Wheel issue, heat delays regional commuters on V/Line trains
REGIONAL rail commuters are expected to be compensated after enduring a horror start to 2016 with V/Line forced to remove almost a quarter of its fleet of carriages from service.
REGIONAL rail commuters are expected to be compensated after enduring a horror start to 2016 with V/Line forced to remove almost a quarter of its fleet of carriages from service due to rapid wheel wear.
Commuters on the Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Gippsland and Seymour lines have faced cancellations and reduced services since last week with no end in sight, as investigations into the cause of the problem continue.
Travellers on all five lines also faced longer travel times from noon to 8pm yesterday due to heat restrictions.
Acting Premier James Merlino said disruptions to services were unacceptable and a range of options were being considered to payback passengers.
“We have instructed V/Line to come up with compensation for regional customers,” he said.
“Today should be the worst of it. It should improve.
“This is not good enough we expect better.
“It may be free travel for a period it may be other forms of compensation.”
V/Line admitted it had known of the wheel wear problem, which led it to cancel scores of services and run replacement buses, since before Christmas.
An inner part of the wheel, the flange, is wearing away rapidly, creating a risk of a derailment if left unrepaired.
More than 200 coaches were used to ferry rural commuters to and from the city yesterday.
Most trains on the Gippsland line were replaced by coaches.
Eleven of V/Line’s 59 VLocity carriages are in the normal maintenance cycle on any given day, so it has been forced to run fewer carriages so as to run as many services as possible, resulting in overcrowding.
Insiders have identified the source of the wheel wear as the very tight radius curvature of the upgraded North Melbourne flyover, a claim V/Line would not confirm.
To add to V/Line’s woes, a potentially fatal incident on Friday saw a train cross Progress St, Dandenong South, without triggering boom gates.
That prompted Metro to block all VLocity trains from the shared metropolitan network at the weekend. V/Line’s older Sprinter and locomotive-hauled trains were exempted.
Mr Merlino said tests were being done on the Dandenong line, and delays would continue.
“There is no doubt this is frustrating for commuters,” Mr Merlino said.
“Safety is paramount, so we need to do all the testing to isolate exactly what happened at that boom gate.
“The vast majority of regional services are operating as normal.”
“Metro is operating as normal but I expect V/Line and other operations to fix this problem as soon as possible.”
Opposition public transport spokesman David Hodgett said rural rail passengers, who make 15 million trips a year, were facing the worst disruption since the 1970s.
“(Public Transport Minister) Jacinta Allan should inform Victorians when the level crossing safety and V/Line VLocity train wheel wear problems will be fixed,” he said.
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