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| *Travel Tips>>>Sydney Travel Tips |
What do you think of the train service in Sydney? (Cityrail)? |
Travel Info What do you think of the train service in Sydney? (Cityrail)? Travel Tips I think that it was at its best during the Sydney 2000 Olympics. That is the reason why a lot of tourists who have only ever used it during that time often think so highly of it. The truth is that it is absolutely appauling. While I did like it briefly during the 2000 Olympics, the only reason is because they spent a lot of time and went to great lengths to recruit extra drivers and make sure that everything was running on time. If you live in Sydney as I do, you will realise just how bad it is. Trains are frequently overcrowded, a large proportion of its fleet has no airconditioning (not a good thing in sweltering Sydney summer heat) and the trains are often dirty. But the worst part is that they are hardly ever on time. The little indicator telling you how many minutes remaining until the next train arrives is never accurate (once i decided to time how long it said that the next train would arrive in three minutes and it stayed that way for 12 minutes then went UP!!) And CityRail is frequently changing the timetable to make it seem like the on time arrival figures are better. In fact, the most recent change they did to the timetables scheduled in fewer trains per hour with fewer carriages each time. CityRail's definition of on time in actual fact means early, late or cancelled. In my personal experiences, Paris's Metro is one of the best feats of transport engineering. The stations may be dirty, and the ticket booth operators may be rude, but a train arrives at the station EVERY 90 SECONDS!!! And there isn't a place within the city that isn't more than 500 metres from a metro station. I think that Sydney should change CityRail to become more like a city-wide major hub network, servicing the major urban areas within Sydney such as Parramatta, Chatswood, North Sydney, Hornsby, Penrith, Bankstown, Sutherland Shire and other places and invest heavily in the creation of light-rail networks in between in very much the way that Sydney was like 50 years ago...Sydney was only able to get such a large urban footprint because of its extensive and widely used tram network which was foolishly removed in the 60s to make way for the inefficient buses. Others I am happy with it although I dont need to get anywhere on time I think you will find most people use them because they have to, the truth be told they are disgusting not to mention unsafe at night. it is pathetic. I have been on the NYC subway, LA subway, Singapore subway, Bangkok overhead, all leave the Sydney system for dead. The trains are often late, dirty, dangerous, hot cos the AC is non existent or does not work. |
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