Of course that doesn’t excuse the number of trains breaking down.

However I was more responding to the “why can’t they just make it work properly” type questions rather than “why can’t they manage disruptions well”.

In regard to things being worse this year, well as long as we have the same old junk it’ll probably get worse every year… although one would hope the recent trackworks and the like would start to have a positive effect.

The last Labour government made some concessions toward the end of their term and set the ball rolling on rail upgrades and more funding for public transport, but they basically dilly dallyed a lot of it into oblivion. Since the Nats have returned to power they have stripped out the public transport funding in favour of more highways, but mercifully they have agreed to finish off some of Labour’s belated projects. There is simply no political or public will to make any changes to the status quo of the last few decades. People who do support a change in policy such as the Greens and the ARC are labeled as loonies.

To cut a long story short, most parts of the rail network (including the tracks, signals, control systems, points, trains and stations) is basically fifty or more years old, and they have hardly been maintained in those fifty years. The whole lot basically needs to be replaced as it all well past it’s useful date. The trains we use today were initially sold for scrap when Perth gave up on them in the late 1980s, a couple more were literally museum pieces made functional again. The signalling system is the same one used at the time the Nazis invaded Poland. Sorry, but they just cannot get the current trains and infrastructure to work, be reliable and run on time. This is why the electrification project is so important, not only does it mean new reliable trains but it also includes replacing the antiquated points and signalling across the network. This is the light at the end of the tunnel, as Jeremy says things will be a lot better after 2013 but what can be done in the meantime?

Yes the ARC, ARTA, Kiwirail et al do care, they are making a hell of a lot of headway with the limited funds they have. But they are not omnipotent nor are they given anything like the funding that Transit NZ gets. The simple fact is getting a system that has spent the last fifty years being run into the ground and neglected working reliably is going to take time and money. They don’t have much money so it is going to take time.

If you really want to blame someone, blame the last and current government and the people the vote for them. Blame those Aucklanders who couldn’t care less about the rail network and just want to see more motorways to get them out of congestion. Blame the people that voted in Banks the first time so he could champion the eastern motorway instead of voting to keep Fletcher who gave them Britomart and promised a new region wide rail system. Don’t blame the few small organisations that are actually trying to fix the situation, blame the government policy makers.

Sure the other buses end up in the same general area, but people do choose the bus they get on because it goes a specific route.

The driver could not sell my daughter a 20 ride reload on her card because the machine was not working properly.

I have lived in cities/countries with great public transport systems, why can’t it be done here?

I am not interested in all the “vapourware” talkfests of mega million CBD tunnels, flash rail trenches and new and improved trains and ticketing. As far as I am concerned that is just loud mouthing by useless PR people and managers who would rather get in a catered lunch while they have another gabfest about a pie in the sky future that never comes than sit at their desks and grapple with the realities of their miserably failing actual, real, now network.

I just want the God damn system they have now to work, be reliable and be on time for crying out loud. No train in the last month has arrived on time and they are usually between 6 and 10 minutes late. They are quite simply running an incompetent service that seems to run on a best effort basis, where their best effort simply isn’t good enough. if they can’t get it right in perfect weather what hope is there for a reliable commuter service in the winter?

I worked out it would have been just about quicker to have just walked the 6+km to work.

In any case, compensation’s not the issue here. What I want to see is someone stand up and say “right we’ve got a problem here, I’m going to fix it and here’s how.”

Who’s doing that?