Sydney train delays as it happened: Service disruptions continue for afternoon commute after live wire falls on train at Strathfield

Sydney suffered through another day of hellish delays, hours spent queueing in the rain, and confusion as to when services would arrive.

This is where we’re leaving our live coverage today, more than 24 hours after a power outage sent the network into meltdown.

Here’s what happened today:

• Early Wednesday morning train crews finished repairing the fault which caused power outages and crippled the network.
• The morning commute was just as difficult as Tuesday evening, with trains not running to schedule, massive delays and no clear information on trip planning apps.
• Commuters at Lidcombe were forced to wait hours for buses to the city. Many people missed appointments or were late to work or school.
• Premier Chris Minns asked workers to leave the city early to avoid crowds.
• Train and metro passengers will be offered a fare-free day on Monday.
• Services are expected to return to normal on Monday.

This time-lapse may shed some light on why Sydney’s trains are so delayed this evening.

This Macarthur service took nine minutes to depart from Central.

Passengers struggled to get off the train, squeezing past commuters desperate to board the train lest they be left to wait for the next service.

Then it took around six minutes to get the huge crowd on platform 23 onto the train, which filled to capacity.

Not exactly a relaxing trip home for these commuters.

The afternoon peak is in full swing. It’s been more than 24 hours since the incident that brought the network into chaos, and commuters are still facing delays across the city.

We want to hear from you – if you’re caught up in the chaos, let us know.

Here’s everything you need to know this evening:

• Trains are running on all suburban train lines, but some have significant delays.
• At Central station, queues for trains on the airport line are snaking through the station.
• T1 Richmond passengers need to change at Blacktown for services to and from the city. T2 Leppington and T3 Liverpool and Inner West passengers need to change at Lidcombe to continue their journey.
• Premier Chris Minns had earlier asked office workers to leave the city early, if they could, to avoid the worst of the crowds.
• Normal services aren’t expected to resume until tomorrow.
• The chaos was caused by a broken overhead live wire, which landed on the roof of a train in Sydney’s west yesterday trapping passengers inside. That train was removed this morning.
• The state government will provide a fare-free day for Sydney Trains and Metro commuters on Monday.

Multiple queues have formed at several entrances to platforms 22 and 23 at Central station.

A line of more than 100 commuters snaked around one part of Central as they waited to gain access to the platform, which had been shut off by station staff due to the large crowds.

More than 100 commuters at Central station formed a long line to platform 23.Credit: Oscar Colman

One woman rebuked other commuters for trying to cut the queue.

The line for another entrance is snaked around the corner as commuters wait for the packed platform to empty into a train bound for Macarthur before they can climb the escalators.

The platform quickly fills up again, and another line duly forms at the bottom, stretching around the corner faster than before as the peak hour crowds hit their stride.

Just after 6pm it appeared the worst of the peak was over. However station boards still had no times on them with staff continuing to make announcements.

One of Sydney’s busiest train stations, Town Hall, was not crammed on Wednesday afternoon at peak hour – but commuters headed for Sydney’s west were told to ignore times on boards as they faced longer than normal waits.

Among those waiting for the train was Marilyn Balois from Blacktown whose inbound trip to the city took more than two hours this morning.

When a train arrived to take her to the city it was packed and she could not get on board.

“The whole of Blacktown was trying to get in there,” she said.

She waited for another service but said there were conflicting messages about where it was going from station staff, and confused commuters did not know if they should get on.

“Everyone started standing in the middle of the doors,” she said.

“It was very, very confusing because there’s a train over here, and it looked like a cargo train. And I was like, Oh, should I run over there? And then everyone was just standing in the train doors to keep them open [while they tried] to listen to the loudspeaker.”

If you don’t know where your train is, be kind to station staff: sometimes they don’t know where it is either.

With passenger information screens blacked out for 24 hours now, Parramatta train station staff have been looking at phone apps and referring to scribbled notes on paper to identify where trains are and at what platforms they’ll arrive.

Commuters at Ashfield on Wednesday. Credit: Steven Siewert

It’s complicated, but it comes down to how the trains are labelled within Transport for NSW’s system. During emergency periods trains change their identification numbers, meaning they’re not scheduled in the daily operating timetable.

That’s the situation we’re in now with shuttle train services on several lines.

It means station staff encounter difficulties finding these altered numbers in their systems. But when they know, they’ll inform you via speakers. Keep an ear out.

Platforms are starting to fill up at Central station now.

It takes almost six minutes for an airport-bound train to leave Central’s platform 23 just after 4pm.

Commuters crowd on to platforms at Central Station on Wednesday afternoon. Credit: Kate Aubusson

Disembarking passengers squeeze through the crowd of hundreds waiting to board the train. The dozens who can’t fit into the packed carriages are left waiting for the next train.

They’ve got no idea when it will arrive. The platform’s display doesn’t hazard a guess.

Station staff are ushering passengers bound for platforms 22 and 23 to a stagnant line behind a cordoned-off area against the wall so other commuters can hurry past to their own destinations.

It doesn’t take long for the platforms to fill up between trains on the T8 line to MacArthur.

The novelty of the crowd hasn’t worn off yet, with plenty of commuters snapping photos and making quips: “My train’s running 790 minutes late. See you for dinner Saturday week, love,” a public servant by the name of Steve texts his partner.

An Uber driver who spoke on condition of anonymity said drivers were furious at the company for agreeing not to surge prices yesterday afternoon during the train havoc.

“We’re contractors, sole operators until it comes to things like this surge pricing freeze and Uber makes a deal with Sydney trains. What, on our behalf?” the driver said.

“Drivers then just avoid any of those busy periods, so it doubles down on the problem of people getting home.

“If you’re not getting the reward for it, you’re not going to sit in half an hour traffic to do a $6 job.”

It’s past the end of the school day now and the afternoon peak is here, so let’s check in on how the network is holding up.

All suburban train lines are running, but services are significantly reduced – only the T4 Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra Line is running to a normal timetable.

There are waiting times of about 20 to 30 minutes between services across the city.

The Blue Mountains, South Coast and Newcastle lines are running on time. Metro services will run every four minutes until the end of peak today.

T1 Richmond passengers need to change at Blacktown for services to and from the city. T2 Leppington and T3 Liverpool & Inner West passengers need to change at Lidcombe to continue their journey.

There are limited bus services to supplement the delayed trains at Hornsby, Penrith and Campbelltown, and between Tallawong Metro and Schofields.

NextThere data shows Sydney’s train chaos on Wednesday afternoon. Credit: NextThere

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman says commuters want trains to arrive as scheduled rather than apologies and “another inquiry”, saying a fare-free day won’t compensate for the time and expense lost during the “extraordinary inconvenience”.

Speakman accused the government of being “big on excuses ... but short on action”, highlighting what he called the “massacring” of transport infrastructure spending.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“Commuters in Sydney want trains that turn up. They don’t want apologies. They don’t want more inquiries. [Premier] Chris Minns’ answer to everything is to have another inquiry. We’ve lost count of the number of inquiries this government has had,” he said.

“If Chris Minns is genuine about fixing the transport system, he needs to look at his budget mismanagement, which is slashing spending on the infrastructure. You need to make sure you have a modern fleet and modern tracks,” Speakman said.

Speakman said a fare-free day would not address the “extraordinary inconvenience and often expense” commuters faced when the rail network was crippled by outages.