Services will resume for more than 100,000 passengers on two busy Melbourne train lines on Monday without a public explanation from rail authorities as to what caused a carriage to derail near Clifton Hill station last week.
A Metro Trains spokeswoman confirmed full services would resume on the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines from first service on Monday morning. Some services resumed on Sunday night with warnings that buses would still supplement some trains while the timetable was being restored.
The train carriage is removed from the tracks after derailing in Clifton Hill.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
But neither the Department of Transport nor Metro Trains answered The Age’s questions about whether passengers had been offered an explanation for the derailment.
The Transport Department said the track was safe and had received certification from Metro.
“Safety is our number one priority and we have worked closely with Metro Trains to ensure services can run safely as soon as possible,” a department spokesperson said.
“150 sleepers have been replaced and a number of test trains have run so that the lines are ready to safely take passengers.”
A photo shows the bogie twisted out from underneath the carriage. Credit: Patrick Hatch
An investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Victoria’s Office of the Chief Investigator is under way. On Sunday, an ATSB spokesperson said the organisation was “not expecting to give any substantive updates until the publication of a preliminary report in about two months”.
Metro Trains said Mernda and Hurstbridge services had resumed but buses would continue to replace trains between Heidelberg and Eltham until Thursday.
“I want to reassure passengers that every possible precaution has been taken to ensure the safe return of services on these lines, which are two of our busiest,” CEO Raymond O’Flaherty said.
The disruption to the lines occurred when a carriage on a city-bound X’Trapolis 100 train came off the tracks between Rushall and Clifton Hill stations about 10.30pm last Sunday, bringing rail services on the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines to a halt. The carriage hit trackside pillars and damaged about 100 metres of track. No one was injured.
The ATSB said last week that the train had hit multiple stanchions (support structures carrying overhead wires), rather than a single stanchion as had been previously believed – resulting in “substantial damage to the overhead infrastructure”.
Damage to the undercarriage and a wheel meant the affected carriage had to be removed by crane on Tuesday afternoon.
Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said while last Sunday’s incident appeared to be a “freak accident”, it was vital that a detailed investigation took place.
“They do need to thoroughly investigate and identify what has caused it because, obviously, it may mean there are infrastructure or procedural changes that should come in to prevent something like this happening again,” he said.
Metro chief executive Raymond O’Flaherty said last week that passengers would be entitled to compensation if the line suspensions pushed Metro below its monthly reliability targets, which are calculated on a network-wide basis. He also apologised to affected passengers.
Bowen said the usual compensation scheme was narrow so Metro should make special arrangements for compensation in this case because of the scale of the disruption for people who ended up on replacement buses.
“There would be a lot of people who have suffered delays through the week. Even though compensation is likely to be a token amount, I think they deserve something,” he said.
With Patrick Hatch and Roy Ward
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