Sydney Trains

City Rail, or otherwise known as "shitty rail". This is one of the major factors of why I wouldn't want to live & work in Sydney.

11PM at Sutherland, a modest sized city, and there are very few people at the train station. And most of them are drunk and causing trouble.

These are the seats on an intercity train, for people travelling long distance. These are the "nice" seats.

Here is the entrance area for the carriage with seats meant for Elderly, Pregnant or otherwise Disabled passengers. It is a giant bottleneck that creates excessive delay.

Here we have the two floors of the carriage. At any time there will be two sets of people trying to come down the stairs to exit via only one door, then you will have other people trying to get in via that one door and make their way up or down the stairs in hope of finding a seat.

And there are only two doors per carriage!

Japanese trains have one floor, four doors and not enough seats for everyone. People enter and exit quickly and the train can be on it's way to the the next station without delay. Sydney trains usually start out running on time but with the repeated delays due to slow loading at each station, it's rare that the train reaches it's last stop on time.

Not content with marking territory, stupid teenagers put their tags up by scratching them into the glass. At night the thugs rule the trains, sensible people are driving.

Ah rubbish. It is a rare occasion that I see someone with a riceball or a sandwich on a Japanese train, but in Sydney it is usual for people to be eating full meals. Add in the drink bottles, free newspapers and other exotic items and Sydney trains look like a garbage dump by the end of the day.

Sydney is a car city, roads are built and rail has been left to languish. I cannot remember the last time a station let alone a new line was opened. The rail network was adequate in the 1960's but it hasn't grown with the city, which has tripled (maybe) in size since then.