Sydney rail service suffers savage cuts

Peter Mac

Sydney commuters have had their weekend rail services cut by 50 
percent. The NSW Carr Government has attempted to justify the 
appalling new timetable with the statement that the drivers freed 
up from working on the weekend would be transferred to weekday 
peak-hour services.

It certainly hasn't worked. Train services are still being 
cancelled, and the overall impact has been a gross reduction in 
services with no benefit to commuters.

The Minister for Transport announced that the new timetable would 
make operating Cityrail services much simpler. The logic of that 
argument is that if you close the service down altogether it 
couldn't be simpler to operate!

The NSW Government is now subjecting the rail services to a 
"vicious circle" of inadequate funding, falling transport 
revenues and service cuts. Cuts to staff numbers have led to 
service cancellations, which have forced people to find other 
means of travel. The general deterioration in services has led to 
passengers seeking other means of getting to work.

The resultant loss of transport revenues has been compounded by 
the issue of free tickets as compensation for passenger 
inconvenience, by the costs of new driver training, and by the 
increased costs of overtime needed to make up for driver 
shortages. These extra costs have in turn led to services being 
cut in order to reduce revenue losses.

Setting commuters against each other

A recent report on public transport commissioned (and apparently 
accepted) by the NSW Government in effect described Sydney ferry 
services as largely patronised by silvertails and wealthy 
tourists. The report implied these passengers would be better 
able to cope with a massive fare increase, as opposed to rail 
passengers, or that their services should be completely shut 
down.

This distorted argument ignored the real need for ordinary 
Sydneysiders to have access to all parts of the metropolis by 
cheap and efficient public transport. The ferries are the most 
efficient and reliable of all the services.

A highly discriminatory aspect of the report was its suggestion 
that passengers purchasing cheap "seniors" tickets should be 
restricted to travel outside of peak hours.

These policy recommendations have the effect of setting one group 
of public transport passengers against another, in order to 
justify reducing the service as a whole. The tendency is now 
evident in the policy behind the latest cuts to rail services, 
which implies that those travelling on the weekends are somehow 
less worthy of a decent rail service than peak-hour passengers.

Privatisation on the agenda?

The shortcomings in the Sydney rail service became evident before 
the 2000 Olympics (during which the trains ran like clockwork 
thanks to an extra 3000 employees) but reappeared with a 
vengeance afterwards. The Carr Government proceeded to blame this 
on a shortage of drivers, and explicitly on the amount of sick 
leave that drivers were taking and on their lack of willingness 
to work overtime.

It appears that a number of senior State Rail positions have 
remained vacant within the last six months, with other positions 
filled on a temporary basis only.

The fall in staff numbers, failure to recruit, low morale, and a 
"vicious circle" of falling revenues and service cuts, have all 
been hallmarks of government organisations about to be 
privatised. Add to these factors the current construction of 
enormously expensive infrastructure intended to facilitate 
splitting the Sydney rail network up into five separate service 
lines, and you have a picture of an organisation ripe for 
privatisation.

Passengers seething

The deterioration of Sydney's rail service has not been lost on 
Sydney commuters. One suggested that the best rail service cut 
would be the job of Transport Minister Michael Costa. Another 
commented that "A greater gift to the roads lobby could not be 
imagined. Cutting train services goes against the promotion of 
public transport by almost every advanced nation in the world".

It may be that transferring the transport load from the rail 
network to the roads is just what the government intends. It 
certainly looks that way. However, Carr, Costa and company should 
recall that in the past Sydney voters have taken a savage revenge 
on state governments that have cut rail services.

For their part, Sydney commuters should reflect that any move 
towards privatisation of the rail service would accelerate if the 
conservative Liberal/National Party coalition was returned to 
power. Real improvements in public transport, education, health 
and other government services will only be achieved by looking 
beyond the "two-party" system to alternative left and progressive 
candidates.