vline for quite sometime. I know eventually I will either get home or get to work, but I know it will never be on time! And I know there will be inexplicable delays at various points of the journey as Connex always gets priority in signalling, a signal system that is more suited to the 19th Century than the 21st ... come on ... 3 days to fix a fault signal at Werribee?
There are too many examples of complete incompetence to write about here from the past few months, but I can say this on behalf of my fellow travellers on V/line. They are all fed-up with the service, the overcrowding and the delays.
Will things improve? To be honest I do not believe they will. I've spoken to the complaints line (hello to the lovely Wendy), I've spoken to the "show the flag" senior managers and talked about the issues I've written about here and nothing has really changed.
Vline just doesn't get it. The government & the cloth-earred Kosky doesn't get it. Maybe one day they will actually have an idea and a vision and cut the bullshit and fix the problems and provide a world class service.
In the meantime, I'm taking two months off travelling on the trains, and indeed working and going to enjoy myself on a holiday to Europe.
I may be back here, who knows ... but in the meantime farewell & good luck to everyone still stuck on the trains of hell run by Vline.
Oh, as an addendum, I don't have any problems with the conductors on the trains (mostly) they are stuck doing a thankless task, so hopefully none of my blogs can be seen as an "attack" on the guys and gals on the coalface!
posted by vlinewhinger at 1:51 pm
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