NZ
There’s nothing like getting a text alert from the Auckland train service which reads “Attn Passengers. Major delays on Network. Please find alternative transport” on a Friday afternoon to make me glad to be working at home a lot right now (and especially today).
Tags: NZ
The standard of Veolia transport's SMS notifications has always been a bit questionable, however one from this morning is in line to win some kind of award: "Due to operational problems the Western Line services had been delay by approxed 25 minutes both direction train". Huh? A massive thanks to the person who drove the wrong way around a roundabout at New Lynn this morning, before ignoring the warning barriers and crashing into a train, therefore delaying all the trains.. words fail me.
Congratulations to Auckland, who beat Taranaki last night at Eden Park to advance to the next round of the Air New Zealand Cup. Although it wasn't an overly convincing victory, it'll do.. I had moments early on where I really thought Taranaki were going to beat us. It'd definitely be interesting if the remaining teams all get their All Black's back for the final games of the competition. Either way, good luck Auckland for the rest of the competition. Don't get discouraged by the pathetic crowd turn out, there are still some latte drinkers who want to...
Overview
I recently threw a couple of quick tounge in cheek comments up in response to this post by Alan Lepofsky on Ed Brill's site. My original comment was posted with a large dose of sarcasm, but the discussion has sort of ballooned out a wee bit. So I'm going to take my tounge out of my cheek and expand a little for anyone who's interested.
About me
First, a little about me. I'm no longer involved with Notes/Domino, but I used to be. I've worked with it since release 3, and have 11+ years of solid experience across multiple countries.
I'm an IBM...
Frost by itself isn't anything too amazing or interesting. However, when it's in Auckland, and when you can scoop it into a pile and almost make a snowball out of it, then you can say "It's cold today" and feel somewhat justified.
Tags: NZ, NZ Trains
I threw the leg times for an end to end trip (specifically, the first train of the morning) on the Western line in both directions into a quick Excel spreadsheet, and can now reveal the following useless statistics:
There are 18 stations and therefore 17 legs along the western line.
The most common leg time is 3 minutes. There are 9 eastbound legs which take 3 minutes, and 12 westbound.
There are 7 legs in which the durations for the eastbound and westbound legs differ.
Of the 7...
I was looking through the new timetable for the Western line and thought I'd noticed a screw up in the train times. The trip duration eastbound looked like it took longer than it used to.
That was until I checked the old timetable, and realised that apparently it takes less time to travel from Britomart to Waitakere as it does to travel from Waitakere to Britomart. I'd never noticed this before!
The eastbound trip end to end (non express) is listed at taking exactly an hour, whereas the return trip is listed as taking 57 minutes...
Today was a fairly significant milestone in the double tracking of the Western Line, with the new track opened up all the way through to Henderson.
In this article, Newstalk ZB decreed that the entire line has been double tracked. I'm not sure if their definition of entire means 'the entire line (apart from 4 stations)' or whether they consider that finished means 'no tracks, no second platforms, but some digging has been done', or whether they just screwed up. (Note that the entry could have been fixed by the time you read it, if you do, because...
I'm back to taking the train after driving for a couple of months. It looks like the reliability issues have gotten a bit better since their alltime February/March lows, however there are still delays and they're still (apparently) being caused by signal failures. It looks like most of the major earthworks have been completed along the western line, and so from here on in things should be getting better.
One thing which has surprised me a lot over the past few days commute is that the trains seem noticably busier. I'd actually expected their use to maybe...
Sunset at Bethells beach, Waitakere, Auckland, New Zealand.
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About me
My name is Ross Hawkins and I'm a Developer, Consultant and Writer based in Auckland,
New Zealand (pictured below!). My current work revolves around ASP.NET, C#, jQuery, Ajax,
SQL Server, and a mix of other Microsoft development technologies.
I also have about 14 years of experience with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and associated technologies. While Notes/Domino
is no longer my primary focus I still like to dabble and keep my skills up to date.
I own and run 2 businesses - Hawkins Consulting Services,
and Ignition Development.
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