V/Line resumes services after commuters left stranded for second consecutive morning peak

V/Line trains are gradually returning to the platforms of Southern Cross Station after a second consecutive morning with services cancelled statewide because of the Telstra outage.

The outage began at 4.30am on Wednesday, and while Telstra had restored most phone call capabilities by later that morning, V/Line trains were left at a standstill for almost 32 hours.

At 11.30am on Thursday, V/Line said in a statement it would “gradually resume services from midday after extensive testing of train radio communications following the Telstra outage”.

“The Australian Rail Track Corporation has this morning advised V/Line and other national rail operators using the National Train Communications System (NTCS) that following testing it is safe to begin operating trains.”

V/Line then conducted its own tests to ensure the systems were stable and said it was aiming to restore train services in time for the afternoon commuter peak.

“However, passengers are advised some service delays may still be experienced as the network returns to its normal timetable,” the statement said.

Earlier on Thursday, V/Line chief executive Will Tieppo explained the fault was caused by Telstra’s 4G network interfering with the back-up satellite phones used by each train. V/Line accesses the national train communications system managed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), which said the issue affected the system nationwide.

For many commuters, the last day has been one of deep frustration, lost time and constantly changing travel plans. Keith Benning, of Broadford north of Melbourne, is returning with his wife after three days catching a theatre show and Melbourne Museum.

“Because Metro was running, we were going to go to Craigieburn, then get friends to come down and pick us up,” he said.

“That was our back-up plan if we couldn’t get a bus.”

A limited replacement bus service was operating from Spencer Street for the duration of the V/Line outage, but this proved insufficient for the level of demand on Wednesday night, with commuters eventually told to make their own way home.

Benning and others were caught by surprise to hear that trains were suddenly back.

“We arrived here at 11.30 this morning, and as far as we were aware, it’d still be buses all day. We went to the inquiry section for V/Line, and they said there won’t be any trains running today,” he said.

“When people started getting off another bus, I walked up to the driver and said, ‘What’s happening, mate?’ and he said, “Oh, the trains are running now’.”

Andrea Bowman of Wangaratta got on a bus to Seymour on Thursday morning. By then, the round trip with her friend and their four teen boys that would normally cost $11 each had spiralled into $600 in accommodation and toiletry expenses.

“I’ll be driving my car to Melbourne from now on,” she said.

Bowman said she would have to miss a day of work in Wangaratta. She was among hundreds of people who tried to get home on Wednesday night, but quickly decided to book a hotel room once she saw the mass of angry travellers at the bus terminal.

“The staff have been quite helpful this morning, I can imagine they would’ve copped a lot of abuse last night,” she said.

Tieppo defended V/Line’s management of the outage, which left 1700 people at Southern Cross Wednesday night waiting for up to two hours for scarce replacement buses.

“A disruption of this scale has been unprecedented for us,” he said. “Organising a bus replacement program for a whole network that normally runs thousands of people a day normally takes months to plan.”

V/Line had 140 replacement buses on Wednesday. On Thursday, there were 100 replacement buses operating, with one bus running hourly on each route.

V/Line has since announced that customers who were delayed by at least 60 minutes can apply for compensation.

V/Line is a regional rail line but also serves some outer Melbourne suburbs, including the western growth areas such as Melton and Wyndham Vale.

City of Melton mayor Lara Carli said the outage illustrated the need to finally extend the Metro network by electrifying the Melton line.

“When a single outage can bring services to a standstill and leave commuters stranded on
platforms in the middle of winter with no other options to get to work, it highlights the urgent need for a more reliable and resilient public transport network,” she said.

The Telstra outage was attributed to a software issue that sent the network’s timekeeping systems back almost 20 years, to 2006.

Modern mobile networks rely on precise timing to authenticate devices, and the incorrect date caused parts of the network to reject customers’ phones.

The outage, which began early on Wednesday morning, also caused more than 300 Triple-Zero calls to fail. Six people told Telstra they needed help after the telco and police carried out about 300 welfare checks.

It also affected interstate train services, elevators at a major Victorian university and the pagers of emergency services.

Late on Wednesday night, Telstra confirmed it was urgently investigating a second network fault that was stopping some calls from connecting, including to Triple Zero, hours after the telco said it had resolved the first outage.

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