Train drivers not being ready and waiting for when trains arrive to change over- I dont know what causes this, its could be anything from bad organisation(too far to travel from one platform to another etc) or a lack of care by the drivers.(nothing like waiting to get home only to see the driver or their mate getting a lift turning up late laughing with fresh coffees)

Trains not taking passengers blocking up flinders street. If the train is not to be used then why is it sitting at the station while a train with customers on it sits between stations? I am late usually because the train from one side of the city is a couple of minutes late from waiting between Richmond and Flinders street. If the train is waiting for a driver then move it out and then back in after the driver arrives. The greatest irony in Connex’s name is that it was impossible to connect with their near enough is good enough attitude to arriving at Flinders street on time.

The signs and announcers at Flinders street to be from the same source. I dont know how many times the announcers dont match the signs we are looking at.

This need to appear smarter than they are. If connex didnt name trains going to flinders street as anything other than flinders street then some of the confusion of getting on a lilydale train at flagstaff and it being a glen waverley train by richmond would be lost

As with everything this labour drop in government does as long as the trough is full then all will be ok. Are Kirner and Brumby the two worst unelected leaders in Victorias history or what?

The worst example happened again, today (Sunday 28/06/2009), to a friend. Railway bus from Granville to St Mary’s, arrives St Mary’s just in time to miss a suburbun train to Penrith. Next suburban train to Penrith misses connection to Blue Mountains train. One hour wait for a bus load of passengers. Why the express bus terminated at St Mary’s is beyond me. Almost all were Blue Mountains passengers.

I am glad someone makes these points. Frequent and Reliable. Fast end to end journey time. That include journeys where one must change services mid-journey.

I find it immensely annoying when “on-time” running is pushed to the exclusion of genuine service. A train that is on-time but empty does no one any good, except the bureaucrats who publish statistics.

If a service is frequent enough then being “on time” is unimportant. If a service is infrequent, then sticking to a timetable is important, so long as passengers are not left stranded through no fault of their own.

In Sydney, I frequently change trains at Ashfield. On more than one occasion I have been caught out when the South Line train arrives a few minutes late onto a different platform. My connecting service is waiting on the other platform. But by the time I get up the stairs, across the bridge, and down again, the connecting service has left. It has left almost empty, because most of its normal load from here would be the 20 to 30 people like me transferring from the South Line.

The worst example I have come across is when there is track work on the Western Line. Rail buses run from (say) Granville to (say) Penrith, where Blue Mountains passengers transfer to the Blue Moutains service. If the train pulls out before the bus pulls in, it lengthens an already overlong journey by an extra hour and leaves a lot of very cranky passengers waiting.