Over the past few weeks, we have seen on the local news bulletins, coverage of the fiasco that is Sydney trains, and all of it has been concentrated on what is happening in Sydney.
The Central Coast and Newcastle train services never rate a mention. This just shows how Sydney centric our electronic local news bulletins are. On January 23, the 9:22 am train from Tuggerah was cancelled due to overheating of wires north of Wyong. The 9.42am train arrived and thankfully was an eight-carriage train rather than the normal four-carriage one, but this train terminated at Gosford, and all were offloaded to board a four-carriage train that was pretty well full of passengers from the previously cancelled train and the usual service. Seating was at a premium, and by Woy Woy, it was a full house, with passengers sitting on the steps or standing. An elderly couple boarded our carriage, the man using a walking stick, and were trying to find a seat, ending up in a very heated argument with a young couple who had a seat next to them occupied by luggage. Their argument was that they were on first, so their luggage was OK and damn the elderly standing gentleman. After receiving comments and abuse from fellow travellers, they reluctantly moved their luggage. An isolated incident? No. It is a regular occurrence on trains on the Sydney-Newcastle line. Berejiklian’s much-touted new timetable is a farce, and from checking the new timetable against the old, we on the Newcastle-Sydney line have missed out completely. It seems a few changes to the weekend timetable and we are left with the same poor service, with many trains offering only four carriages, which does result in arguments over seating for passengers versus seating for luggage. Scot MacDonald may want to continue blaming Labor and the unions for each and every problem in NSW, but his Government has been in power for nearly seven years and nothing has been done to improve our rail links to Sydney, with his Sydneycentric Government concentrating their spending on Sydney, and bugger the Labor-dominated seats in Newcastle and the Central Coast.
Email, Jan 29 Errol Grace, Fountaindale