On Saturday, November 24 we went to see the lighting of the Christmas tree at Martin Place.
We caught the train at Jannali at 7pm.
At Wolli Creek we changed to go via city circle due to track maintenance. The announcements on the train were inaudible as usual.
At 10pm we left Circular Quay to return home. We thought we would return the same way ie catch a train to Wolli Creek then change to go to Jannalli.
We arrived at Wolli Creek where a sign advised us to catch a bus to Hurstville.
Upon arriving at street level we were greeted by a queue which snaked around the corner (I estimate there must have been at least 1000 persons there).
More trains kept on delivering people on the queue with very few buses taking people away.
There were no marshals directing people or advising people what was going on.
As more trains dumped more people onto the street the queue became longer and longer and fewer and fewer people leaving due to lack of buses. I had to direct people to the end of the queue.
There was no planning to have the right number of buses, no staff to control the volume of people, no communication and no coordination what so ever. Luckily it was not raining on the night.
People going to Sydenham and Hurstville were on the same queue. After an hour and half we squeezed on a bus.
A train employee was still trying to organise more buses at 11pm.
This should have been done on the Friday. A trip that would have taken 45 minutes took 2.5 hours. If you are going to organise track maintenance, organise adequate alternative transport and have adequate staff to direct the public
City Rail - I hope you can do better next time and learn from this shemozzle!
Joseph Mercieca