RailBus Is a Bizarre Experience

Buses have replaced trains so that work can proceed on the tracks – and it’s great a service continues. But what a bizarre experience when a train morphs into a bus.

The Veolia woman is yelling out of the bus front door to the couple standing by the bus stop: “Are you looking for a train?”

The bus stop is nowhere near a train station.

The couple, struggling with English and, one assumes, visitors to Auckland, look a mixture of shock and bewilderment.

They’re standing at a bus stop hoping to find a way to get into the city. A bus arrives but they’re told that in Auckland, things that look like buses are actually trains.

“No, you can’t come in here. This is a train,” she says, before correcting herself that it’s, well, a bus, sort of.

But unless you’re waiting for a train at that bus stop, you’re out of luck until a real bus comes along at the same stop. As train users, we’re an elite bunch who don’t want to sit next to any old common bus passenger,  who may be desperately trying to get somewhere on a holiday period when buses are scarce. Sure, it’s the season of goodwill but go and find your own smelly diesel. Thsi is a RailBus and you have to prove you are worthy by explaining you are at the bus stop to catch a Train.

The staff are actually lovely. They’re helpful and polite and doing their best, even to help the driver navigate the strange route.

If you’re using a RailBus, here are some tips:

• Allow yourself plenty of time as the timetable, unless a time is stated in bold, is not exact to the minute and the bus doesn’t wait if it’s ahead of time

• You need to hail it down even if you’re waiting at a RailBus stop as the bus driver may assume you are waiting for a bus, not a train or should I saw a bus that is a train, sort of
• The bus stops are often hard to find because they’re not necessarily alongside the train station, not the most obvious of neighbouring bus stops and the maps on the signs at the actual train station may take some working out
• The route taken – because it’s not the familiar one along the tracks – is strange and takes you along some interesting back roads
• The bus stop in Downtown is not the one the RailBus stop  used to be at the back of Britomart but way up in Commerce St, 5 minutes walk or so from the train station
• If you ask where the Downtown stop is (as I heard 2 people ask) , you’ll be told it’s at D18 which is about as meaningful as some of those strange numbers on motorway exits – and sounds like a South African sci-fi movie. Why would anyone assume Aucklanders all understand where D18 is?
• I got caught short coming home as the timetable for Dec 26 had a few times listed with a blue background. I discovered too late that the very fine print underneath that blue background said that all those late buses only apply on Jan 9 and 16.

So I took a ferry to Waiheke and caught the sunset looking across to Auckland and let me share that with you because it makes one realise that, for our all moans, Auckland can be a beautiful spot.