The ongoing rail fiasco.

Yesterdays event on the Illawarra line illustrates all that is wrong with the shambles New South Wales has the temerity to call a rail service.
Twenty-two people gathered in pre-dawn darkness on the platform of Kiama station awaiting the scheduled 4.29 am train to Central. Some would describe the conditions as " brisk " - while others prefer the terminology of " bloody freezing ".
The minutes lapsed by - until at 4.44 am a train appeared - and failed to stop at Kiama station - or any of the other ten stations between Kiama and Wollongong.
The usual apology from the railways occurred later in the day. They claim this train was the cancelled 4.29 service on it's way to Wollongong to be serviced to have a fault repaired. One would wonder what life threatening fault enabled it to make the journey at high speed with a full crew - but without passengers.
To the shame of the railways there was no effort made to advise them of the situation - and no arrangements to replace the cancelled train with a bus service. Railcorp simply sat on it's hands and did nothing - and left it's passenger customers to wait for the next scheduled service - an hour later.
Those twenty-two passengers were not impressed - and neither would the growing numbers waiting at the other ten bypassed stations. All were seriously late for work - and two people were on their way to Sydney airport for prebooked flights.
This debacle illustrates the lack of management within the rail system. It is unlikely that the cancelled train was found to be faulty at the point of departure, yet nobody had the authority to organise a bus alternative or use the public address system to put stranded passengers in the picture.
In many cases, passengers had parked their cars at the stations and could have travelled to Wollongong by road - had they been advised of the problem.
The only conclusion that can be reached is that Railcorp is inefficient, lacks people in authority down the line who can take command and resolve problems - and quite plainly - couldn't care less about the paying passengers.
And this apology for a rail system wants to hike fares - because it claims to now be running a better service ?
There is an analogy about pigs sprouting wings and taking to the skies !