Sydney trains network’s old technology causing delays, rain chaos

Sydney has been plagued with network shutdowns and long delays in recent weeks. New documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph explain why.

Sydney’s train network is riddled with 40-year-old technology which is contributing to rail chaos hitting commuters in recent weeks, documents obtained exclusively by The Telegraph show.

Briefing notes prepared by Transport NSW staff detail what went wrong when vast sections of Sydney’s rail network were shut down on Saturday, March 25, the same day as the state election.

A summary of the events of that day show that a 1980s-era power supply unit powering signals on train lines failed, but its failure didn’t immediately trigger an alarm.

It’s understood crews had to travel to the Homebush Relay Room to manually diagnose and remedy the problem, with the briefing note saying the outage lasted for more than three hours.

Electrical Trades Union NSW secretary Allen Hicks said the issues pointed to a “deep backlog of work” that needs to undertaken to modernise the system.

Commuters wait outside Central Station on March 8 after a communication issue saw the entire train network shut down. Picture: Roni Bintang

“There is no question the Coalition badly neglected rail maintenance for more than a decade,” he said.

“There is now a deep backlog of work that needs to be done, but we are confident that the new Minister is alive to these problems and has indicated a real willingness to tackle them.”

Newly-minted Transport Minister Jo Haylen has vowed to tackle the issue of outdated trains technology. Picture: Dylan Coker

Incoming Transport Minister Jo Haylen last week announced a major independent investigation into Sydney’s heavy rail network, saying old technology was one of the issues she wanted to address.

“I said last week that I was concerned about a number of issues facing our rail network. This is certainly one of them,” she said.

“I‘m determined to get a train system that NSW deserves – one that works, that runs on time and it means people can get about their daily lives.”

Professor David Levinson, a transport network expert at the University of Sydney’s school of engineering, said the faults presented a challenge the new NSW Government has to tackle.

Signage relating to the chaos on Sydney Trains network last weekend. Pics by Julian Andrews

“The recent failures indicate problems with aged equipment and maintenance procedures that the new government will have to address,” he said.

“These train closures bring to the surface the importance of modernising the aged invisible infrastructure that has been failing recently.”

The March 25 shutdown left thousands stranded across Sydney with services cancelled or delayed for hours on popular rail routes including the western line, inner west and Leppington line, and airport lines.

It was the second major outage to hit the network that month, after chaos hit on March 8 when the entire rail system was shut down after communications failed.

A Sydney Trains spokeswoman said work was underway to improve “our signalling system reliability, which has shown a marked improvement since 2018”.

A review of all signalling locations with similar configurations to Homebush has been completed and upgrades are underway, she added.

Sydney Trains has also “prioritised” new investment in remote monitoring for signalling from the Rail Operations Centre, which will allow 24/7 monitoring of the power supplies.

Originally published as Sydney trains network’s old technology causing delays, rain chaos