Macarthur train commuters at ‘wits end’

Local train commuter John Walker is not happy.

Mr Walker, who travels each day from Ingleburn to Parramatta, is beyond frustration with trains running consistently late and with the last-minute cancellations since the introduction of the new timetable last November.

But it’s even worse than that: before November, Mr Walker and his fellow Campbelltown commuters were able to take advantage of train services which ran directly from Macarthur through to Liverpool and Parramatta.

Now these commuters have been forced to change trains at Glenfield, resulting in longer travel times.

Like many other locals, Mr Walker has taken his frustrations to local MP and critic of timetable changes, Anoulack Chanthivong.

Earlier this week it was also revealed that Sydney trains are running later than ever, with peak hour delays recorded for almost 80 per cent of June.

This equates to only four week days last month that Sydney Trains met its on-time running target.

“One of my constituents was more than 30 minutes late to work due to the train timetable debacle, which is completely unacceptable,’’  Mr Chanthivong said.

[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“It’s simply not good enough and local commuters deserve better.[/social_quote]

“They are tired of being treated as if they don’t exist.

“Local commuters are at their wits end and all they want is for this Liberal Government to fix the debacle and get our services running on time and back on track.”

Mr Chanthivong was joined in his criticism of the government by his colleague, the Campbelltown MP, Greg Warren, who said, “things are just getting consistently worse for Campbelltown and Macarthur commuters who suffer delays and trains that simply don’t turn up, because Minister Constance has failed to properly resource the train network’’.

“The new timetable has only worsened the quality of service and made travel even more difficult,’’ Mr Warren said.

“Mr Constance has bungled the timetable changes and can’t deliver on the hundreds of extra services he promised.”