Melbourne Trains

[ozbob]

Melbourne Age --> Why Melbourne's train network melted down yet again

The train meltdown could not have come at a worse time - both for passengers, because  it happened on the cusp of peak hour, and for Metro, because the Andrews government is believed to be on the verge of announcing it will hand Metro a seven-year contract extension.

For political reasons, it might be less likely to come out and announce this so soon after the system has let commuters down so badly.

Metro's automatic train control centre failed at 4pm, leaving the operator scrambling and at a loss to identify what caused the system failure.

With the system down, train controllers were staring at blank screens and literally did not know where in the network Melbourne's trains were, so all trains were brought to a halt for safety's sake.

Trains pulled up, either at platforms or in between stations, and sat there while staff in Metro's nerve centre raced to identify the problem and get the system back online.

It took well over an hour, leaving tens of thousands of commuters stranded on their way home from work.

Some trains were stuck in the City Loop while the system was down.

The system that failed is called TCMS and it cost $88 million to get up and running.

It was years in the making - first proposed as far back as 1999 and only switched on some 15 years later, in 2014, after interminable delays.

It was meant to improve the reliability of Melbourne's public transport system. 

It's fair to say it mostly has until today, exposing yet again the fragility of Melbourne's 869-kilometre metropolitan rail network, where one problem in one room can spread  to virtually every corner of the city.

One computer failure shouldn't shut down a city's rail system.

On Thursday evening, Metro still could not identify the cause of the problem.

There will be justifiable anger from commuters caught up in this mess, with fingers mostly pointed at Metro.

But it is government that is responsible for investing in public transport, while Metro is paid to run the system and sometimes act as a convenient shield at times like this.

Connex was thrown out of town because there were too many failures like this.

It's hard to imagine Metro being shown the door in the same fashion - who would the government turn to?

But the latest meltdown is more proof that Melbourne still has a long way to go to reach the kind of "world-class, turn up and go" system that is preached about.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/andrew_lund/status/885749321013919745

[ozbob]

City Metric --> How did a single computer failure take out the whole of the Melbourne rail network?

If you don't live in Australia, then your only experience of Metro Trains Melbourne is probably the ghoulishly jolly Dumb Ways To Die animated clip that went viral in 2012. But, as the clip loosely implies, the group operates one of the southern hemisphere's largest metro rail networks.

Or, if you were trying to travel Down Under this Thursday, it turned out that they didn't. A reported computer failure first led to massive delays on the whole system, and eventually to the entire central part of the city's network being brought to a total halt for several hours.

With thousands of commuters stuck in trains, drivers and guards pleaded with passengers not to force the train doors and escape into the danger of the tunnels (possibly via jolly songs). A desperate Twitter user held a poll on whether he should answer a call of nature through the emergency door; naturally Australia backed him with an 84 per cent Yes vote.

Train failures happen everywhere: signal failures, track failures, accidents, and incidents of all kinds are common annoyances for commuters. But the whole network collapsing due to a computer error seems a bit much: could they not just turn it off and start again...?

Basically, no.

The biggest problem here is that Melbourne has a single underground loop line that links all its suburban tracks together. It's a bit like London Underground's Circle/District/Metropolitan/Hammersmith lines, with the crucial difference that almost all Melbourne's suburban trains go at least partially round the loop – there's no other route through the city. Even the city's two terminus stations, Southern Cross and Finders Street, form part of the city loop, and many terminating services share signalling systems with loop trains.

Like many rail systems, Melbourne's was randomly constructed by private companies out for a cheap buck, with no interest in interconnected metro or in buying up expensive city blocks to build through-lines. The city's flat, swampy land also put everyone off tunnelling.

A lot of mergers and some nationalisation later, the system found itself feeding into two main terminals, both overcrowded. By 1969, transport planners decided that this wouldn't do, and planned the City Loop.

Planners love joining up suburban lines with a tunnel through the city. You replace two busy, land-scarce, crowded terminals with through stations, serve major city destinations directly, and only have to turn trains around in the sticks. The RER in Paris, London's Thameslink and Crossrail, and Berlin's HBF all work on this principle.

But Melbourne's planners were... braver.

Remember, every train into Melbourne already went into either Southern Cross (then called Spencer Street) or Flinders Street. Building the loop wasn't like building Crossrail: it was like building a mash-up of Crossrail, Thameslink and the Overground to carry every single train that previously used to go into a London terminus.

The planners rose to the challenge: the number of tracks on the circle varies from two to six (originally planned as four to eight). But the net result was to create a complicated service with a lot of junctions and crossovers, which needs to carry lots of trains.

