One of the benefits of having a blog is the ability to have a place to whinge. Here is my latest one based on a recent train journey.

Through running

In January 2021 PTV reformed many of Melbourne’s timetables. You can read the full writeup on Daniel Bowen’s blog here and see some of the official PTV information here (although, as usual, it has been taken down).

One of these changes was for the Frankston Line to no longer operate through the City Loop. This enabled through running of the Frankston Line to the Werribee and Williamstown Lines via Flinders Street and this has been the case ever since.

This arrangement is shown in numerous places including the official PTV rail network map, station signs and printed timetables.

Through running has many benefits that I won’t talk about here. But these can only be realised if through running actually happens and is communicated properly. Unfortunately I had a recent experience where neither occurred.

PTV app misdirection

A few weeks ago I wanted to get from the Belgrave / Lilydale Line to Williamstown Station.

As PTV advises ad nauseam in response to almost any enquiry, I plugged the trip into journey planner. It advised me to alight my ex-Belgrave train at Richmond Station and change to an ex-Frankston train that was running to Williamstown through Flinders Street.

I dutifully followed this advice and boarded my train to Richmond.

The first sign of trouble was when I went to Platform 3 and the platform PID indicated that the 11:50am train was only going to Flinders Street, not Williamstown.

I didn’t think too much of this because PIDs are sometimes incorrect. Even if this was correct, I have been on trains that claim to terminate at Flinders Street but do in fact continue running through. The PTV journey planner also showed the name of the service as “Train to Flinders Street” which was reassuring because it matched the PID.

However, a few minutes later when I arrived at Flinders Street on this train it diverted to Platform 12 and became a service to Craigieburn. This was obviously not what I wanted and I left the train.

According to the app there should have been a train departing for Williamstown at 11:56am. But I did not see one on any of the screens or nearby platforms as we arrived. The next train was, of course, in 22 minutes time.

“You can’t get from Richmond to Williamstown”

With 22 minutes to kill I decided to try to find out what happened.

My first port of call was the bank of train departure screens outside the Yarra River entrance to Flinders Street. No 11:56am Williamstown train was there.

As there were two Metro Trains customer service staff there I asked them this question. Unfortunately they were not very helpful at all and even gave me incorrect information that they insisted was correct.

I won’t go through the conversation blow-by-blow but it really felt like they were trying to argue with me about the situation.

Their first response was telling me that it was not possible at all to travel to Williamstown or Werribee from Richmond. I kept showing the PTV app that clearly showed otherwise – together with my own experience when I have done exactly the same trip before with no problems – but they insisted. They also assured me that the earlier train had already departed despite the time being 11:55am and the train scheduled to depart at 11:56am.

Eventually after a few minutes of this they tried to say that this was my fault because I “should have changed at Flinders Street”. Again, I showed them the PTV journey planner that showed this as the recommendation.

After a few more minutes of going around in circles on this I decided to cut my losses and left to wait on the platform. I should note at no point did either of them apologise or offer to help other than directing me to catch the later Williamstown train that I was going to take anyway.

In a further attempt to figure this out I used my remaining 10 minutes of waiting to call PTV who were much more helpful. The customer service officer was very friendly and did try to find out what had happened.

I gave him the details of my trip. He tried this for himself on the PTV website which gave him the same result. After some digging around he couldn’t figure it out and so offered to put it in as feedback so that it could be investigated.

A very poor customer service experienced immediately followed by a very good one!

So what happened?

At the time of writing I have not yet received a response. But I’m pretty sure I know why because this is far from the first time that I have heard of something like this happening.

Despite the through running having been introduced many years ago there are still some situations where trains will not do so. This could be an unplanned disruption or a planned movement where a particular train needs to be allocated to a specific service. This could be for driver rostering, vehicle positions, depot allocations or other things.

I completely understand that there are sometimes good reasons why trains have to terminate early or other changes have to be made. I have no argument with that. As usual, my problem is when passengers are given incorrect, misleading, unclear or no information. In this case, it was all four.

The PTV journey planner first led me astray with its suggestion to change at Richmond. It should have known that the ex-Frankston train was not running through to Williamstown and told me to change at Flinders Street instead. And even if it was unplanned, if through running is this unreliable then the default interchange suggestion should always be Flinders Street, as there really isn’t much reason to change at Richmond instead.

I was then given incorrect information by the Metro Trains staff who flatly denied that through running existed at all – even while standing directly underneath a sign showing exactly the opposite.

The PTV app, website and screens then gave me no information about any kind of disruption or other service changes. Indeed, the Metro Trains staff initially told me that nothing was wrong because there was no disruption showing on the PTV website. Again, if this was an unplanned disruption, the very least that could be done is a disruption notification and announcement.

On my return trip PTV journey planner again told me to change at Richmond. This direction makes more sense as you can skip the City Loop and catch an earlier train on the Belgrave / Lilydale line. I was wary given my experience that morning but this time it worked flawlessly, showing the benefits of this arrangement.

I did notice though that the train two services behind me showed “Flinders Street” as its destination; perhaps an ominous sign for some other poor passenger hoping to use the network as it is advertised.