'Her indoors' just arrived home from work, furious. Rain had persuaded her to catch the train from Town Hall to Kings Cross instead of her usual walk. She bought her ticket and went all the way down to Platform 5, only then hearing an announcement that trains were not running on the Eastern Suburbs line. There was a bus, however, up at street level which would accept train tickets.
Unfortunately there was no way out except through the ticket-collecting robots which captured all the single tickets. The bus driver then rejected the ticketless passengers who went back down to the station to complain.
A CityRail employee proceeded to open the machines, take out the tickets and started quizzing people where they had come from and at what time, searching a big stack of tickets, even as more exiting passengers became trapped in this catch-22. He refused to lock the barriers open, citing fare evaders, and when some impatient young men started vaulting the barriers he went ballistic.
Some English backpackers loudly lamented not being on the London Tube, and in fact started lamenting London, telling 'her indoors' about the bus driver who yesterday gave them the wrong ticket even though they had asked him about their destination. An inspector boarded the bus and fined them, the driver denying everything.
They had also hailed a taxi at Central whose driver did not know where Paddington was.
Welcome, tourists, to laid-back Sydney! Do come again -- and tell your friends!
2 comments:
So if you can't use the train and can't ride a bike over that route I guess it shows they just really want us using cars. What's a little more noise pollution and air pollution among friends?
hi, good site very much appreciatted
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