Source : Perth Now news
Regional trains have been cancelled for a second day after Telstra’s outage halted the service indefinitely, leaving commuters in the lurch.
Commuters vented their frustration as they waited for replacement coaches at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station on Thursday morning.
The outage began at 4.30am on Wednesday, but despite Telstra restoring phone calls by Wednesday night, Victoria’s regional railway is still offline and it’s unknown when it will be back up and running.
V/Line chief executive Will Tieppo said work had been done overnight to repair connectivity between train radio systems and the control centre.
“We are now in the process of undertaking testing for each of the train units that we’ve got here in Melbourne,” Mr Tieppo told reporters at Southern Cross Station on Thursday.
He said he hoped to have services back up by Thursday’s afternoon peak, but made no promises after his earlier ambitions for a Wednesday afternoon return fell through.
Some commuters were forced to spend the night in city hotels because V/Line did not have enough buses to replace more than 300 cancelled services.
On Thursday, platforms at the train station were largely free from traffic, while commuters filtered into the bus terminal for a limited number of replacement services.
V/Line staff were out in force, distributing snacks to families, couples and returning holiday-makers as service announcements played overhead.
Elderly woman Pam Promnicz was having a hard time getting back to Warrnambool, concerned she had too many bags for the coach.
“I’d much prefer to be on the train,” she told AAP.
She claimed her V/Line service leaving Warrnambool before the Telstra outage had also been disrupted, though for different reasons.
“That’s Victoria for you,” she said.
Brian Rigby, who happens to be a network engineer, said the disruptions could have been avoided if the V/Line was not so dependent on the Telstra network.
“When Telstra has an outage, they’re big ones,” he said.
“It makes you wonder what happens if next time they go down and stay down.”
He said Thursday’s cancellations added two train legs to his trip from the Pilbara to Traralgon.
“I’ve already been travelling for 15 hours, so this just makes it that little bit longer,” he said.
“We’re used to it, really.”
Melbourne father Michael said he’d buy a car if he lived regionally given the unreliability of the V/Line.
“It’s just so unreliable that, if you can afford it, you’d be better off driving,” he said.
“The amount of headaches you hear about, it’s just never ending.”
On Thursday, Communications Minister Annika Wells said the telecommunications regulator ACMA had begun preliminary investigations into the outage, which affected transport, businesses, emergency services and healthcare.
Last year, Ms Wells increased penalties for telcos that fall foul of their triple zero obligations to $30 million.