They had a clever solution to the complexity, too: they built one of the world's first computerised railways. The City Loop opened in 1980 with fully automated signalling, using a dedicated system called Metrol, which allowed faster, more reliable switching, signaller and passenger information. When it opened, this was a state of the art system.

The trouble is, almost 40 years and some privatisation later, franchise operator Metro Trains Melbourne and government infrastructure owner Public Transport Victoria are still using it.

The brains of the system have been moved from the original ancient PDP-11 mainframes to a network of PC servers, and some modern train control systems have been added; but it's still based around 40-year-old software, and the interface between the new computers and the tracks and signals still relies on 40-year-old interface boards. Metro Trains has to acquire replacements on the second-hand market as other companies retire their old servers.

Using old equipment isn't rare in transport. New York's still running on kit that was 40 years old when Metrol was installed, and the systems being removed in London are even older. Although the dreaded 'signal failure' is a common reason for scraping along at snail's pace, they don't halt the whole system.

But... well, have you tried watching an analogue versus a digital TV with a bad signal? Old-style train control systems are dumb, often fail, and are designed for the failures to be local and worked around. When newer-style train control systems fail, because the brains are centralised, so is the crash. More recent ones are designed to route around these problems, but Melbourne led the way and paid the price.

Worse still, in other major cities, if a signal failure takes out one line, then you've still got a bunch of other lines to use. The City Loop means you can't do that in Melbourne: if you lose signalling here, then every train line in the city is stuffed. Although the Metrol system only covers the City Loop and a few neighbouring inner suburban stations, you can't run trains in the suburbs if they're stuck on the wrong side of the city.

So what can Melbourne do? Replacing Metrol is often discussed, but would be painfully expensive, especially in terms of the disruption caused – and more recently, modern information systems have been built on top of it, which you'd have to fit in with the replacement.

The government are also starting work on a new tunnelled line through the CBD that's completely independent from the loop, which will help take some of the pressure off services – but even when it's done, most city lines will still be subject to the same problems.

If I were Public Transport Victoria or Metro Trains, as the old joke says, I wouldn't want to be starting from here.

[ozbob]

Melbourne Age --> Metro's $80m back-up system may have failed at moment Melbourne needed it

The $80 million back-up system for Melbourne's rail network may have triggered the glitch that brought down the city's  train system on Thursday, stranding or delaying an estimated 175,000 passengers.

Housed in the heritage-listed former cable tram engine house on Nicholson Street in Fitzroy, Metro's state-of-the-art Disaster Recovery Site contains hundreds of servers in a secure environment with uninterruptible power and is the last line of defence for Melbourne's rail commuters.

But it failed at the precise moment it was needed on Thursday, plunging the city into chaos on the cusp of the evening peak.

The commuter chaos was exacerbated by a trespasser who entered one of the City Loop tunnels at Melbourne Central station soon after trains had started to run again.

The Age understands Metro is investigating whether the disaster recovery site was itself the source of the system-wide failure.

Metro said on Friday evening that its engineers were still investigating the source of the malfunction.

"I am personally making sure we understand every detail of what happened last night [Thursday] and I'm sorry people were delayed," Metro chief executive Mike Houghton said.

"We were ready to activate our secondary control centre but the system issue was such that this wasn't an option."

The main system and the back-up system run on the same network but have been isolated since the glitch happened.

The back-up site can take over within seconds of being switched on, however it is not routinely staffed by train controllers and is located almost four kilometres from Metro's main control centre in Collins Street in the CBD.

Train controllers must travel to the disaster recovery site in the event of a system failure, potentially increasing the time it would take to recover operations.

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union criticised Metro's decision not to staff the centre with train controllers, arguing this was a cost-saving measure at passengers' expense.

"The fact that the DRS is not manned 24/7 by any train controllers proves that Metro is again trying to save dollars, rather than put the travelling public first," RTBU Victorian secretary Luba Grigorovitch said.

The passengers who suffered through the peak-hour rail meltdown will be automatically compensated the cost of a two-hour fare and will not have to fill in a form, Metro said.

Anyone who touched on between 3pm and 7pm will be reimbursed on their myki account, either $4.10 for full-fare passengers or $2.05 for concession travellers.

It will take Metro 30 days to process the repayments, the company said. About 175,000 passengers will receive the refund.

The system failure resulted in the cancellation of 224 services and caused delay to a further 378 trains.

Opposition public transport spokesman David Hodgett called on the Andrews government to ensure compensation was paid not just to train travellers, but to people who caught taxis and Ubers.

Uber's surge pricing mechanism kicked in during the meltdown, pushing up prices almost fourfold.

