| Getting ready to leave Sydney |
- Millennium trains: the standard one would expect from any world class train system. There are hardly any of these, but they're the only ones with screens saying what station is next, and are in a good state of repair. It seems that they're mainly devoted to the tourist-centric airport runs.
- Tangaras: about 15 years old I'm told. They're ok but nothing special.
- Craptastics: these are the ones older than Tangaras but with retrofitted air conditioning. They must be about 30 years old from the look of things. They're crap.
- Craptanics: imagine a Craptastic before it had the air conditioning retrofit. This is that train. At least you can open the windows, which helps let some of the reek of sweaty office workers and teenaged boys out. Some.
- Stinktanic: if you get one of these, $DEITY hates you. It's a Craptanic, without windows that open. You're screwed. Enjoy the smell.
I haven't written much about the couple of weeks I've spent in Sydney. Nothing really exciting happened, apart from a trip home to see the kids (the Southern Tablelands were greener than I expected), a visit to CLUG another to SLUG, and a lot of time spent eating at restaurants on King Street in Newtown.
I've decided that I like the Sydney train system, but not the trains themselves. The trains fall into several categories:
So, that's about all I learnt of note in Sydney... To summarise: yay King Street, yay train system, boo actual trains except for Millenniums. Oh, and thanks to Grant and Lindsay for letting me stay.
posted at: 15:29 | path: /travel/australia/sydney | permanent link to this entry
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#1
Mary
The Millenium trains are rare because they're actually really prone to mechanical problems. There were several hiccups with them:
1. They drew more power than the rail network was originally able to provide them, because they're very heavy.
2. They used to break down lots and lots, and when they broke down, they would lock themselves onto the rails, meaning that they couldn't be pushed to the next siding, they would just sit there for hours locked to the rails until someone fixed them. This happened in the middle of the harbour bridge in summer at least once. Publicity about people dehydrating in broken trains which are locked onto the bridge is bad publicity.
So they're certainly nice looking, but they have had trouble with the working bit.