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Details of the death toll confirm the horror stories told by veteran commuters in India’s financial capital, a group long inured to the sight of body parts littering the line.
The figures, which were obtained for The Times using India’s Right to Information Act, show that the maximum fatalities – 3443 out of a total of 4357 in 2008 – were caused by people being knocked down by trains while trespassing on the tracks.
The next biggest portion of deaths – 853, or more than three every working day – were of passengers who fell (or were pushed) from carriages, which have no doors and are often crammed dangerously full.
Another 41 people perished after being battered by trackside poles while hanging out of overcrowded trains. Twenty-one were electrocuted by power cables as they sat on the roof – a location often chosen to avoid paying for tickets that cost only pennies.
Imagine witnessing all that.
Even after taking into account the frequent timetable disruptions caused by railway deaths, the level of congestion on the city’s roads means that the trains’ attractions outweigh the dangers. That’s one thing Mumbai’s system has over ours.
Rebecca said
The travelling public of Melbourne are a bunch of whining arseholes.
Yesterday I had some piece of shit complaining that the announcements were keeping him awake, soI had to turn them off in his carriage.
Today some scum of society told me to fuck off, because he had a right to smoke on the train because it was running late (2 minutes late).
The sooner these fuckers realise that if they want personal transport instead of public transport, and start getting taxis the better.
It’s simple people, the network is running at 130% of capacity during the peak hour. Connex are not to blame for this problem, the issues have been there for 30 years and fuck all has been done around the system since the loop was built. The last new piece of track was the link between Westona and Laverton, back in 1984. The last complete line was Glen Waverley, back in the 1920s.
Simple fact is, it is regardless if Connex, or the Government or McDonalds is running the system. The whole thing is a rotting corpse that has been run into the ground, and things are only getting worse, because no one is responsible for anything. Connex are just a HR company, they don’t control anything, and have to get Government approval to do anything. It’s all shit.
clubwah said
I agree Rebecca. The government are more than happy for everyone to blame Connex.
Bron said
The government are more than happy for everyone to blame Connex.
Yeah, exactly. It goes without saying it’s politically convenient. And PR convenient: takes the focus off the govt.
bertus said
Actually, not skiting, many would be able to say the same thing, but I’ve caught public transport in London, Paris, Prague, Rome, Sydney, Brisbane and other places and, actually, I reckon Melbourne’s PT is pretty good these days. A lot better than what it was 20 – 30 years ago. The buses around where I live are excellent (except they stop at about 11pm five days a week).
The big problem with the trains is level crossings. They should have got rid of them 50 years ago. It’s just impossible to run trains much more often in Melbourne because all the level crossings would have to be permanently closed – then you’d have traffic chaos and even more moaning.
Having said that though, and even though I’m a rusted-on Lefty, you have to say that Lynne Kosky is a piece of work isn’t she? More front than Myers. Does she have something she can blackmail the Government with? She was just as bad in Education too (I was working in that Dept at the time – it wasn’t a joyous experience, largely because of her and the other dweeb – was it Jacinta Allen?)
Reuben said
I don’t agree. India is hardly a reasonable comparison, given its enormous population and poverty. Logically, Vancouver and Zurich are the most readily comparable and guess what? They have a better network. They’re also ahead of us on the ‘liveability rankings’ thanks in no small part to excellent transport planning. Vancouver’s 3 rail lines (+skytrain to the airport) actually carries a greater capacity than all of Melbourne’s 15 odd lines. Zurich is officially the world’s most liveable city with a publicly-run, accountable agency that’s not bogged down in bureaucracy.
You wouldn’t get events like this happening in those countries: http://reubenville.blogspot.com/2009/01/guess-excuse.html
I do, however, agree that some commuters whinge too much and often for the wrong reasons. I recall that complaints about there not being a place to sit made it to the opinion section which is ridiculous; city transit isn’t meant for long journeys so standing is commonplace.
Rebecca said
The issue with level crossings in Melbourne is two fold. One is the cost, the other is the attitude of the public.
At last count there was 87 level crossing in Melbourne. Middleborough Road (Laburnam Station) cost about $55million to do ($54.3 according to DOI records), which means it would be about $4,785,000,000 to do all crossings. Let’s just round it up to an even $5billion, to allow for cost blow outs and stupidity. Each crossing would take on average 6 weeks, or about 10 years to do, if they were done one at a time. Obviously you would have to close down a line, redo all the crossing on that line, then reopen it. A problem there is because of the changes, Drivers would have to be retrained on the line, and that takes a few months, even with things running in service.
This gets to the second issue, the attitude of the public. Despite the obvious benefits of grade seperation, the public would be up in arms about the delays caused, the noise, the trains not running, their cat not drinking milk, the sky being blue and anything else they care to bitch about.
So the question is, why would a Government pay $5billion, for a project that will take longer than a term of parliament, to have the public pissed off at them for doing the project, and the government risk losing an election?
Sure it needs to be done, no complaint from me there, and it is being done. In the last couple of years we have had Middleborough Road (Laburnam), Barry Road (Roxborough Park), the Dandenong Bypass, some road in Berwick and Taylors Road (Keilor Plains) done. This Christmas Springvale Road at Nunawading is being done.
From a rail point of view, these are low priority projects, but from a road point of view they are high priority. The first roads that should be done from a rail point of view are the tramway level crossings, which reduce a train to 15km/h (30km/h at Riversdale), and cause much greater delays.
bertus said
@ Rebecca – the Glenhuntly Road LC at Glenhuntly is a beauty too. The train poddles across at about 2kmh!
clubwah said
I think overall safety (trains, traffic and pedestrians) and traffic conjestion are important factors.
The Keilor Plains underpass has made an incredible difference to traffic in the area especially when you consider you had a rail line going through a giant roundabout and a mix of Connex and V-Line services constantly bringing down the boom gates.
Rebecca said
Bertus: When I went through there today, I did 12km/h, but even that seems slow.
Clubwah: As I said, it should be done, but the public will bitch and complain. The greater good has left the building.
As for Taylors Road, the most dangerous situation for cars is a roundabout. For trains, it is a level crossing. Isn’t it great we combine the two? I’m glad that one is gone, but there are another two of them on the system.