hey a new gripe!

Here

connex is shit

So it only took me 3/4 of an hour to get to work this morning starting with the 7:57 express train from Broady and utilising the hot new bus from North Melbourne. Great, huh? It is actually a pretty good time. But it would have been 10 mins less if the express train hadn't stopped for 10 mins about 1/2 a k outside North Melbourne station. What on earth is the point of putting on express trains - which ostensibly inconvenience a few at lesser used stations to the advantage of pushing through a larger amount of passsengers - when in fact all the time saved is squandered just before the end of the journey? The train is still packed, people were left standing, obviously irritated. I used the time wisely to call Connex and complain, I expect a response to my complaint in seven working days, by which time I hope I will be a little less irritated, but the fact remains, there is no reason for this happening, only excuses, and even if the excuse is a baby was asleep on the rail line with its head on a pillow on the track and the Connex employees didn't want to wake it up so they had to be extra careful, that can't always be the reason for delays, and in fact, the only real reason that I would find acceptable is if Connex called me back and said the reason for the delay is we are shit, and even then I wouldn't be happy unless I had it in writing.

traintime

These are my fellow would-be commuters at Essendon station this morning, waiting for a train that was 15 minutes overdue. People like Connex are into talking about how passengers who buy a ticket pay for passengers who don't, blah blah, which as we all know is a holey theory as all passengers are also subsidised by 'the taxpayer', and in most cases passengers would also be taxpayers anyway, but that's another story. I just wanted to have a little thought time on how much 'productivity' (a bogus notion in this and most other scenarios but handy if you wanna conceptualise) was wasted as 80-100 people were kept waiting on Essendon station for a quarter of an hour beyond the time they had expected (unless they often travel by train) to be there. I accept that some of these people probably weren't going to work (therefore their wasted time is irrelevant; all they have is time to waste) and gee, when you think about it, what if some of them were going somewhere to commit a crime or plant a bomb (also a crime) or kill themselves? In which case it's probably a good thing the train was so late. But for the rest of them, in total you would assume between one and two week's worth of wasted 'productivity'. Except good news, it probably wasn't wasted because they probably just made it up at the end of the working day! So no-one loses out.
And by the way there was no fucking announcement along the lines of Connex apologises for any inconvenience or loss of national productivity caused, unless you are a terrorist or a suicide, in which case, you should offer to mow our lawn. And a naughty lady didn't show her knickers.