[Mark@Home]

Translink QLD. Useless.​

I had an appointment booked for this morning at 09:50 with my endocrinologist. I missed this appointment due to the southeast Queensland transport provider's gross incompetence.

When I got up, I took my daily blood sugar reading and added it to my daily blood sugar diary and weekly blood pressure diary. I e-mailed it to the hospital department and set off to get the train. According to Translink's timetable, I would have arrived 20 minutes early for the appointment. All hunky dory. But then, since it's Friday the thirteenth (December 2024)....

I missed the appointment, came home with my tail between my legs and emailed the diabetes clinic thus:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm afraid I won't be attending your clinic today. It is not my fault. The reason is worthy of my shortly-to-send snotogram to the new Queensland Premier, Crisis Fully.

I anticipated catching the 09:21 train from Wulkuraka to Ipswich. With just a 78 metre saunter from the platform I would have reached you twenty minutes early. Thanks to Translink's pathetic excuse of a railway, it all went downhill.

A fellow passenger somehow got wind of train cancellations and there would be a rail replacement bus in 30 minutes' time. Then a coal train went through, leaving us all wondering why the line was closed.

A bus arrived, but at the road outside the far side of the station from the Ipswich platform. By the time we all reached the stairs at the far end of the walkway, it left. EMPTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I rang the call button on the station and asked if they knew how to run a railway. This did not go down well and the woman was about to hang up when I asked why, if there were no trains, did she allow a coal train to run past us. She couldn't explain. I asked when the next train would be. She couldn't answer. Just then, a passenger train arrived FROM Ipswich. I told the woman all about this Trainy McTrainFace train and asked if she could use her skill and judgement to determine if it was indeed a train, a figment of my imagination - shared now with a dozen fellow disgruntled passengers - or was it, in her opinion, FAIRY F*****G dust? She c/wouldn't tell me when the next rail replacement bus would arrive or when it was anticipated that the next Ipswich-bound train might eventually deign to cross our paths.

So I have come home. I have come home to apologise to my favourite Walk-In Plaza Health people, for my failure to meet this appointment.

I cannot say this will never happen again but your records will show that I have never previously missed an appointment with you and have always been early. And cheerful. And pleasant. I don't know where that leaves us. Please don't think ill of me. I was an airline captain so I know the value of timely departures. And also of customer service which is why I got cranky with the Translink tossers.

But wait! There's more. Optus, Australia's second most shitty telecommunications provider decided I was not worthy of sending an SMS to the Ipswich Diabetes Clinic to warn them of my travel woes, nor would they let me telephone them. NOR would these digital delinquents let me 'phone my wife to ask her to contact the clinic on my behalf! I don't want a contract. Not after my battles with Carphone WHOREHOUSE in the UK and Charles Dunstone, their bastard CEO. I pay a year in advance and there are more than funds enough. I eventually, with just 1% battery on my iPhone, got through to Kirstin on FaceTime!!! She managed, while I was making my way home, to send Translink a snotogram - see the comment below.

Snotogram to Translink from my wife who commutes on Translink trains twice daily for work:

Information about service updates is beyond poor. Currently at Wulkuraka station, patrons have no idea whether to move to the platform or bus stop, and it’s a few minutes walk between the two. We wait on the platform and watch a bus go by. Move to the bus stop and watch a train go by. The station has no live updates about the situation, and the website is useless. Even planning this journey, it still told us that a train was due at 9:20 and any service alert is easy to miss. My husband will miss an important medical appointment and other patrons are in total confusion. This is not the first time this has happened…I’ve had a couple occasions on my morning commute where patrons have been left in total confusion when rail replacement is suddenly instigated. Wulkuraka station needs live service updates and rail replacement buses that wait for patrons to leave the platform to catch them. I am a strong proponent of public transport, but this lack of service disgusts me.

Surely Friday the 13th can't get any worse..........?