Queensland Rail and Translink Travel Concerns from Beerwah – Case #1

It’s quicker to cycle from Beerwah to Caboolture than it is to travel with Queensland Rail or Translink

What is most concerning about this truth is that Public transport from Beerwah using Queensland Rail or Translink is woefully inadequate when at 4pm on any weekday it’s evidently quicker to cycle from Beerwah to Caboolture than it is to wait for the next train or bus service after 3:49pm train.  It’s therefore little wonder that commuters are reluctant to use public transport facilities.

This article about a Beerwah resident, (Matthew) who has proved that if you do catch the train on time,  there a good chance you will get to your destination (Cabooluture) too late to catch to catch the next scheduled service to Brisbane,

Matthew has even gone so far so to prove that it’s both quicker and cheaper to cycle to Caboolture after both the 3:45pm and the 4:45pm service than it is to wait for the next connecting service.

Queensland Rail Trains and Buses are frequently late:  Trains departing late inevitably result in the commuter missing his or her connecting train at Caboolture (which surprisingly departs on time, leaving you stranded in Caboolture, (which on any day of the week is an unpleasant experience), and you can often spend up to an hour at Caboolture station waiting of a connecting service to Brisbane.

Case Study#1

It all started when the 4:45pm, (weekday bus) was repeatedly late arriving and leaving Beerwah and Matthews complaints to Translink proved to be ineffective and so he resorted to Twitter and Social Media, which surprisingly yielded a little more success, at least Translink and Queensland Rail were communicating using social media, and although they monitor there social networks they remain dismissive about Matthews  complaints and unfortunately blamed each other for delay.

So here is the evidence:

Matthew misses the train, lucky he has his 20 year old mountain bike with him, so he chooses to ride to Caboolture and believe not he arrives at Caboolture 18minutes before the Translink bus, which incidentally still arrived late at Caboolture, the Translink Bus arrived 12 minutes late,   so had Matthew relied on the Translink Bus service he might well have missed the next connecting train to Brisbane.

The 3:49PM  Train Service Departing,  (yes it was late departing)

1. A devastating experience that southern commuters would not understand… missing a train! but even so the train was running 3 minutes late

Missing the train is always a frustrating experience, however if you miss a train from Beerwah between 4pm and 6 pm, it should be reasonably easy to catch another however, from Beerwah missing a train will cause you very long delays, and if you are an adolescent this can be unnecessarily frustrating and stressful for both the adolescent and the parents picking theme up at either end.  You can check Matthews Twitter Account here.  http://Twitter.com/matthewgibbo

2. A photo of the timetable showing that the next service wasn’t due for approx. 1 hour! (thank you to QR for highlighting it… pure coincidence)

So here is the afternoon timetable from Beerwah to Caboolture, and the gaps are an hour apart.

3. A screenshot of Matthew’s runkeeper route showing that this did indeed happen. Note that it actually started at 3:54 because the service he was supposed to “miss” was actually late!

So here we see that Matthew cycled from Beerwah to Caboolture, leaving Beerwah at 4:54pm and arriving in Caboolture at  1 hour and 17 minutes later, and he still arrived 18 minutes before the Bus Service arrived in Caboolture.   This is poor show Translink and Queensland Rail!

4. A picture of the bus arriving at Caboolture with his bicycle (a 20year old mountain bike) in the foreground

Evidence that Matthew arrived 18 minutes before the bus services arrived,

5. A picture of my Matthews well earned Macca’s dinner where h spent some the money he saved by not catching the train/bus.

Matthews suddenly a little richer and lot fitter, choose to indulge at McDonalds and buy himself dinner.

A week of ACTUAL arrival times. 

The above shows one weeks worth of actual times, for one week  Matthew   recorded the actual arrival time for each of the stations between Beerwah and Caboolture for the arrival, yet Translink and Queensland still don’t take these complaints seriously. – you can see clearly that there is a wide variance.

Its important to the residents of the Sunshine Coast that these services run to schedule and that they consider scheduling more services… Ideally, this would involve continuing the track duplication beyond Beerburrum so that these extra services could be trains.

The Joke of course is that at the present time all of the candidates for  Sunshine Coast Division 1 –  Councillor Rick Baberowski   and Candidate for Division 1,   Rod Jones – Peter Robinsons  and  Dave Ritson all show support for the light rail link from Beerwah to Caloundra and Marrochydore but what would be the point if we can’t even get the existing trains and bus services to work reliably and affordably?

Here are their phone numbers and emails addresses ,  why not give them a call or send them an email if you have issues with public transport for man too.  Councillor Rick Baberowski  Councillor Rick Baberowski and Candidate for Division 1,  Rick Baberowski 0499 950 525 – rick.baberowski@gmail.com,   Rod Jones – 0409 951 988 – Jones_Rod@y7mail.com,  Peter Robinsons  0456 205 115 – yvpete@gmail.com and Dave Ritson 0417 636 696 – daveritsonforscc@gmail.com

I have another story about a local student who commutes from Beerwah to Brisbane to attend to University of Queensland, this young student has only been using the rail service for the past 2 weeks and already has had enough of public transport.  – I will share this story in a few days.

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Please send in your own public transport travel woes

Thanks Matthew for the article. 

You might also enjoy Case Study #1  http://www.glasshousecountry.com/queensland-rail-translink-travel-concerns-beerwah-case-1/