Commuters from the north coast and the Illawarra have for years put up with peak rail travel in cars designed for inner city use, packed in like Sardines and without water or toilets.
Relief was promised when the Millennium train was being built, but that turned into a disaster when it simply was not reliable enough to be run on main lines. It was back to years of the infamous Tangara travel.
It seemed that a new dawn was breaking when the first of the OSCARS - outer suburban carriages specifically designed for the inter-city running began to come on line. These had more space, comfortable seats - and the greatest blessing of all - toilets and the chance to access drinking water.
It seems that the government has chosen to break the bad news slowly. There are seventy-eight OSCAR eight carriage set trains on order - but many will be diverted from the north coast and Illawarra run to service the new Epping to Chatswood line that will be completed next year.
The government and it's planners must have known - but chose to remain silent during the state election earlier this year - that the Tangara trains were incapable of handling the length and steep grade of the tunnels involved in this new line.
Their drive motors would overheat and burn out - hence the OSCARS will be diverted to solve the problem.
What will not be solved is the dilemma faced by commuters from the Illawarra and the north coast. With the OSCARS confiscated to run this new inner Sydney line many inter-city services will have to make do with the reviled Tangaras - again without toilet facilities for journeys of an hour and a half.
This is simply another case of bad planning by the government and the railway bosses.
Once more promises have been blatantly broken and the relief offered snatched away at the last moment.
No wonder many people are cynical and subscribe to the notion that when it comes to efficient planning of future events - this government would be hard pressed to successfully raffle a duck !
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