Last night being the first night of operation of the Epping-Chatswood Rail Link (what a stupid name, I would have called it the Macquarie Line), I had the fortune to travel with the present Lady Rollo along said route, and although I must say that I am pleased that the line has been built and also that I can see the immense utility of the line, I very much think that the project is one where function has over taken form entirely.
The line itself has been quite masterfully built. Rather than a standard cut and cover method of building a train line, it was built using a great shield method of construction and cuts through Macquarie Sandstone, so technically is quite excellent.
There en lies a problem. Because the line is entirely underground, there are no reference points out of the windows for the passengers. This poses the rather moot question of knowing where you are. The stations themselves are all island types (with the platforms in the middle) and hence when you're at platform level, all three stations are pretty well much identical. A casual glance out of the window if you couldn't actually see the station sign to read the name, would give you no indication whatsoever of where the heck you are.
Speaking as a patron of the railways and quite an experience traveler who happens to fall asleep on the train quite a lot, it would be very easy indeed for someone who still being quite bleary-eyed to miss their station and end up somewhere unexpected. Sure at the moment whilst there are only five stations, that isn't a problem, but it could be in the future when it is integrated into the Northern Line.
I hope that this lesson is learnt before the construction of the North-West Metro or as I think it should be called the "If-And-When Line", because having 90 minutes of identical stations just might deposit the unsuspecting commuter in Woop Woop West.
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