Article: Broken bolt halts Queensland Rail services

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Broken bolt halts Queensland Rail services

Broken bolt halts Queensland Rail services
Article from: The Courier-Mail

By Robyn Ironside

May 16, 2009 12:00am

ALMOST a third of Brisbane's Citytrain services were delayed or cancelled yesterday because of a single broken bolt on a railway track.

Queensland Rail confirmed 70 of its 220 services were affected by the "track fault" in the tunnel between Roma Street and South Brisbane stations, including about 10 that were cancelled, between 6am and 10am.

Commuters had up to an hour added to their trips as crews worked to fix the bolt, which had locked part of the track into the wrong position.

QR Network general manager Robert Moffat said the problem was picked up by their automated monitoring system and electricians were sent to investigate.

"Our electricians had to enter the tunnel to find and fix the bolt but in order to do so we had to stop the trains in the area," Mr Moffat said. "It would have been unsafe to expect staff to work in a tunnel with live powerlines and moving trains."

He apologised for the inconvenience and assured commuters the work was carried out as quickly as possible.

"We have a comprehensive proactive maintenance program, unfortunately some of these events are simply unforeseeable."

But Bruce Mackie from the Rail, Tram and Bus Union said the "integrity of train tracks" was being compromised by a shortage of track maintenance staff.

"We have a campaign to increase track maintenance staff to ensure small items like this aren't missed," said Mr Mackie.

Robert Dow from commuter advocacy group Back on Track said Brisbane's rail system had become unreliable.

"Every day we have between 8 and 15 per cent of trains running late, cancelled or not turning up," Mr Dow said.

Some of those caught up in yesterday's delays vented their anger on www.couriermail.com.au - which carried reports of the track fault before Translink's own website.

[stephenk]

QR's customer service showed little signs of improvement during yesterdays problems.

As I was waiting for the 07:19 from Enoggera (07:06 ex-Ferny Grove "sardine" express), which was 4 mins late, I noticed the train which forms the 07:21 from Enoggera (07:17 ex-Mitchelton all stations) running 12 mins late and still heading towards Mitchelton. Any announcements about that service running late in either direction? No. Any CityTrain SMS messages? No.

Anyway, I board the 07:19, which then made an unexpected stop at Alderley. Maybe due to the lateness of the following all stations train, QR have decided to run the express all stations (not that there was much room for extra passengers)? No, instead the express sat at Alderley with doors locked for 2 minutes whilst the driver and guard has a discussion about what they were doing. The train then headed off without taking on passengers. If I had been a passenger on the platform at Alderley I would have been fuming!!! Passengers from Alderley-Windsor would have experienced a 30min+ gap in service - another reason why QR need to sort out that 21-23min timetabled gap in the am peak.

After arriving at work around 07:50 I hopped onto the internet to see if there was any mention of the delays. QR's website only mentioned delays on the Ipswich/Rosewood Line. This was obviously not the case.

[O_128]

QR just has no idea the guard on the 7:13 from manly [left at 7:17] gave no indication of delays and we had to listen to station staff at each station. The staff at manly handled it very well advising all passengers to board the 7:17 doomben due to delays.

[mufreight]

QR Network states that the fault was in the tunnel between Roma Street and South Brisbane so it should have had no effect on the operation of Ipswich Line trains which operate through to Caboolture. Beenleigh and Gold Coast services could have been operated via Tennyson and Corinda (reversing at Corinda) then operating express between Corinda and Roma Street using the main lines. which would have minimised delays.
Unfortunately QR Network not only is seemingly incapable of maintaining their infrastructure they are also incapable of initiative outside of the square to minimise delays when infrastructure failures occour.
Time to give QR Passenger ownership of and responsibility for the commuter network.  The management team at QR Passenger is motivated, proactive and inovative and any change could not make matters worse.