How to lose customers and infruiate passengers

When you run a railway mechanical failures happen - you can't predict them, or plan for them. But how you deal with the effected passengers tells you a lot about where the focus of your organisation is. And Kiwirail's focus is not on its customers.

When the electrical power failed on the Hutt Valley line yesterday there was a train stuck at Waterloo packed overflowing with people, plus many more on the platform waiting for the next service. First there were no announcements, then the announcement was simply "We have a power failure, and I don't know when it's going to be fixed. And that's all I know."

About fifteen minutes later, the announcement was "This will not be fixed for several hours, we're arranging buses but it won't be enough for everyone - if you can get to work some other way then you should try using that."

So, rather than wait for an overcrowded bus, I walked down to Queensgate to catch a less crowded bus to work. Only to see the trains running again as we crawled through the traffic in Petone. (Grrrrrrrr!)

This is on top of the Epuni station debacle. Kiwirail got consent to replace the dilapidated (and roofless) shelter ten months ago but did nothing until some political pressure was applied. They've now demolished the shelter, and I wait with baited breath for the new shelter due to be finished by the end of May.