SYDNEY -- Transport bungles of Olympic proportions, Part One: Aussies don't know how to run a train service.

Imagine Shinjuku Station on a busy weekday but with security guards refusing to let people on the trains.

That was the scene this week at Olympic Park Station, the station meant to carry hundreds of thousands of people to and from the main venues for the Sydney Games. The job is not that big when you consider that Shinjuku Station handles more than 2 million people every day with relative ease. OK, so it is push and shove and obachan elbowing you with shopping bags. But it works. The trains leave on time, filled to the gills, and there is no backup on the platform.

Sydney's fast-becoming-famous transport problems, on the other hand, are, at least in part, quite unnecessary.

Trains departed half-full after the opening ceremony rehearsal Wednesday, while thousands of people were left standing 20-deep on the platform. The line to the train snaked hundreds of meters away from the station. And this was 1 1/2 hours after the night's last event had finished. "It took us an hour-and-a-half in line just to get on the train," said the sports fan seated in carriage No. 2., which could have easily swallowed another 100 passengers. An experienced Tokyoite, slipping down the side of the line and cutting through the crowd, trimmed that to 15 minutes -- leaving a wake of upset Aussies.

The locals are an easy-going bunch who seem in good humor stuck in the snarl, happy to wait the extra hour not to have their nose jammed in someone else's armpit. Instead, they stand just far enough apart for you to turn sideways and slip right through, weaving back and forth toward the front of the pack.

Sydney risks transport woes because of its own inability to handle crowds. It has no experience. Although it is the biggest city in Australia, you can walk down the main street Sunday and mistake this metropolis for a quiet country town.

The bus system is no better than the train network, as IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch found this week when he was left waiting for a bus that never showed up.

Those that do arrive leave with 10 to 20 passengers on board every . . . well, whenever you are lucky enough to get a bus.

Local press this week reported how one Olympic boxing team tried to wave down a bus. The driver waved right back as he sped past.

Things got worse Wednesday when 50 bus drivers quit, complaining of bad working conditions. Those still on the road tell how they are making up their own routes when faced with plainly flawed instructions.

Drivers that do arrive on time to pick up athletes bank up behind those that turned up late. More than one driver has diverted from his route to drop people off right at their door. To their credit, most drivers show a sense of humor that is infectious, a carefree spirit that dismisses any time of day other than "sun up and sun down."

Olympic events, on the other hand, run on 24-hour time, and scandals are in the making if athletes and audiences don't reach venues on time.