I have been really sick of the public transport system in Melbourne. I am using public transport to go to work everyday, and at the same time, I am facing delayed trains everyday. One of the worst lines I have experienced is the Sandringham Line, and followed by Pakenham / Cranbourne / Dandenong lines. I normally catch public transport to work using 2 routes, depends on the condition (i.e. express trains or how much time trains are delayed) to minimise my traffic duration.
Route 1: I catch train from Hughesdale station to Armadale, and then change Tram route No. 6 (Glen Iris to Melbourne Uni ) from Armadale station to St Kilda Road.
Route 2: I catch the train from Hughesdale station to South Yarra, and then change Train from South Yarra to Prahran station, and then walk about 10 minutes to our office.
The trains go to city from Pakenham / Cranbourne / Dandenong lines during the peak time are generally OK. I would say around 70% on time (within 5 minutes delayed), although some express trains can’t run express because previous trains are delayed, which I feel is really annoying. I don’t think it is a good idea to run an express service only 3 minutes after the stop-all-station service, no one can expect the trains will run on time, especially when Connex is operating the network. However, according to my experience, the trains running from Flinders Street to Sandringham are about 80% delayed when I change train at South Yarra station. Considering South Yarra is the third station from Flinders Street (Sandringham line does not run through city loop during weekdays), it is VERY VERY unacceptable.
There are also more delayed trains when I go back home after work, and I would say there are about 80% of trains never run on time for Pakenham/Cranbourne/Dandenong Lines. It is so common to hear the announcement saying “Attention platform 6, X:XX train has been delayed, and it is not expected in X minutes”. And this announcement just one comes after another, because trains are running quite frequently during peak time in the afternoon, one train delayed means all subsequent trains are all affected.
After years of frustration from Connex, I am now thinking about recording all trains I caught against their delayed minutes on my website, so that I can run a report every month to see how it looks like. This information might be useful some day, I hope.
This is what the report will roughly look like
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I am sure it will turn out to be more detail and complex than this. Let’s wait, I will create new page when the time comes.
