18/08/2018, A.K.A. THE DAY CITYRAIL DESTROYED EVERYONE’S PATIENCE
- Jake Zuccolotto
- Aug 31, 2018
- 3 min read
A whole plethora of issues occurred on this fine day. The weather was fine. The people were not. I was not. I almost went rather insane, actually. When I tell you that there was a major delay in Sydney, I mean, it was so major that Uber drivers around the whole of New South Wales were tapping their fingers together and laughing at everyone’s misfortune.
It was the epitome of frustrating. While people who lived close to the city only waited for basically two hours through the delay in order to get home, while that would be nice for some – it took me four hours to get home. FOUR. BLOODY. HOURS.
It usually takes me an hour to get home on most days. I found myself on the verge of tears every five seconds during this huge ‘technical difficulty.’ Indicator boards, and all of the train apps didn’t show the correct times for the train services. In fact, most train services had completely changed their minds when they were on the platforms. Here’s how my travel went, it’s a real doozy.
The first train I caught from International Airport, was at 2:30PM. I sat next to my co-worker and we were facing two passengers who ended up getting on the next train at Domestic Airport. I mean, I should’ve seen a red flag as soon as I noticed that the indicator boards just didn’t seem to indicate how many minutes we had to wait until the train showed up. The train was full and it was mental.
The woman sitting across from me, let’s call her Debra. She began to tell me about how she wished she drove to Newcastle from Brisbane – rather than doing what she already did, which was catch a plane to Sydney. Through her, I found out that she had to catch a track-work bus to Newcastle from either Central or Strathfield? I don’t remember, but either way it’s appalling.
I looked at my app and it said, it would take me to Fairfield station, where I had to get off, however it changed its mind the moment it went to Central. Talk about being indecisive. I ended up switching through five different trains until I found my desired stop – which ended up being Parramatta, because I couldn’t deal with the travel any longer.
It was a day full of miscommunication and a whole lot of inner screaming. It was essentially the Hunger Games on the train. There were a lot of apologies being thrown around by the rail workers but the lack of information made it hard to believe. I had to go online during this disastrous trip home and really research the root of the problem, so I found it naturally fitting that I’d search #sydneytrains on Twitter. I know I wasn’t the only one.
“Sorry to be making all these announcements when we have no further information, but our management feels that you are reassured by it. You won’t see our management, but... they want you to be reassured by me making announcements, to tell you that we have no further information. Thank you.” That was what a train driver, who was equally as frustrated, if not more – said as a guard announcement. It was recorded by a train passenger who quickly posted it with the hashtag included. It was actually really intense, but oddly entertaining. That’s when it was made apparent to me that the train drivers were as put in the dark as the rest of us were. For a moment, we were all equal. We were all fucked.
Another interesting aspect to this experience was seeing the common folk crumble under the pressure of the crowds. You always see the videos of the BIG crowds in those heavily congested stations around the globe – but nothing will prepare you for that. In fact, the people in those videos seemed vastly calmer than the people I saw that day. It was like the bogan version of the survival of the fittest.
I experienced a man verbally attack his wife in front of their two daughters because she held a phone – but honestly you could tell she wanted to really kick him in the throat. I
even experienced the most intensely aggressive man at Redfern station who absolutely lost his mind. He had this epic meltdown about a two hour delay his train experienced on his way to Central station (a measly ten-minute walk away).
He even cussed at anyone who looked at him, but I tested fate so I could draw his wild portrait. It didn’t last too long until my train decided to escape. I can’t stress to everyone how amazing I slept that night. Truly. Thanks CityRail, you’ve always been a nightmare to us all, but we love you.