Sydney Trains CEO says Edgecliff derailment not the fault of trainee driver

THE chief executive of Sydney Trains has said yesterday's train derailment at Edgecliff was not the fault of the driver, despite the fact he was a trainee.

THE chief executive of Sydney Trains has said yesterday's train derailment at Edgecliff was not the fault of the driver, despite the fact he was a trainee.

Howard Collins said it was irrelevant to the cause of the peak hour accident.

"As an ex-driver I'm sure it made no difference whatsoever,'' he said.

The 440-tonne train derailed about 5.20pm yesterday afternoon, about 300m after it left Edgecliff station bound for Cronulla.

Workers inspect the derailed train.

Mr Collins said the train would have been accelerating about 20-25km/h when it made contact with the piece of metal that pierced and came through the floor of the third carriage.

The metal is located on the tracks and protects the concrete between the two rails.

Mr Collins said at some stage it had been picked up by the train, taking about 150m for it to pierce and derail the train.

The piece of metal that came through the train that derailed at Edgecliff.

"It fed itself through the floor as the train was going but it was fairly shocking for people,'' he said.

"We were very fortunate that it didn't come into contact with a customer."

Mr Collins said the driver stopped the train because it was "sluggish".

"He had no idea in the cabin that there was anything wrong with the train,'' he said.

A staff member at Edgecliff reported "smoke and some sparking" as the train left the station, but Mr Collins said there was nothing wrong with the train when it left Bondi Junction.

Federal and state investigations are underway, with initial findings expected by the end of this week.

Mr Collins said there was nothing to indicate the eastern suburbs train line was faulty or had been tampered with.

The focus of the investigation is the Tangarra train.

The train derailment meant hundreds of people were stranded and forced to catch replacement buses.

"I give you the assurance, when we know we will let people know and if there's anything we can do to rectify the situation we will,'' Mr Collins said.

"This is a pretty thorough investigation."

Commuters said yesterday they thought a bomb was exploding in the carriage.

Mr Collins said while he didn't have exact figures, there were about 50-60 people in the cabin at the time and 700 on the entire train.