Melbourne Trains One

Give me a minute while I calm down! Okay deep breath: South Kensington was the nearest train station and it had six or seven lines and all sorts and sizes of trains passed through but very few of them stopped. It was only two stops away from Southern Cross and three from Flinders, the two main (huge) stations in Melbourne. That was if it did not take 'The Loop' which entailed another five stops. If you wanted to go to one of those five you were never sure how many stops away you were because it depended on whether or not it went clockwise or anti-clockwise around the loop. If you wanted to go to Flinders sometimes it was three stops away and sometimes it was eight. Southern Cross was two or seven stops away. On one occassion we got to Flinders and next stop was Southern Cross but we had to pile out and get on another train only to be told to get off that and on to the one we first vacated. Another time we wanted to go to Parliament Station which was one stop from Flinders but it did not go via The Loop. It stopped in Flinders and five minutes later it went back to Southern Cross which we had just left. It then went around The Loop and five stations later we arrived at Parliament which is only one stop from Flinders. Sometimes you asked the workers but we were often told to take a certain train to South Kensington only to find that it did not stop there. We often checked with two or three workers and still got caught out. In the end we trusted the commuters more and even they were often caught out. If the train did not stop at South Kensington you could get off at Footscray, the next stop and get a train back. These did not always stop either and we often ended up having to get a taxi. There has to be an easier way...