Derailed

I COMMEND Ray Pendlebury for his letter regarding the way our trains have deteriorated since the 1940s.
However, my memories, as a passenger are a wee bit different.
I recall several one-car and two-car services – e.g. the Tait seven-car service ended at East Malvern and there was a one-car service to Glen Waverley, which was still ‘countryside’ then.
We also had a choice of two classes. Be it not strange that our airlines (and how Australians boasted) began when only a few rich folk could travel by air we had a one-class service, then as more people travelled by air the airlines expanded to two and then three classes. And now we are back to a one-class service except that then the one class was First Class – now it is Third Class and rightly deserves the nick-name “Cattle Class” – but that is exactly what the Victorian Government is giving us as it expands “modernisation” outwards from Melbourne.
Other memories include the fact that in the 1940s and early ’50s, one could never be sure whether gas, electricity, trains or trams were available because so often some trade union or other was on strike. So I believe a part of the lack of service for people on our public transport today is partly because the government saw an opportunity to get rid of these trouble-makers. Indeed I reckon that if they could run the services totally robotically electro-mechanically they would. Then actual human beings would only be used when something went wrong and the overworked SES folk came to the rescue!
N.R. Cole,
Tooradin.