The Melburnians will know what I’m talking about when I say that Connex needs to pick up their act. In the mX today (local Melbourne paper, now coming to Sydney), the following article was on the front page.

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Furious commuters already frustrated by the cancellation of 37 daily rail services will soon face even greater chaos thanks to Connex’s plan to wipe a further 50 services. As passengers lashed out at worsening chaos, Connex chairman Bob Annells said he had no idea when they would get relief from the cancellations, which are costing the operator fines of $500,000 a day.

A March fare hike will still go ahead. Commuters were justified in being outraged at yesterday’s snap cancellations, he said. “I don’t think anybody would pretend it’s good,” Annells told 3AW. “We did station posters, we did SMS, but in the full gamut of how we would have liked to communicate with our customers, it fell through the cracks yesterday morning.”

Passengers vented their fury at the disruption and urged the operator to fix persistent brake faults which have sidelined 31 Siemens trains. The widespread cancellations were compounded by a power failure today which saw many Melburnians arriving 20 minutes late for work.

Electrical trainee Damian Lloys, 19, said the chaos had made him almost half an hour late for his first day of a new job. “I didn’t know about it. They (Connex) need to smarten up because a lot of people are getting angry,” he said. Sonia Bennet, whose 7:31am train was cancelled, said she was furious.