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Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

Hansard: Trains will run slower

posted Sunday 19 September 2004
Extract from Hansard, NSW Legislative Council, Wednesday 15 September 2004 showing the Minister's explanation of why Sydney's trains need to run more slowly than they have been running.

MILLENNIUM TRAINS DRIVER TRAINING

The Hon. DON HARWIN: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Transport Services, and Minister for the Hunter. When will all the train drivers who are not qualified to drive the Millennium trains be trained to do so, particularly those from CityRail depots that have no drivers trained to operate the Millennium trains?

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: I am glad the Opposition is desirous of getting the Millennium train onto the rail system. I take that as implicit acknowledgement that it is a good train. There could be no other reason for the Opposition's concern about having the Millennium train operating across the rail system. It is good to see there has been a change of attitude. I wish the honourable member would communicate that to the Leader of the Opposition so he would not criticise the work force involved in producing that train.

The Government's priority in relation to training drivers is to maintain our peak rail services. That was the logic behind the recent timetable changes. As I said on many occasions, but it does not seem to have sunk in to the Leader of the Opposition, there will be two timetables as part of the process of restoring rail services to acceptable performance.

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: What will the public see and what will the public not see?

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: The public will see both timetables. That is an incorrect objection.

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: And the train will arrive somewhere between the two timetables?

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: The first timetable was to address the driver shortage, and one can say it successfully achieved that. We had no pre-planned cancellations since that timetable was introduced, and our on-time running performance, as the Leader of the Opposition knows, because he has been calling weekly press conferences to try to get a story up about it, has improved since all the problems we have had since February. It is certainly not up to scratch, and that is why we are looking at the new timetable. The new timetable is due next September. As I have said on many occasions, that timetable will restore on-time running to acceptable levels.

The reason it will do that is that it will add an additional five minutes every 60 minutes, approximately, into the timetable, for two reasons. One is to adjust to the problems with the data loggers. We have said consistently that data loggers have reduced the running speeds of trains because they operate almost as fixed speed cameras. We know what responsible people do when they see a speed camera. They obviously stick to the speed limit, and most people, for whatever reason, tend to go under the speed limit. That is what is happening with our drivers with the introduction of data loggers.

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: You can be on time but you cannot get there.

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: No, you can be on time and you can get there. But you cannot get there by ignoring safety, as Mr Brogden said we ought to do. Mr Brogden's solution to the problem was to ignore the Waterfall recommendations. We are a responsible Government. We would never adopt the attitude of Mr Brogden and ignore recommendations made by a commission of inquiry. It is an absurd proposition the Opposition made, that is, that we should ignore Waterfall. We will not ignore Waterfall. We have introduced data loggers. We will face the consequences of that, which is lower on-time running for a period as we adjust the timetable. The second factor is additional dwell time. As our population ages our trains are required to spend more time at the platform to allow our older citizens to get on.

[Interruption]

That shows the Opposition's lack of railway experience.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Members will keep their voices down and remember that interjections are disorderly at all times.



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