Article: Connex cancellations continue for second week

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Connex cancellations continue for second week

Connex cancellations continue for second week
Article from: Herald Sun

Kate Rose, Aaron Langmaid

December 15, 2008 07:36am

UPDATED 9.03am: COMMUTER woes are continuing into a second week with widespread train cancellations across the network.
Connex said the weather contributed to the problems, with the rain exposing leaking windscreens and windows. 

A Connex spokeswoman said some 20 trains had already been cancelled, with the Pakenham and Cranbourne-Pakenham lines hardest hit.

The 20 services had been cancelled before 7.30am, forcing disgruntled passengers to cram onto later trains.

"There have been 20-city bound cancellations across all lines,'' Connex spokeswoman Lanie Harris said. "It's been a widespread problem due to the higher than normal number of train faults and backlog of maintenance issues from last week.''

Four Cranbourne-Pakenham trains will not be running, and three Pakenham trains have been cancelled.

Another four trains have been cancelled since 8.18am.

Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder said the twenty cancellations affected about 1000 people each, meaning 20,000 Melburnians had suffered disruptions.

The rail problems follow last week's nightmare run for Connex, which saw network wide cancellations over four days.

Spokesman John Rees attributed the cancellations last week to a "higher than usual number of reported faults."