News - Victorian Rail News
V/Line train services halted due to communications fault
Victorian Rail NewsA communications fault halted all early V/Line trains on Wednesday morning, the third complete network outage in five weeks.
V/Line posted on its Twitter account just after 6am that "no train services are operating across all lines due to a communications fault".
Trains were initially held in their positions across all regional lines because it was not safe for them to continue without drivers and controllers being able to communicate.
Chief executive Matt Carrick apologised to passengers for the delays.
"There was a communications fault this morning which has impacted the whole network," he said.
"That resulted in quite a number of cancellations and delays across the whole network and that's really impacted our customers."
V/Line worked with VicTrack to put a temporary communication solution in place, which allowed trains to resume running at normal speed about 6:30am.
V/Line has since tweeted that "services have started to resume across the network, however we are still experiencing ongoing delays and cancellations across the morning peak".
What's the problem?Mr Carrick said a communications fault meant drivers and controllers could not reach each other, resulting in safety issues.
"The way that our operations centre can communicate with drivers was affected so they couldn't actually communicate with the train safely," he said.
"There were issues identified with the firewall around our communication system."
The Department of Transport and V/Line thanked passengers for their patience.(AA
Joe Castro)In a statement, V/Line said significant delays were likely throughout the morning. It said some services could be replaced by coaches.
"We sincerely thank passengers for their patience while we worked to get train services moving again as quickly and safely as possible following a communications fault this morning," a V/Line spokesperson said.
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What needs to change? Mr Carrick says there was a record amount of investment going into the train network right across Victoria to improve services, provide more services and upgrade infrastructure.
Public Transport Users Association regional spokesperson Paul Westcott has previously said the V/Line problems were continuing.
"I'm not sure that (the problems are) getting worse, but it's just persistence," Mr Westcott said.
"These problems are cropping up on all lines from time to time, causing annoyance and unreliability for passengers who have to put up with uncertainty as to whether their service will get them where they want to go on time, or even indeed, if it runs at all."
He said it was important to find out exactly what the reasons were for the delays and cancellations.
"It's really important that passengers are given explanations as to what's happened rather than just a train fault," he said.
'Network in chaos'Shadow minister for public transport Steph Ryan says the V/Line network is in chaos.
"Anybody travelling from Victoria's key regional cities this morning has had services cancelled, has not been able to get to work, has not been able to get to critical medical appointments," she said.
This article first appeared on www.abc.net.au