I was interviewed this morning by Hannah Silverman from the Advertiser in regards to the photo (right) that I sent to them. She asked me a lot of questions like:

• When did it happen? (7:51AM train from Elizabeth)
• What line did it happen on? (Gawler)
• What was your reaction? (“I’ve gotta get a photo of that.”)
• Was there anybody near the doors? (No)
• What did you think was the problem with the doors being open? (If there was a small child they would’ve gone to look out of the doors and might’ve fallen out)
• What was everyone else’s reaction? (Nonchalant, treating it like it was a regular occurance now)
• What do you think of the train system? (“I think it’s a heap of crap.”)
• What’s wrong with the train system? (Ticket prices increasing, service degrading)
• Contact Details? (You, as in the reader of this blog, are not getting them)

I hope after all the questions that an article gets published somewhere about this. It would be awesome.

UPDATE #1: Hannah called just before lunch asking me to confirm that it was yesterday. After I got back from lunch, she called again and asked me to pose for a photograph at the Adelaide Train Station. Honestly, I never expected it to get this far. I thought “hey, they’ve been hammering this for a while” so I sent it to them.

UPDATE #2: So I’ve just gotten back from getting my photo taken at least 50 times in random positions, walking onto the train, leaning against the train, leaning against the barrier. The photographer said it “might be on the front page”. If they’ve taken a photo of me and it’s in the paper, everyone gets free papers.

UPDATE #3: The photo I took on Wednesday was on the front page. I read the paper cover-to-cover and my photo’s not in there. It might be in Saturday’s paper, giving me a weekend to buy a disguise to deceive the AdelaideMetro thugs. The story was also on the AdelaideNow site!

UPDATE #4: “Uncle Fester” from Port Adelaide posted this comment on the AdelaideNow site, which gave me a chuckle:

“That looks like the DSTO in the background of the photo. Does Ryan Bigg realise he has committed a federal offense by photographing a secure Commonwealth site?”

Another commenter, David of Oaklands Park, posted this:

“Would have thought that the fires on Kangaroo Island justify a front page more than a Mr Bigg!!”

Thanks David! The fires have been burning for 8 days. The train doors have been malfunctioning longer. Fire can be put out, and all of the time eventually it does happen! The train doors unfortunately will not fix themselves and it’s up to AdelaideMetro and “The Government” to do something about it.

Another one of my gripes is there is not a single window on any carriage I have traveled on this week that some delinquent has not scratched his tag into. I believe this prompts the “other delinquents” to do the same after seeing that other people can get away with it. Replace the windows with something that can’t be scratched, or replace them more often to deter these bastards from blocking my view with their scrawl.

UPDATE #Infinity – Infinity + 5: Googling for my name (Ryan Bigg) returns the article as the second result in “the web” and first for “pages from Australia”.

UPDATE #6: Freakin’ Huge ™ front page scan is here

I got a comment posted on a a news.com.au/adelaidenow article

I wrote: I’m suspecting the whole two people praising TransAdelaide in the above responses actually work for TransAdelaide. I caught the 7:51am train (which is almost TWO HOURS after the initial “fault”), and by Mawson Lakes the train was packed. This usually happens, but today it was crazy. Another carriage wouldn’t go astray. Only a half-hearted “TransAdelaide would like to apologise…”, after we arrived.

It’s getting worse, their apologies mean nothing any more. Not just anyone, but everyone involved with the transportation system should not use their cars to travel to work. Instead, they should use their own system, pay the extravagant ticket prices (we pay more and more for a system that’s getting worse and worse, what the?), and put up with what we have to put up with.

It is beyond a joke and something serious will happen and TransAdelaide will be caught with its pants down. It’s only a matter of time.

I’ve been hearing this line more and more frequently, and it has begun to lose all meaning. When a train runs late:

Attention all passengers, TransAdelaide would like to apologise for the late running of this train.

Words that are fed into the mouth of whoever happens to be driving the train at the time, just to make the passengers feel better. It’s kind of a like a “boy who cried wolf” story. You think they mean the apology the first couple of times, but after it happens again and again you just lose all faith.

What am I talking about? Well, here’s a list of things:

Late running of trains with little explanation, such as a “signal fault”. I’ve heard news reports that a certain government has recently received a $37billion profit. Now if they actually did something with this money it would be good, like ripping up the old Adelaide track and replacing it with a new shiny one that isn’t at least 5 decades old. Yeah, it may be heritage and have a lot of history associated with it, but old things are dangerous. Nothing serious has happened yet, but it’s only a matter of time until something does. The most serious thing to my recollection is a train derailment just outside of Adelaide Station, where the top speed limit is 10km/h. The 1st November 7:51am train arrived on time, but stopped about 500m outside of Salisbury Station with no explanation, and no apology. Not that the lack of apology matters anymore.

Slow points on the track. For no explanation the train slows down to a crawl on some points of the Gawler track that I travel on. I have heard reports of trains doing similar things on other lines. If the track is faulty, then it needs to be replaced. I cannot stress how important I think this is. If some train driver is not fully alert on the job and they don’t slow down for this point, what happens when it derails? Catastrophe.

Timetables are extremely optimistic. If you ever catch the 7:51am train and arrive at Adelaide station and pass through the gates before 8:31am, walk over to the newsagency at the southern end and buy yourself a lottery ticket. Not once that I’ve caught this train have I walked through the gates at 8:31am, it has been as early as 8:32 and as late as 8:51. As a person who relies on the trains 5/7 days, they should be reliable, not random like a lottery.

There’s an election coming up soon, I wonder if that will persuade them to suddenly replace the trains and the track. If not, something will happen. When it does it will be catastrophic. It’s only a matter of time.