A quick trip to Ballarat on Sunday to visit the gallery. Train seemed the most convenient way to get there.
You can’t tell from the usual timetables, but the Network Service Plan includes information on what type of train should run each service (the “consist” in railway jargon).
It says that the Sunday 10:14 to Ballarat/Wendouree is scheduled to run as a 6 car VLocity set (“2x 3VL”). But on our trip, it ran as only 3 cars.
Predictably, it was crowded. In the vicinity of where we were standing, at least five people were sitting on the floor or on their bags, and many more were standing.
This is not good. It’s a poor experience for people making long distance trips. It’s likely to put people off using the service again. It means an artificial cap on patronage.
On this occasion there was probably a reason for the short train. But they should be trying harder to make sure it doesn’t happen.
I’d note that it’s worse on the Bendigo line, where the weekend hourly services are mostly scheduled to run as short trains, so crowding is a regular occurrence.
We eventually got seats at Melton, half an hour into the trip.
But there was worse to come.
The train an hour earlier, the 9:14, terminated at Bacchus Marsh due to a lineside fire up ahead. By time we arrived, the fire was out, so we could proceed.
But the load off the earlier train squeezed into ours.
It was packed. Older passengers were offered seats, but the result was a very squashy ride for a lot of people for about 45 minutes. And I’d assume some passengers who had already been on our train had to stand (or sit on the floor) all the way from Southern Cross to Ballarat.
One can’t blame V/Line for the fire. But the 3 car train couldn’t provide enough seats for its regular load, let alone all the disrupted passengers from the previous service. A 6 car train would have coped much better.
In coming years the Ballarat line is expected to be upgraded to run every 40 minutes on weekends (it already does on weekdays). This should help. But assuming patronage keeps growing they’ll need to ensure full length trains run as often as possible.
The broader theme is that – thanks to more people working from home and the fare cap ($10.60 on weekdays, $7.20 on weekends) patronage growth is concentrated on leisure travel, not commuting. Weekends and evenings, not weekday peaks.
This trend is likely to continue. Timetable planning and resourcing needs to take that into account.
Soggy ‘rat
It was raining in Ballarat when the train arrived.
But that’s fine because we must have waited about 15 minutes to pay for a soft drink at what might be the slowest station cafe in Victoria (the only drink vending machine we could find was out of service) and by the time we came out the rain had stopped.
We walked to the art gallery, only about five minutes from the station.
Let me just say, the Art Gallery of Ballarat is terrific. Some great 20th century paintings from Clarice Beckett, and some really eye-popping modern stuff from Jxsh Mvir – an indigenous artist who is sadly no longer with us. And plenty of others, mostly free.
Lunch was at a rather good Mexican place around the corner recommended by a friend.
I had been keeping an eye on the V/Line app.
The 14:20 train back was showing as just 3 cars. The Network Service Plan indicates it’s the same set as the one we caught up.
Better not to rush for that. We aimed for the 15:20 instead.
That allowed some time to walk around, down Sturt Street, and look in the (surprisingly capacious) book shop on Lydiard Street.
Then back to the station.
And the train trip back, with 6 cars as scheduled, was busy but not overcrowded. Basically uneventful. Relaxing even.
Which is just the way it should be.
UPDATE: I’ve been told there was a fault on the Bendigo line on Sunday morning that meant carriages from our Ballarat service were re-allocated.
9 replies on “V/Line falling short”
There are a few VLocity train sets with horribly hard seats. I hope you avoided those. The Ballarat gallery is terrific.
It sounds like that for whatever reason, V/Line had an issue in the morning and sent out a 3-car train instead of a 6-car train, but kept it running all day long.
It would be more excusable if they only sent out a half sized train to avoid a cancellation, and swapped it over as soon as they could to a full size train. There should be spare rollingstock on weekends, and there are major train depots in both Melbourne and Ballarat.
@James, that’s a great point. That set was scheduled to run an afternoon service back out to Ballarat/Wendouree (which you’d expect would be pretty crowded if left as 3 cars) then back into Melbourne.
From the NSP, here’s where that set is scheduled to travel on Sundays:
Southern Cross Bank Siding 09:54 – Southern Cross 10:00
Southern Cross 10:14 – Wendouree 11:51
Wendouree 11:56 – Ballarat car sheds 12:12 – hmm, lunchbreak?
Ballarat car sheds 13:43 – Wendouree 13:58
Wendouree 14:14 – Southern Cross 15:48
Southern Cross 16:14 – Wendouree 17:51
Wendouree 18:14 – Southern Cross 19:48
Southern Cross 19:58 – Southern Cross Bank Siding 20:08
There were a couple of VL sets stabled at Ballarat station. One had prominent tagging on one carriage, so they might have been avoiding using that one.
Meanwhile, Warrnambool trains run with five or six carriages. The back two (outbound) are reserved seating for those heading a long way. The other three or four get packed with people heading to Tarneit and Wyndham Vale, run half empty to Geelong, and then virtually empty the rest of the way. A lot of pointless kilometres are being put onto long-distance rolling stock to serve urban and inter-urban destinations.*
* This is from my personal experience, mainly on weekends and public holidays. Weekday experiences may differ.
@Jimbob, the Warrnambool trains are being replaced by 3 car VLocity sets, and moving to 5 services per day.
From December they’ll make far fewer stops between Melbourne and Geelong, which hopefully will make up for the loss in capacity. (More Geelong trains will serve those stops.)
Shame about the removal of catering and checked luggage though.
@Daniel Bowen – the layover at Ballarat in the middle of the day may be scheduled refuelling. Maybe your lunch break comment wasn’t too far off the mark! (:
“One had prominent tagging on one carriage, so they might have been avoiding using that one.”
V/Line don’t care about that – I’ve seen VLocity sets running around all weekend with passengers despite large graffiti murals on the side.
Didn’t V/Line learn anything from Connex twenty years ago that three carriages aren’t enough? I suppose it could have been worse (2-car Sprinters anyone?)
I commute to Kilmore weekly and I’ve noticed that since the Shepperton Line Upgrade, introduction of VLocity trains on that corridor and the daily fare cap being implemented, more Shepp residents have been taking the train to Melbourne, but a glaring issue I’ve noticed with the Vlocity train is the lack of space for large luggage’s compared to the old locomotive hauled trains (which came with a luggage compartment).
A number of passengers who hopped on at Shepp are coming to Melbourne to stay overnight and bring their luggage’s with them, and because of the lack of luggage space you see a lot of the luggage being stacked on top of each other in a very small space and when the train tilts some of the luggage’s wheel away towards the doors or down the corridor till the carpeted section stops them.