News vacuum? Odd!
I was out west today, and it was my intention to get the train back towards the city. My heart sank when the train stopped at Parramatta with the announcement "The train will be stopped here for some time due to an earlier incident on the Lidcombe bridge." Holy crap, CityRail never say "for some time" - it's always "briefly" or "until the signal clears". After waiting on the train for probably about 10 minutes, there was a new announcement - "This train will be terminating here, and returning to Penrith."
Further announcements after we got off the train said that trains to the city would be "indefinitely delayed". There were vague hints that CityRail would be organising buses to replace the downed trains. Thanks to my fairly comprehensive knowledge of the Sydney transport system, I managed to get on a State Transit bus and get home without further incident.
A disturbance of this magnitude must have stuffed around several thousand commuters, though, and I was surprised to note that there was no mention of it on any of the news sites I've looked at. Just now, a Google search brought up this article, which reveals that there was a truck crash on the Olympic Drive bridge, which was feared to have caused structural damage. (Given that Lidcombe is but five kilometres from Granville, where a bridge fell on a train and killed 83 people in Australia's worst ever train accident, I can't blame them for not mucking around.)
What's telling, though, is my reaction...when I searched and could not find any information apart from this vague transport delay warning, my instant thoughts were:
Climate of Fear: 1 Sanity: 0
Further announcements after we got off the train said that trains to the city would be "indefinitely delayed". There were vague hints that CityRail would be organising buses to replace the downed trains. Thanks to my fairly comprehensive knowledge of the Sydney transport system, I managed to get on a State Transit bus and get home without further incident.
A disturbance of this magnitude must have stuffed around several thousand commuters, though, and I was surprised to note that there was no mention of it on any of the news sites I've looked at. Just now, a Google search brought up this article, which reveals that there was a truck crash on the Olympic Drive bridge, which was feared to have caused structural damage. (Given that Lidcombe is but five kilometres from Granville, where a bridge fell on a train and killed 83 people in Australia's worst ever train accident, I can't blame them for not mucking around.)
What's telling, though, is my reaction...when I searched and could not find any information apart from this vague transport delay warning, my instant thoughts were:
- Conspiracy of silence?
- TERRORISM!
Climate of Fear: 1 Sanity: 0