The Age throws Metro a bone

METRO is counting on cruising through the rest of summer without any heat-related train cancellations after fixing the airconditioning on half its fleet.> > > > > The state government has spent $18.7 million retrofitting its ageing fleet of Comeng trains so that they continue to run in temperatures up to 45 degrees. Previously the airconditioning units on these trains failed at 36 degrees, which has caused mass cancellations on hot days. Metro contributed $1.2 million to the upgrade of all 93 Comeng trains, which was completed in November and follows previous works on the train tracks to stop them buckling in the heat.

via theage.com.au

In this article, headlined “Metro on track to beat the heat”, the first two paragraphs are odd. If not contradictory, they’re certainly misleading. In the first paragraph, it’s Metro that has fixed the air conditioning in their trains. But read on! It’s actually the state government who paid the lion’s share of the bill ($18.7m vs Metro’s $1.2m). The trackwork was also mentioned, and that was paid for by the government too.

So, when your train carriage is still nice and cool on a 40-degree day, don’t thank Metro; thank the state government. Well, mathematically, I suppose you can thank Metro for 6% of the cooling - which is about one row of seats.

But more importantly, I find the timing of the publication of this article decidedly odd. It’s not announcing anything - the aircon upgrade finished up in November - and there’s nothing really newsworthy in the article itself. The newsworthy aspect, I think, is the fact that this fluff article with its misleading positive spin to Metro, appears the day after The Age ran a fairly negative news article about Metro. Coincidence?