Call me Madame Defarge

Gladys Berejiklian

Actress playing Madame Defarge

 I travelled by train to Newcastle last Sunday. The train was 50 minutes late arriving. There had been no warning of track work and indeed there were lots of men in hard hats standing beside the track north of Gosford and signs of work going on beside the track, but no one was working.

There were no announcements or apologies on the train. We were approached by an Irish lass who wanted to know how far we were from Newcastle. She was being picked up and was afraid they would have left. I lent her my mobile so she could ring her friend without international roaming fees and it turned out all right for her.

There was a report in the evening TV news programs last night that complaints about rail services are at an all time high. This was not an isolated incident.

Coincidentally, I met someone at the lunch at a Hamilton pub who had been a stationmaster at several railway stations in northern Sydney. He had left and was taking a course to start a new career while he was still young enough. The reign of terror at TfNSW continues unabated - experienced staff are passed over and leaving and people with the correct political ideology are promoted.

The Fascists famously made the trains run on time, but this is not part of the present philosophy. O'Farrell will be forcing buses from the south east and from Parramatta Road and City road to turn around where there is no possibility for them to lay over and start on schedule. It will be a fluke if any bus service south of the Harbour is on time.

There is a information session set up by TfNSW in Surry Hills from 4PM to 8PM today. We are told there will be "technical" people here to answer questions from the public. There are hundreds of unanswered questions thrown up by this so-called EIS. I had a lot of time on the train on Sunday to make a list of some of the questions to be answered. You can view them here.

I doubt if there will be satisfactory answers but I will report back. There is only 6 days left to make a submission to the EIS, believe it or not.