Times off track

By Ed Merrison
THE State Government has come under heavy fire for its failure to address growing reliability problems on the Belgrave train line.
Gembrook Liberal candidate Simon Wildes last week called on Transport Minister Peter Batchelor to explain why the number of Belgrave line trains that were either late or cancelled soared between December 2004 and December 2005.
The number of Belgrave line trains that were over six minutes late during that 12-month period rose from 6 per cent to 10.6 per cent, with 38 trains cancelled.
“It’s disappointing that Labor MP Tammy Lobato isn’t doing something for the Gembrook commuters who are being let down time and time again,” Mr Wildes said.
Ms Lobato chose not to respond directly to the criticism, handing the matter over to the Transport Minister’s office, where The Mail’s specific questions on the Belgrave line and experiences of Ferntree Gully and Belgrave commuters were ignored.
Government spokesperson Sofia Dedes said the Government was working with public transport operators including Connex to improve performance for all public transport services.
“Connex has been working hard to improve service delivery by identifying and implementing programs to improve train reliability.
“Other than train and infrastructure faults, some elements beyond Connex’s control, including extreme weather, passenger illness and traffic accidents affected service reliability in December 2005,” she said.
Connex spokesperson Kate de Clerq said the rail operator had nothing to add to the Government’s comments.
Public Transport Users’ Association Outer East branch convener Alex Makin branded the Government’s response “clearly inadequate”.
Mr Makin said the response was a clear demonstration that Mr Batchelor was out of touch with the situation on the Belgrave line and evidence he no longer saw improvements on the line as a priority.
“The State Government is responsible for infrastructure and this all boils down to the fact that the infrastructure isn’t coping.
“These problems haven’t occurred overnight. Reliability is always an issue on these lines,” Mr Makin said.
Mr Makin said signalling on the line needed to be improved and tracks needed to be duplicated all along the line.
“If there are any problems on the single track, that hampers reliability on the rest of the network from Belgrave to the city,” he said.
Mr Makin said it was wrong that people toward the end of the line were neglected, especially as a lot of the reliability problems occurred at the line’s extremities.
“Rather than talking about projects that are underway and haven’t delivered results, the Government needs to get serious.
“The system is crumbling and the Government is unaware or unwilling to do anything to fix this,” he said.
Ferntree Gully MP Anne Eckstein put a more positive spin on the reliability figure, saying that over nine out of ten trains ran on time on the Belgrave line over the past year.
“Furthermore, less than one per cent of services on the Belgrave line were cancelled,” she said.
Ms Eckstein also denied Mr Wildes’ claims that the State Government had planned for a driver shortage lasting until 2008.
“The State Government and Connex have worked hard to recruit new drivers, and driver shortages are no longer having an effect on our system.
“There are more drivers in training now than ever before,” she said.
Ms Eckstein also moved to allay concerns the rail network would struggle to cope with demand during this year’s Commonwealth Games.
“The State Government has recently completed its acquisition of new rolling stock in time for the Commonwealth Games.
“Over the past three years, 29 six-carriage X’TRAPOLIS and 34 six-carriage Siemens trains have entered service on Melbourne’s network,” she said.