Silence then sardines: Diary of a Wellington train commuter

Thursday, 27 October 2022

Mode Shift: Wellington's conscious commuters talk about why they bike and scoot to and around the capital.(Video May 2022)

Stuff reporter Nicholas Boyack shares the pain of trying to be a dutiful public transport user in Wellington.

It is 7.15am and I am in the Petone railway station waiting for the 7.16am train to Wellington.

Usually, the station master announces when a train is late or not coming. But on Thursday, even after it became clear there would be no train, there was only silence. Waiting, waiting.

Eventually a train arrives but it is the train from Wairarapa and by the time it pulls up to the platform in Petone, it is already standing room only. With no advice as to when the next train will come, most people climb aboard.

* Wellington train services resume on reduced timetable following power outage

Commuters heading home from Wellington station on Thursday evening.

* 'Operational incident' won't affect peak travel in Wellington

* Cancellations on Johnsonville rail line increasing due to driver shortages and maintenance problems

* Passengers once again frustrated with Wellington's over-crowded train services

Stuff reporter Nicholas Boyack has run in to difficulties catching that trains this week.

The guard does a quick headcount and reports, by walkie-talkie, there are 61 people standing in his two carriages.

At Woburn Station, my colleague Katarina Williams has been patiently waiting on the platform for 30 minutes trying to work out where her train is.

Neither Katarina nor I receives any notification that there are problems with the trains. She arrives at work 30 minutes late and spitting tacks about the lack of communication.

With the board already showing the train was 10 minutes late, commuters on the platform at Woburn Station hoped this was their service. Alas, it sped right through without stopping, according to Stuff reporter Katarina Williams, who was waiting -- relatively patiently -- at the station.

When I arrive at the office I contact Stephen Heath, who handles communications for Metlink, to ask what is going on. Metlink has previously given us statistics about ongoing cancellations, so my approach is hardly out of the ordinary.

Now I have questions about trains being unreliable over the previous three weeks and the lack of communication that morning. But he doesn’t want to hear them.

Wellington regional councillor Thomas Nash says more people will use public transport if they know it is reliable.

In his personal view, Heath said, the facts did not support my questions. I tell him I am not interested in his personal opinion. This is a professional inquiry.

Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy says his city is reliant on trains. A generation of commuters, however, has stopped using the trains due to unreliability. With more housing going in beside the rail corridor, he is calling for a big investment in rail infrastructure to improve reliability.

So I ask for an interview with Metlink group manager Samantha Gain, who is often quoted in written Metlink statements minimising the disruptions to commuters. She was attending a select committee hearing and was busy, Heath said.

I wanted to ask Gain some questions about how she planned to get more Wellingtonians on to trains. Heath’s answer is still no.

If Gain had agreed to talk, here are the questions I would have asked her on behalf of Wellington commuters:

Metlink reported that 95.5% of trains were on time in September.

Are the recent cancellations a sign that drivers are taking industrial action?
Is Covid reducing the availability of drivers?
What is she doing to improve train reliability?
What is her vision for the train network?
Does she support the view that trains are an integral part of Wellington’s public transport network?
What Metlink can do to better communicate with users?
Why did my train not turn up and what is she doing to make sure that it does not happen again?

Heath sent an email saying 95.5% of Hutt trains were on time in September and 94.5% for Kāpiti. There “were relatively few cancellations” due to staff sickness, he wrote.

Since I couldn’t talk to Gain, I called Quentin Duthie, a newly elected regional councillor on the Green ticket and a big supporter of public transport.

Duthie also wants answers. “I am aware that the Melling line is particularly unreliable and has some issues.”

Reliability, Duthie said, was the key to encouraging more people to use trains. “We need a frequent and reliable service so that people have faith in it.”

Second term regional councillor Thomas Nash said he would like to see trains running throughout the region on a 10-minute timetable that people could count on.

“There is no point having transport oriented [housing] developments, if the transport option does not work,” he said.

I also called Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy who said his city was reliant on trains. But decades of underinvestment had hit reliability, and a

whole generation of residents had simply stopped using trains.

While I’m waiting for a response from Gain, the Metlink boss, I am reminded of a story I once read on a holiday in Singapore.

The CEO of the island state’s train network resigned after three major faults the previous month, each lasting several hours. As well as losing her job, she lost nearly $500,000 for not meeting performance criteria.

Six hours after my initial inquiry, Metlink sent a statement in Gain’s name, saying that in recent weeks there had been “an unusually high number of cancellations” due to sickness.

Passengers were “forewarned” about cancellations as promptly as possible but acknowledged that “occasionally” communication could have been better, it said.

“We expect the current level of disruption will be temporary but if staffing issues persist we will adjust services to provide passengers with greater certainty and proactively communicate with passengers,” she said in the statement.

Ms Gain, if you’re free today, I’d still like that interview – nicholas.boyack@stuff.co.nz