Trains of pain

By Jade Lawton
TRAINS on the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines are so packed that they often breach load standards by up to 300 passengers, according to Shadow Transport Minister Terry Mulder.
Mr Mulder has slammed Transport Minister Lynne Kosky for travelling to her Spring Street office in ‘an air-conditioned, chauffeur-driven limousine’ while Pakenham line commuters were packed in to ‘sardine tins’ with far more passengers than seats on peak-hour services.
Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Liberal Party show that 13 six-carriage Cranbourne or Pakenham trains carried more than 1000 passengers in May this year, with one Pakenham-bound train departing Flinders Street at 5.21pm with 1189 passengers.
“Up to 198 passengers are crammed into each carriage. With individual carriages having an average 88 seats, 110 passengers are typically standing in Minister Kosky’s sardine can. Minister Kosky’s Load Standards assume a maximum of 798 passengers in a six-carriage suburban train. Anything above this is a ‘load breach,” he said.
“In May 2009, 10 trains were cancelled on the Cranbourne line and 12 to or from Pakenham or Dandenong. Minister Kosky’s load survey calculations exclude the more crowded train that follows a train cancellation because she claims that the second train has an ‘inflated’ number of commuters.”
But there may be hope for train travellers, with Public Transport Users Association Secretary Anthony Morton laying some of the blame with departing train operator Connex, whose contract expires this year.
“The real problem is that the system has been experiencing load breaches for a number of years now, and the planners have been too slow to react. This has allowed crowding to reach unacceptable levels of 1200 per train or more,” he said.
“But running more trains eats into the private operator’s bottom line, so Connex has preferred to pass the buck to the government for supposedly not providing adequate infrastructure.
“This conveniently distracts from the fact that Connex once had surplus trains that could have been used to relieve overcrowding, but scrapped them five years ago to cut costs.
“On the whole we’d say that breaches of the 798 passenger standard are to be expected in a growing system. But we would expect planners to have a prompt and well-thought-out response to this, and not let the overcrowding get out of control the way it has.”
State Government spokesman Chris Owner said new reforms to the rail system would improve the service, while the opposition had offered no solutions.
“Mr Mulder knows that Melbourne’s trains can safely carry more than 1000 passengers and his typical alarmist scaremongering shows how lazy the Opposition is. Additional peak hour services will be introduced on the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines next year as the fleet of 38 new trains enter service,” he said.
“Last week, the government announced a new partnership with Metro Trains Melbourne who have pledged to cut cancellations and impr-ove punctuality.
“We expect that these improvements will be enjoyed by commuters on the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines.
“More people are taking Melbourne’s public transport system, while Ted Baillieu’s lazy Opposition still has no policy on transforming our network.”