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Commuters on Thirroul station said Fridays were usually quieter than other days. If that’s the case, I don’t know if I want to see the rest of the week.
At 6.48am there were still plenty of spaces in the car parks on both sides of the station but commuters said that was because people chose to work from home on Fridays, or got a lift into the station so they could have a few after-work drinks to get the weekend started.
Apparently there is a long line of drivers waiting at the station on Friday evenings to pick up loved ones coming home on the train.
That said, there were a whole lot fewer spaces when I got back to Thirroul at 10am. And the on-street parking was full too.
Parking has been one of the big issues for Thirroul businesses and residents in the wake of the new rail timetable that was introduced on October 20.
For the morning express services, Thirroul is one of only two stops between North Wollongong and Sutherland (the other is Helensburgh). So it seems that people are now driving to those stations and parking rather than take a local service and changing trains at Thirroul.
Friday or not, there were still plenty of people on the platform at 6.40am waiting for the train.
One of them was Brendon Lyons from Bulli. After the new timetable came out, he bought a scooter to ride from Bulli to Thirroul because it’s quicker than walking to his local station and changing trains.
For him, the run home is worse than the morning.
‘‘It’s not so much getting to work, it’s getting home,’’ he said.
‘‘I don’t work a 9-5 job so I’m having to wait 20 minutes [on Thirroul station] on top of a 1-hour trip from Sydney to get to Bulli and then have a 15-minute walk home.’’
Five minutes before the Sydney train arrived, the busy platform became even more crowded when the 6.43am local service dropped off what seemed like hundreds of people who had started their journey at their local platforms.
It mightn’t have been a Tokyo-style crush to get on the train but I genuinely thought I wouldn’t get a seat. That’s a feeling I’ve never had on a local platform before.
The new timetable certainly seems to have turned Thirroul into a bit of a commuter bottleneck – both for those who have chosen to drive and those changing trains.
For another Bulli commuter, Deb Welsby, the timetable change made her ‘‘very annoyed’’.
‘‘I used to walk to Bulli station and catch the train to North Sydney but now I have to drive to Thirroul,’’ Ms Welsby said.
Yesterday she drove to the station so couldn’t really enjoy her work Christmas party last night.
‘‘I used to see most of the ads for the new timetable up in Sydney and they were saying it was going to be fantastic. But we got ripped off big-time,’’ she said.
‘‘I don’t know one person who likes it.’’
The first stop after Thirroul was Helensburgh, the other station in the Illawarra where residents think the timetable has led to an increase in people driving, parking and then riding.
There seems well over 100 people getting on – more commuters than I’d expect from a little village like Helensburgh.
I was already starting to wonder where these people would sit. Friday may be a quiet day on the Sydney train but in my carriage I could only see one empty seat.
During the trip I was writing a live blog for the Mercury’s website, which required a steady internet connection.
That wasn’t on offer for most of the trip, which would prevent people using the travel time to work. I was on the train for one trip and found the dropouts frustrating; I can only imagine how it makes regular commuters feel.
The other thing I noted was the number of people sleeping on the way up. I can’t say I blame them; getting up so early to catch a train to Sydney is tiring – even when you do it for just a day.
Space was at a premium at Sutherland, where people were forced to stand in the vestibule.
It was so bad at least one person had to stand on the stairs leading to the bottom level of the carriage.
It got a little worse at Oatley – a mystery stop which doesn’t appear on the South Coast train timetable. Illawarra commuters don’t know why the train stops there – neither do I. There already seems to be enough people on this train.
But we manage to fit even more people on at Hurstville – one of the biggest stops on the line.
Here people get pushed down from the vestibule to stand in the corridor between seats.
Unlike Oatley, a stop at Wolli Creek makes sense for most commuters as it provides a link to the airport stations. But few people on our train seem to be catching planes this morning.
The carriage crush started to thin out at Redfern when people who had been seated got off, while those who had been standing tried to politely rush to the vacant seats.
It thinned out some more at Central – which was my stop. But quite a few people stayed on board, because this train now goes through to Bondi Junction.
While the commuters headed off to work, I went in search of a train back to Wollongong. When I caught it, having a whole seat to myself and to stretch out a bit felt like a luxury after the cramped conditions of the morning ‘‘crush hour’’.