Promotions at Parliament Station: 3. Monday: Free fortune cookie advertising Mt Franklin water’s “Well of Positivity“; Tuesday: free sample of Ocean Spray Cranberries; Wednesday: Amnesty International

Beggars who have asked for money: 1 in Swanston Street who sounded very scripted “Excuse me sir, we are homeless for a few days”, and as soon as being told “sorry”, lost interest completely and went and watched a giant chess game in progress on the corner of Little Collins St.

Trains from home to work: Cancelled: 0 (plus one before mine cancelled, causing overcrowding). Late: 1. More-or-less on-time: 4. Got a seat: 2.

Trains from work to home: Cancelled: 1. Late: 0. More-or-less on-time: 4. Got a seat: 2.

Footy coaches ousted: 2: Sheedy and Pagan

Senior state politicians resigned: 2: Bracks and Thwaites. I don’t mind saying, I was surprised.

The trains have problems, but at least most people can figure out where they go. (Uhh, well, apart from the whole City Loop reversal thing.)

But try the buses. I reckon the 627 bus has Melbourne’s most confusing route.

It goes from Elsternwick to East Brighton, but via Chadstone. (And if you don’t know your Melbourne geography, it’s a detour of about 10km.)

On the way, it passes through Carnegie twice, and that includes along the same bit of Koornang Road.

The buses have a Chadstone sign for the first part of the route, before changing to their end destination. Unfortunately that means that in that bit of Koornang Road, you get buses with the same number and the same destination sign (”Chadstone 627″), that take different routes.

And just in case you thought you’d figured it out, although the route theoretically goes to East Brighton, in fact all but half-a-dozen services each day terminate short of there, 2 minutes back down the road in McKinnon.

I wonder what idiot designed this? Were they deliberately trying to put people off using the buses?

As it happens there are reviews of bus routes happening at the moment. It’ll be interesting to see if this little mess gets fixed up.