@ Mbossa #48: I meant to say leave home early and leave work at the normal time. Most of us who work don't mind getting to work early or staying later, it's all part of life. That or try car pooling.

Tranzmetro can and will have these kind of failures, because there's not enough competition. Sure there are buses, but trains are a lot nicer(you can read/work on your laptop etc). What I think would work well, is split up the lines and give them to different *local*(ie. NZ) companies, who would promise to invest money into making them better as part of their initial contract.

The fact that TranzMetro doesn't routinely(ie. as a matter of policy) return commuters money in such cases is just shameful. Sure they get there most of the time(80% as one user said), but we're paying for that. We're also paying for the 20% that they don't, plus for their improvements. So so money is due back or it's theft. -T

@Rad #42: That's the most useless piece of advice ever. If I had left work 15-20 minutes early, not only would I have gotten 15-20 minutes less work done, but I would have been waiting on the platform 15-20 minutes longer.

Rad #42

Great idea...except the train before mine (and the one before that) has probably broken down as well. In fact, that's probably the one that causing all the issues.

It's not as simple as leaving a little bit early.

Son of Santa #45

Almost.

For James at #44..

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me... a fast bus ticket out of Auckland..... a world without Jaffa's, yipeeeee!

Santa #40

Meh. I'm not from Wellington but that really wasn't that funny considering the amount of effort you put in. Oh well. Man, I hope you don't live in Auckland.

@ Sam #29. Hey, at least we don't set our trains on fire (they do a perfectly good job of it themselves!).

Can't complain about yesterdays service. Got a text just before 5pm warning about the yard signal failure, so didn't rush to the station to catch the 1730 train. They put on something like a 10-carriage all stops that left the platform around 6-ish, which wasn't "jammed". They dealt with this calamity a lot better than they have with ones in recent times.

And yes, I echo the statements from the ex-pat in London. At least we don't have a crook union running things.

To all those moaning about delays, try leaving 15 or 20mins earlier than usual, not that hard...

I have a cunning plan!

We should sell the service to the highest bidder, which would hopefully be an international company with experience in operating a variety of businesses. This company would want to make money (as all do), so they would provide a quality service at a reasonable rate to encourage usage. They would invest in maintenance and new equipment, because that would fit with their ideology of selling a quality product. This company would have the best interests of Wellington at heart, and a desire to provide a vital link to the suburbs and onwards towards the rest of New Zealand.

Oh wait... they tried this one you say?

How did it go?

Oh...

What do you mean you reap what you sow?