"somewhat inadequate"

I wonder if those words were used on the day?

Staff shortage 'led to Connex Oaks Day debacle'

Connex did not have enough staff to respond to a rail meltdown on Oaks Day last year that left tens of thousands of furious racegoers stranded, the state's rail safety chief has found.

Trains between Flemington and the city failed on the afternoon of November 6 last year, just as 90,000 people were spilling from the racetrack.

Overhead wires melted above one train stopped between North Melbourne and Newmarket. This knocked out power and halted all services in the area.

Hundreds of passengers were left stranded aboard one hot, airless and broken down train. The risked their lives by abandoning the train and walking on train lines to escape.

Tens of thousands more in the CBD had peak-hour trips home thrown into chaos by the fault.
Victoria's director of public transport safety Alan Osborne has today released his findings into the incident.

He found Connex's contingency plans for the emergency were "somewhat inadequate".
However, despite finding Connex did not have sufficient staff to manage the incident, it had complied with all safety procedures, Mr Osborne said.

Experienced rail maintenance staff at the time of meltdown told The Age it had occurred due to long-term neglect of Melbourne's rail system.


Note: go to the link if you feel like reading the whole article.

The Truth?

Concert at the G on 14th March

A lot of people and a lot of different groups have done their bit for the bushfire appeal. I think the concert athe MCG on the 14th of March could be huge.

Last time I cheered a funny looking bald guy there was in about 1995 when Mil Hanna was playing for Carlton. I am very much looking forward to the Federal Environment Minister belting out some classics with Midnight Oil.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/garrett-to-rejoin-midnight-oil-for-bushfire-benefit-20090224-8gao.html

Delay of the Day

Train line blocked in rail union stand-off

A stand-off between warring factions of the state's rail union last night saw a Belgrave line train stopped, blocking the path of other trains, for five hours on platform two at Flinders Street Station.

- Belgrave line blocked
- Dispute 'pretty similar'
- About 50 trains cancelled

Train drivers and train controllers - the two belong to separate factions of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union - were last night locked in an argument over the train, which was to run on the Belgrave/Lilydale line.
The train sat at Flinders Street Station's platform two from 6pm until about midnight, as train drivers and train controllers fought over what happen to the train, which had a failed intercom.
One train driver, who asked not to be named, told The Age last night it was train controllers causing the stand-off. "They are setting out to cause trouble," the driver said.
Train operator Connex is having serious trouble negotiating with its train drivers over how faults on trains are recorded, and drivers are now almost at open war with train controllers. Controllers have sided with Connex to retain the current system.
In dispute is how faults on trains are reported; train drivers want to change the system of fault reporting to give them more power, while train controllers want to keep the status quo.

Honestly, these guys are holding thousands of commuters to ransom over red tape. Surely they can sort this out? The politicla in-fighting within the union will not help anyone associated with the train system.

Bolt and Fact go head to head

Andrew only Last Friday claimed:

Why is the Rudd Government running the biggest immigration program in our history just as the economy crashes?”

Citing his own article and a link to an article on The Australian website as proof.

Yet let us look at what is reported today:

Slowing economy forces immigration cut
February 23, 2009 - 1:51PM

Australia will cut its annual immigration intake for the first time in eight years due to the slowing economy and weakening demand for labour, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said today.

Fact 1 – Bolt 0

UPDATE: Bolt states today

It’s taken nearly a year, but the Rudd Government didn’t want to look completely stupid by changing its mind any sooner on an immigration program that was stupid even to start with

and nice to see in the comments the following gem:

Yeah and plenty of these migrants are Indian students who have come here to take up phoney cooking or hairdressing courses to enable them to apply to migrate and bring the whole village with them.A conversation with an Indian woman in a lift went something like this."There are a lot of Indians in Australia now"."Yes,it’s our turn to invade you now.”
nigel of richmond Tue
24 Feb 09 (09:27am)

Nice to see Andrew's no racist comments policy has lasted about 2 minutes.

Bike Path Spending

As reported in The Age today:

NEW bicycle commuter routes and the inclusion of special lanes in all large-scale road projects are expected to be part of the first major bicycle plan for Melbourne since the early 1980s.

The Government has been working on its bicycle strategy for several months, but delayed its release because of the bushfires.

In the strategy, now to be launched next month, $18 million a year will be spent over the next six years, with a renewed focus on priority routes into the city centre.
Bicycle lanes on William Street and La Trobe Street will be bolstered as part of the plan, to make cycling in the CBD safer.

Excellent news I say. There has been a large increase in the number of bike commuters in Melbourne over the last few years as a result of several factors. Lots of employers and workplaces are trying to encourage employees to ride as well through installing lockers and showers.

The key to the funding is that the bike lanes need to be commuter based. That is they need to be fast. Experienced bike riders will run the risk of riding amongst traffic if the alternative bike path is too slow.

Another interesting point in the report is:

The plan will also mandate for the first time construction of bicycle lanes into
the state's $2 billion road-building program.

A letter from Roads Minister Tim Pallas to cycle lobby group Bicycle Victoria sent late last year stressed that the strategy would focus on making bicycle lanes an integral part of all new road building.

This makes sense in urban areas as long as the paths are linked. I doubt 2km of path in the middle of the Goulburn Valley Highway would be that popular.

Delay of the Day Pt II - The Follow Up

Could anyone who uses the Sandy line honestly say this is a good enough reason?

rail delay caused by red tape mixup
February 20, 2009 12:00am
A TRAIN that blocked the Sandringham line for more than eight hours this week was not faulty.
The Herald Sun believes a thorough check of the train by manufacturer Siemens failed to detect a significant fault.

A failure to report suspicions of a fault according to procedure led to Wednesday's standoff that stranded thousands of commuters.

Sources said a junior train driver was uncertain about whether his train had a fault about 9am that day and he had sought advice from his supervisor.

The supervisor, instead of the driver, reported the matter to train controllers, but this was contrary to Connex policy and the controllers refused to accept the report.

The controllers also refused to give the train a green signal to move on, keeping it at the station for more than eight hours until the row was resolved.

Connex yesterday took the matter to the Industrial Relations Commission and it will return there next Wednesday.

Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky said the disruption to commuters had been outrageous.

"I don't want to go into a blame game, but the behaviour was completely unacceptable," she said.
Procedures for fault reporting are at the centre of the dispute between Connex and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union's locomotive division.

The company believes that reporting faults through driver supervisors, instead of train controllers, is less safe.

Continuing rows between the RTBU's locomotive and operations divisions have fuelled speculation of a split.