The Pain Takes My Mind Off The Other Pain

Almost forgot!

So, I'm heading down to Mittagong and Bowral and Moss Vale by train, and I'm starting from Hornsby.  My destination is out to the south-west of Sydney, and my origin is in the north-east corner of Sydney.

So my trip has three legs: Hornsby to Central, Central to Campbelltown (the last major suburb as you head south-west out of Sydney), then Campbelltown to Bowral.  There are some peak-hour services that run direct from Bowral to Central and vice versa, but they only run to Sydney in the morning and from Sydney in the evening, and I'm doing the opposite today, so that's of little help.

So I catch the 6:47* service, which zips from Hornsby to Central in 35 minutes, giving me 10 minutes to transfer to the train to Campbelltown.  Only...  Not today.  Today it gets stuck behind a local service, and instead of having 10 minutes to get from platform 9 (or thereabouts) to platform 23, I have 3.

But I make it.  I'm not sure I even have the right train, but then they helpfully announce "change at Campbelltown for Moss Vale".  Perfect.

Zip out through the new airport line and onto the East Hills line, and then, and then, we get stuck again, behind a train that has broken down completely, and sit there, just a couple of hundred metres short of, um, Panania maybe, for twenty minutes. 

I have eight minutes to make this connection (which is easy - it's the other side of the same platform), now reduced to minus twelve, and an eighty (eight-zero) minute wait for the next train.

But then, while I'm still considering calling the trip off and heading home, we arrive at Campbelltown to find the Moss Vale train still awaiting us.

That really surprised me - at least until I got aboard.  Without the main connecting service, there were only two passengers on that carriage.**

* Did you know there's also a 6:47 in the morning?  Amazing.

**  And there's only two carriages, so I guess it made sense to hold it.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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