Day in the City - in 43 degrees

Yesterday we met Lisa, Adelaide and Eloise in the city for a visit to the Aquarium.  It was Eloise's first visit there and she really enjoyed it.  The Aquarium has a new attraction - penguins.  Eloise was very taken with them.  We had lunch at Crown and then looked for a boat trip, but as all trips start from the other side of Princes Bridge and it was 43 degrees and too far to walk we went to Plan B and ducked into a beautifully cool Museum of Immigration which was much nearer.  Once that closed we returned to the station and a cool drink before going to the platform from which  the 6:15 train back home to Maryborough was leaving.  Well, it eventually drew out after over 30 minutes delay, for no apparant reason and Vline were not planning on letting anyone on into the secret as to why this was.  But that was only the start for Lisa and the girls - Robin and I left 5 minutes before they drew out  as we were going to see 39 Steps at the Playhouse. 

That finished about 10ish and as we were going by the silos on the freeway (temperature showed 35) Robin remarked that Lisa and girls would be driving between Castlemaine and home about now.  Huh - little did we know!

This is what really happened in Lisa's words from an email I opened at 3 am - because it was impossible for me to sleep:-

It's now 01:00. We got home about an hour ago! Our train finally left about 5 minutes after you left the station (so already 35 minutes late) and we started slowing after North Melbourne. We came to a grinding halt (literally) somewhere around St Albans/Keilor and didn't move again. The tracks had buckled. We were finally helped from the train by Victoria Police and we stood by the roadside until 21:45 when several buses arrived to take us home. They manned each bus with St John Ambulance staff, it was a good idea but could have used them on the train I suspect as the air conditioning wasn't working terribly well.  While we were waiting by the tracks/roadside some families in St Albans came by with jugs of water and glasses and I kept the kids cool by dousing  them with that. They were very considerate people. Our bus arrived in Castlemaine a few minutes past 23:00. I stopped at a late night petrol station and got some more cold drinks as we went through our stocks. The train ran out of cold drinks completely while we were waiting.

What a shambles - Vline what are you playing at.  OK, the buckling of the track is not your fault BUT all that time to get people of the train and on their way again - come on, get your act together.  You knew it was hot, tracks were buckling - ever heard of contingency planning?