Confession time - our trains are broken

 NSW Railcorp CEO Vince Graham today admitted that Sydney’s rail network is beset by big maintenance problems and that last week’s chaotic Harbour Bridge breakdown was due to human error.  Mr Graham told a news conference today that the network is struggling to overcome a “lack of quality processes” in its maintenance regime.

The solution - of course - Graham and Minister John Watkins announced an audit of Railcorp maintenance yards.  (Surprising, isn’t it, that at a time of crisis, what better thing to do than have an inquiry).  Of course, we bring in independent experts, too.  To do the jobs of a reasonable number of pretty well paid managers who are clearly failing to do the things they are supposed to be accountable for, and of staff paid to do a proper job of maintenance who are clearly not doing it.  (I’ll leave alone for now the non-performance of other Railcorp people who are responsible for things like customer service).

Mr Graham said the breakdown last week, and the far more serious incident on the bridge in March, during which commuters were trapped in carriages for hours, were “symptomatic” of a wider workplace culture that needs to be reformed.  So why does this seem to be a revelation?  And what have Mr Graham and his team been doing during their time there to fix the culture?  Isn’t that precisely what they are paid to do …fix the things that are broken there?

Now, trains in Sydney were stuffed when I lived there 20 years ago, so its not like its management hasn’t had plenty of warning that things are broken.  Vince Graham has been there for about 3 1/2 of those years in his current role, and has been in and around Sydney’s trains for a lot longer than that.  So I’m staggered to hear that he’s only just discovered that their maintenance processes lack quality.  It just beggars belief, especially in an engineering led organisation like Railcorp is.  Sounds to me like a major cleanout of management and other people in maintenance is desperately overdue.

Asked whether he believes he will keep his position, he admitted his was a “tough job”, but said he had achieved important success in improving the on-time running of the city’s rail network.  I’m cynical about this, because largely it has been achieved by redefining the standards for what is “on time”.

What is it about Australian cities that prevents decent train systems?  I’ve travelled in Asia, and places like Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo and Busan have great subway systems, that are clean, cheap, run on time, etc etc.  So why do Sydney and Melbourne trains run so shabbily?