my cityrail journey
Circular Quay - 18:00
It began at 6pm at Circular Quay station in torrential rain, howling wind and sub-zero temperatures. I glanced at the indicator boards. The next train to Town Hall was in 25mins, the train after that was in 28mins. No way was I going to wait, so I hopped on a bus to Town Hall.
Town Hall - 18:15
The indicator board for my line was yellow. That means something's wrong. It said there were urgent repairs taking place at Erskineville and told me to go to Wolli Creek for trains on the Illawara line. However, it failed to tell me how to get there- that is, which platform to go to. I eventually found out that there was no direct train to Wolli Creek. Instead, I had to go to Central. How do I do that? I soon found my way to platform 2 and waited 6mins for the train to Central.
Central - 18:27
I got lost at Central finding the line which goes to Wolli Creek. The Cityrail staff are of no use. I agree with sacking them to cut costs. Eventually I found myself on the platform with a wait of 13mins. The longer I waited, the more people came to the platform. By the time the train came, the platform was full. It was like peak hour on a Sunday night.
Wolli Creek - 18:55
It felt like the entire train got off at Wolli Creek, because nobody catches the East Hills line anyway. The sea of people snaked their way up the stairs and across to the Illawara line platforms. It looked awesome! Then we were met with indicator boards saying the train to Cronulla would come in 8mins. Fantastic. Shorly after, an Indian guy said something over the annoucement system apparently in English, telling us to discard something. Shortly after, a more familiar English told us to disregard the wrong indicator board. Then it shut down altogether. The coherent English continued and said that the next train would come anywhere between 20 to 30mins. Then suddenly the rain pelted down on shelterless Wolli Creek (against horizontal rain). The entire trainload of people who had scattered across the platform suddenly jammed themselves into the small space available. I suffocated. After 12mins another train from Central arrived and offloaded another trainload of people onto Wolli Creek. I panicked. I have never seen the station so full before. The train eventually pulled in after 22mins.
Kogarah - 19:30
I was exhausted because I experienced worse-than-peak-hour chaos on a Sunday night.
benny | Sunday, June 15, 2008 
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an hour and half from central to kogarah? thats ridiculous!! XD