It broke down near Penrith.

Passengers then had to wait for a Blue Mountains electric commuter train.

There were a number of elderly passengers traveling that day with suitcases and without Transport NSW assistance they had to struggle with this luggage on to the electric train.

They were then offloaded at Lithgow to continue their travel on a coach progressing onto Dubbo.

At Bathurst, the bus stopped at a McDonalds outlet for 40 minutes for “lunch”, at their own expense.

One passenger asked the driver why they stopped at this city/venue when most of the passengers were travelling to Orange.

The driver advised he was told to and that was that.

Instead of arriving in Orange at 12pm the coach arrived at 1:45pm.

This is the third time in recent months when a train trip from Sydney to Orange eventuated in train breakdowns and similar events occurred.

Our infrastructure in this country is no better than most third world countries.

Politicians of both the major parties should hold their heads in abject shame.

This is especially so for residents west of the Great Dividing Range.

We are the forgotten constituents in current political circles.

It’s obvious the two major political parties see their existence to be east of the Blue Mountains.

We, West of the Great Dividing Range, are treated with disdain and are regarded by the two major parties as second class citizens.

As a party voter all my life, that is now changing.

Anyone west of the mountains who votes for either of the two major parties must have rocks in their head.

For this federal election and the next state election, constituents in these western regions have to make a stand and show politicians we cannot be taken for granted as has happened in the past.

I AVOID, where possible, listening to our wannabee prime ministerial candidates because of all the lies that are spruiked.

But, after hearing some of the rubbish that they have dished out the the Australian public lately, I was reminded of a television ad from many years ago.

It started with a dodgy car salesman stating, (roughly from memory), I’ll give you a two-bob watch, $200, a TV, a block of flats, PLUS Tasmania, if you buy a car from me.

Naturally, that was never ever going to happen.

For the interest of younger readers who don’t understand what a two-bob watch is, a two-bob (about two shillings, or 20 cents in today’s currency) watch was a bargain watch in the day.

But once a person bought that watch they quickly realised that it did not work.

The reason it did not work was that there was no internal workings. It was hollow, worthless, a rip off. Lies.

Then, of course, the second used car salesman, who had paid for the add enters, and says “but you can trust me.”

Does that sound familiar?

Sounds like our current candidates, doesn't it?