Sydney train chaos caused by three perfectly placed lightning strikes
THE state government, the opposition and the union have been blaming each other for the rail chaos that enraged Sydney this week. But the real reason was three lightning strikes, placed perfectly, which tipped an already teetering system over the edge.
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IT WAS three strikes and Sydney’s rail system was out this week.
While the state government, the opposition and the union have been blaming each other, this was the reason for the rail chaos that enraged Sydney this week.
Three lightning strikes, placed perfectly, tipped an already teetering system over the edge.
The first strike was 4.45am on Tuesday, between Lindfield and Gordon on the T1 North Shore Line. It turned the signals red and halted seven trains that were moving into position for the peak-hour commuter rush.
The second strike at 8.10am damaged circuit equipment at Penrith, prompting half-hour delays to four trains on the T1 Western Line.
The third strike, shortly afterwards, hit the Sefton Park railway junction, knocking out power around Yagoona. It caused delays of as much as an hour for 13 trains and forced the cancellation of five other services.
Throughout the day engineers were sent across the rail network to manually reset signalling equipment.
“As we fixed those things and started to recover — with perhaps less than an ideal number of drivers available to jump on trains where other people were late — we just had difficulty getting the service ready for the afternoon,” Sydney Trains chief Howard Collins said.
Mother nature hit again at 4pm, this time on the Illawarra line, sparking flooding and circuit damage.
It all added up to thousands of passengers stranded at Wynyard, Town Hall and Gordon.
The problem was exacerbated by a variety of supplementary reasons, including many people returning to work that week.
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Wynyard is particularly vulnerable to crowds since the northern beaches buses run out of there, instead of Central.
Unleaded petrol prices are also high, averaging $1.40 a litre, with premium petrol at least $1.55, motivating people to catch the train instead — especially after family budgets took a beating over Christmas.
As well, widespread planned trackwork meant everyone catching trains on those lines had to do so in the narrow “peak hour” window, rather than patronage being staggered before and after the rush period.
According to Sydney Trains, there were less drivers available because 73 were off sick on Tuesday, 11 more than the same time last year and 33 more than Sydney Trains had expected.
The challenging new timetable left the system unable to catch up on itself.
This new train timetable, introduced on November 26, increased services by 13 per cent, Mr Collins claimed.
But it also meant the window for carrying out repairs to trains or tracks when something went wrong narrowed.
The Rail, Tram and Bus Union, who had already voiced concern about the new timetable’s ability to bounce back from an incident, scoffed at any suggestion the driver shortage was linked to industrial action.
It also disputed the sick leave figures, instead claiming only an extra 10 drivers were off sick.
“There were 50 drivers who called in sick, only an extra 10 more than usual,” RTBU NSW Secretary Alex Claassens said.
Elizabeth Maxwell, 22, was making the hour-long journey home to Camden from her work in Chatswood on Tuesday evening.
But train delays, jam packed stations and extra stops meant the commute took two and a half hours.
“The train timetable has been good so far but the last month, it has been chaotic,” she said.
“It doesn’t seem very consistent, even trains towards Glenfield, they will get cancelled or delayed and I can miss my connecting train.”
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Michael Burgess, 49, squeezed onto a packed carriage at St James, after two scheduled trains never showed, just before 5pm.
He said people were so crammed together it become an occupational health and safety issue.
“I have travelled on trains a lot here and around the world and Sydney Trains generally they provide a very good service.
“It is these exceptional events where things just happen, in their control or out of their control, that makes it very difficult.”
Sydney Trains said it started recruiting more drivers, who are required to undergo 12 months of training, last year, knowing it needed 100 additional drivers to run the new timetable.
Mr Collins said he warned the government “things would be tight” with the new schedule but agreed the network would be ready for it in November.
More services were cancelled or delayed on Wednesday, with rail bosses attributing the third consecutive day of woes to a broken air pipe on the T8 Airport Line.