Separate failures on train network and at Sydney Airport lead to major delays

It was the Monday morning from hell for train and plane passengers when two combined failures led to chaos on platforms in Sydney and at airports across the country.

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It was the Monday morning from hell for train and plane passengers when power outages and technological failures combined to cause chaos on platforms in Sydney and at airports across the country.

An IT systems outage caused major problems for the nation’s SmartGate passport control machines at major airports, causing extensive delays in processing returning passengers.

Meanwhile in Sydney, the train network was plunged into chaos by a broken power cable — on the same day the new timetable was introduced to improve congestion.

Seventy new trains per week have been added to the network in preparation for the opening of the Sydney Metro Northwest railway line next month.

A broken power cable at Ashfield in the early hours of the morning led to delays throughout the morning. Picture: Twitter/@andrewjohns151

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On Monday, an 11 kilovolt power cable failed at Ashfield at 3am, which stopped signalling, triggered fire alarms at two stations and cut the power at a number of stations between Ashfield and Strathfield.

Despite the issue being fixed by 6am, the problem caused major delays on every train line apart from the T4 Eastern Suburbs Line and South Coast Line.

Passengers stranded at a number of stations complained of spotting “empty” trains passing through their stations without stopping.

Many people were crammed into trains. Picture: Twitter/@trvllngjwllr

Some commuters were left stranded at stations after not being able to board. Picture: Twitter/@JodyCrilly

The airport chaos was blamed on IT systems outages which had an effect across the nation.

“A number of Australian Border Force and Department of Home Affairs IT systems (were) impacted by an outage,’’ an ABF spokesperson said in a statement.

Extra staff were deployed to major international airports to minimise disruption, but the outage caused long delays for travellers both departing and arriving in Australia.

SmartGates are used at nine Australian international airports and use facial recognition technology and the passenger’s ePassport to check identity.

Passengers arriving and leaving Sydney Airport were caught in major delays after a SmartGate outage. Picture: Twitter/@davebergie

Sydney Trains chief executive Howard Collins apologised to rail commuters and said the government-owned company now has more people working on the North Shore Line to cope with any similar issues once the Metro commences service next month.

“We have got more standby people, we’ve got engineers, we’ve got 31 extra staff on the North Shore Line,” he said.

“This delay today is nothing to do with the (new) timetable, it’s just a sheer coincidence. The good thing is, starting this timetable early and having a number of days to operate it prior to Metro, allows us to understand where possibly we need to do more work.”

Shadow Transport Minister Jodi McKay said $3 billion should be invested in the current network to improve the heavy rail system.

“The government is focused on building stuff rather than actually looking at how you can improve the heavy rail system as well,” she said, adding that Chatswood station could become a dangerous chokepoint on the new network.