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For minutes the passengers along the platform would wait, and wait, and wait. Then through the speakers the lady would ask: "Attention passengers, your attention please..." on the forth call for ears there was nothing but silence and the smokers on the platform stamping out yet another day of failure.
Every time you listen to the call and announcements of a late running train, it is merely nothing more than an illusion. When the stations hear of the details of the trains and how late they are running they don't actually inform anyone with the details post haste. The illusion comes as the train nears the platform while you believe it is still some many minutes late. The obvious effect is that of some relief as you are tricked into believing that although the train was pronounced twenty minutes behind schedule, it actually arrived within twelve. It's all psychological.
On another note, there are more and more displays cropping up all over platforms in New South Wales. They are usually found on stations that have had no other indicator of the time other than a fixed wooden plank. The clocks display the time to the very second. A reason for something along the lines of complaints wherein you can include a summation that counts the seconds a train was off schedule. They should be 24-hour displays, and in fact they are, but sometimes the station has configured the time to be displayed only in the 12-hour format. Either they are that stupid, or people don't know how the numbers run over twelve.
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 07:01
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