News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Trains

[AG]

The image they had next to the story about the problems was also not Adelaide, but Sydney.

EDIT: Ah, they finally corrected it.

[crawf]

Was that the photo that looked like Oaklands Station?

Does anyone think that maybe the State Government is planning to completely redevelop the train network?, I reckon they might be *fingers cross*

Rail chaos uproar
Article from: The Advertiser

MICHAEL OWEN

November 01, 2007 12:10pm

THE State Opposition has called on Transport Minister Patrick Conlon to "face the music" over today's train system failure.

Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith told reporters at Adelaide Railway Station that Mr Conlon and Premier Mike Rann had gone missing in the face of another major disruption to Adelaide’s public transport system.

Thousands of suburban train commuters were delayed early this morning as a computer breakdown threw the entire network into chaos.

Buses were brought in to help shift stranded commuters stranded by the out-of-action Tonsley and Grange rail services.

The computer fault has also led to trains being delayed along lines from Gawler, Belair, Noarlunga and Outer Harbor.

Mr Martin Hamilton-Smith said the Government needed to take urgent action to fix the transport system.

Mr Hamilton-Smith claimed Mr Conlon had lost control of TransAdelaide and thousands of commuters were left with no information no reassurance and no action plan to get people to their destination.

“Just as we saw in the recent derailment passengers were left stranded with no plan in place to deal with system failures, Mr Hamilton-Smith said.

“Whenever there is trouble, Pat Conlon, the Minister for Stuff-ups, hides behind his public servants.”

Mr Conlon and TransAdelaide general manger Bill Watson are scheduled to hold a press conference at 12.15pm to answer to allegations.

[SRW]

This is such a replay of the situation in NSW about 4 years ago when Carr was still about. The 'Tiser has been trying to scandalise public transport in this city for about 2 years now to offer the Opposition some sort of traction against the Government. The funny thing is, though, that it's almost always overblown and people aren't fooled that the Liberals would do any better.

All the same, it is concerning to note the number of incidents such as this increasing of late. I'm holding out that the rumour buzzing around earlier this year that next year's Budget will feature significant investment in public transport will come true.

[jimmy_2486]

I cant actually believe that for our simple heavy rail network, we have had 3 incedences this year where people have been majorly delayed.

I have been in a scenario like this where last year the signals screwed up at 5pm and no one could leave the city. It was crazy, there were 10s of thousands of people in the railway station all confused.

[Will409]

Had the delays as lead news item on Ch 10 news. Martin Hamilton Smith was interviewed at the railway station. In typical fashion, he did make reference to the tram system basically saying "95% of commuters use trains and buses, not trams. Fix it Pat". Words to that affect anyway.

[muzzamo]

Had the delays as lead news item on Ch 10 news. Martin Hamilton Smith was interviewed at the railway station. In typical fashion, he did make reference to the tram system basically saying "95% of commuters use trains and buses, not trams. Fix it Pat". Words to that affect anyway.

To a certain extent that is true, but they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading the busses . The problem is that our train network has been neglected for so long it is litterally going to require $2billion to fix. Baby steps are all that they can do, and the sleepering is the start. They will have no choice but to spend more money on it beyond that, much like the government had no choice but to buy new trams (disability laws) then no choice but to upgrade the track..

[jimmy_2486]

Had the delays as lead news item on Ch 10 news. Martin Hamilton Smith was interviewed at the railway station. In typical fashion, he did make reference to the tram system basically saying "95% of commuters use trains and buses, not trams. Fix it Pat". Words to that affect anyway.

Well derr we only have one tram services and how many bus and train services??

I have no idea what pat wants to achieve with our PT system....

[UrbanSG]

I don't actually think Pat knows what is going on with the public transport system and that's where the problem lies. I think this is because the government can't decide between trams or trains. They need to work out an entire integrated transport plan which they haven't come up with yet. The sooner this is done and we have an entire upgrade on the table as opposed to this current adhoc concrete sleeper upgrade the better.

Luckily I wasn't impacted on today and that's because I didn't catch a train because of all the past stuff ups over the last year or so. One stuff up here and there is okay but when they keep happening it is unacceptable. It is too unreliable to use the trains at the moment. FIX IT PAT & RANN!!!

[jimmy_2486]

I would be actually much more happier if they proposed a massive plan to revolutionise the trains AND trams in one sweep, even though it will take longer to achieve.

At least we will know they are thinking of us poor commuters.

[Pistol]

Well you at least have to admit that this government has its priorities set.
They made announcements last year about a super jail to takeover from Yatala and also the announcements about the super school system.
This year the announcement was made about the Marj.
I have a gut feeling that next year there will be an announcement about the train/public transport system.
Well fingers crossed anyway.

[bmw boy]

They have to put out some kind of big PT plan, or MHS will use it to his advantage.

[crawf]

Well you at least have to admit that this government has its priorities set.
They made announcements last year about a super jail to takeover from Yatala and also the announcements about the super school system.
This year the announcement was made about the Marj.
I have a gut feeling that next year there will be an announcement about the train/public transport system.
Well fingers crossed anyway.

And remember the SA Govenrment saying they are rebuilding SA, so I also think it could be on the cards for next year if itsn't then they better hurry up and put it high on the agenda because if the libs proposal a major plan to completely upgrade our PT system (especially the trains) for the 2010 election then theres a high chance labor will be thrown out of office.

[jimmy_2486]

one day bmw boy..............one day.....

[Bulldozer]

Sigh, another fault with the new signalling system. I understand the new system is running on Windows. Whoever is responsible for selecting and approving that needs to be flogged to within an inch of their lives in the middle of Victoria Square, because that's the risk they're playing with commuters lives. You simply do not run a real-time, safety-critical system on Windows!

Conlon's excuse of "computers crash" is completely inexcusable. Would you accept the same excuse if this was a nuclear power plant or if the singalling system sent two trains head-on into each other and people died? No, because you use hardware and software that is designed to be failsafe. It is expensive and hard to make stuff like that, but it has to be used because the stakes are so high!

After the huge cost blowouts and his recent remarks on trams vs trains he is clearly out of his depth and should be sacked.

[jimmy_2486]

I always thought that it was run on XBox Linux?