Gold Coast travellers caught up in rain chaos miss their Brisbane airport flights

GOLD Coast residents missed catching flights at Brisbane airport yesterday after the direct service on the Brisbane Line was cancelled during a morning of chaos.

Packed trains on Ferny Grove & Beenleigh lines. Pic RACQ/ Twitter

GOLD Coast residents missed flights at Brisbane airport yesterday after the direct service on the Brisbane train line was cancelled during a morning of chaos.

The 11.10am Varsity Lakes to Domestic Airport service was canned, as was an earlier train bringing tourists back to the Coast.

Queensland Rail apologised to regular Coast passengers on its Facebook page after some commuters experienced three days of delays as they travelled to Brisbane for work.

After commuters complained about waiting for up to an hour on services through to the early afternoon, Transport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe announced their tickets would be refunded.

A Coast commuter wrote on Facebook: “What a total joke. Going to be really late for the third day at a new job.”

A QR spokesman responded by explaining the initial delays at Beenleigh had been caused by a train blocking the path of others which had to be towed away to Kuraby.

“Inbound services will now be able to proceed,” the spokesman said. “Unfortunately there are major residual delays,” .

“I can’t emphasise enough how sorry we are for the disruption this morning and particularly about the lack of information made available for you on the train.”

By early afternoon more Brisbane services were being cancelled and Coast passengers still had to wait more than 30 minutes for their train.

Commuters on the QR visitor page demanded Mr Hinchliffe explain the chaos which spread throughout the Brisbane network impacting on the Cleveland and Ferny Grove lines.

Coomera MP Michael Crandon told the Bulletin: “The Premier needs to show Stirling Hinchliffe the door. There is no doubt people have missed flights. It’s just crazy.

“You can’t afford to do that to people. You catch the train for one reason. It can be a traffic nightmare if there’s an accident on the Gateway Arterial Road. You cannot take the risk.

“You used to have the certainty on the train of getting to the airport on time. Now that has gone out of the window.”

Opposition leader Tim Nicholls said it was obvious QR and the Mr Hinchliffe were focused on fixing the shortfall in driver numbers.

“Now they’re taken their eye off the ball. Track maintenance is the problem apparently. They’re not telling the community about it,” Mr Nicholls said.

After a briefing from QR executives, Mr Hinchliffe announced customers who were delayed on the rail network between the first service and midday would receive a refund.

“There have been significant delays and crowded trains across the network particularly during this morning’s busy peak,” he said.

“It is unacceptable and we know the impact this has on passengers trying to get to work, classes and family commitments.

“Passengers are understandably angry about the delays and are demanding answers to what went wrong.

“The refunds will take some time to process through our ticketing system — possibly several weeks, but some go card users will start to see refunds from Saturday.”