"We saw yesterday that Melbourne is becoming not the world's most liveable city but the world's most laughable city," Mr Hodgett said.

"A lot of people paid hundreds of dollars in taxi and Uber fares to get back home, to get to childcare centres, it's enormously frustrating for them."

Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan slammed Metro's performance following the network-wide outage as "completely unacceptable" and said the government would look at penalising the company over the meltdown.

"There are mechanisms under the current contract that allow PTV to put a penalty on the operator," Ms Allan told ABC Radio.

Metro received more than $10.6 million in quarterly performance bonuses in the 12 months to March, PTV data shows, but can also be penalised for poor performance.

Penalties are weighted towards services that attract high patronage, so a peak-hour disruption results in a bigger fine than an off-peak disruption.

Ms Allan has flagged tougher performance standards in the next phase of its franchise agreement with Melbourne's rail operator, once the current contract expires in November.

A decision on whether to extend Metro's contract, potentially for seven more years, is expected by the end of July.

[#Metro]

Interesting to compare two systems that recently had their entire network go down

- QR and the radio control tower fault that shut down the entire network at peak hour
- Metro and the (software?) fault that did the same thing

Only one gets a penalty...

Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan slammed Metro's performance following the network-wide outage as "completely unacceptable" and said the government would look at penalising the company over the meltdown.

"There are mechanisms under the current contract that allow PTV to put a penalty on the operator," Ms Allan told ABC Radio.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Nothing will happen. Just some politician trying to make the public look like they are doing something.

[#Metro]

Very difficult to pin one person as "the cause" in some circumstances. Fines handle that situation well.

[ozbob]

Herald Sun --> State Government tipped to offer Metro fresh contract to run rail network

METRO Trains looks set to be awarded another contract by the Andrews Government to run Melbourne's rail network, just days after Thursday's crippling peak hour shutdown.

Despite an unprecedented computer crash, which shut lines for more than an hour and stranded thousands a new deal is likely to be struck by the end of the month.

Sources told the Sunday Herald Sun it could mean Metro running the train network for the next decade.

Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said negotiations with both Metro Trains and Yarra Trams were ongoing. "Through these new contracts we will deliver services that put passengers first and penalise the operator when they do not deliver services Melburnians expect and deserve," she said.

Metro's present contract runs until November 29. Under the existing deal, the rail operator qualified for a "good faith" negotiation for a seven-year contract with an option for the government to extend it by three years.

Public Transport Users Association president Tony Morton said it would be "disappointing" if a contract were struck without taking the opportunity to improve system management.

Mr Morton said the train control room used at present went live in 2014 after a drawn-out process that lasted 15 years, spanned five ministers and three private operators.

"It's actually failed three times already due to false fire alarms — it's not in an isolated facility like comparable control rooms elsewhere — but this latest failure appears to have a different cause and more troublesome implications," Mr Morton said.

Rail Tram and Bus Union Victorian branch secretary Luba Grigorovitch said Victoria needed a rail system that put ticketholders before shareholders.

[ozbob]

9 News -->Derailed freight train causes Melbourne rail woes

Trains have been suspended on part of the Melbourne rail network, after a freight train derailed and blocked a highway in the city's north-east.

The train was carrying railway sleepers when it derailed in Lilydale about 2.30am today.

Replacement buses are in operation from Lilydale to Mooroolbark, Metro Trains advised.

"Trains continue to run Mooroolbark – Flinders Street with possible alterations," Metro Trains said.

The Maroondah Highway is also blocked.

Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/07/17/06/01/derailed-freight-train-causes-melbourne-rail-woes

[ozbob]

PTV --> More trains at peak times

From Sunday 27 August, we're updating train timetables on the Sunbury, Werribee, Craigieburn, Hurstbridge and Frankston lines.

We're also adding 10 new peak services each week on the Craigieburn, Sunbury and Werribee lines.

Passengers on the Altona loop will no longer need to change at Newport Station to reach the city during inter-peak periods as all trains will be extended to run direct to Flinders Street Station.

We're also extending 10 services on the Hurstbridge line, giving passengers between Rosanna and Eltham more trains to choose from.

More > https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/getting-around/network-changes/metropolitan-train-changes/

[Cazza]

Any additional services for SEQ? All I could find was a service reduction... 
https://translink.com.au/service-updates/139401

At least the original Roma St-Caboolture train can be deployed somewhere else on the network for morning peak I guess 

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/channeltennews/status/892955490740600832

[HappyTrainGuy]

"forces passengers to evacuation"

Seems everything at Channel 10 is going down the drain.

[Otto]

Is this the Pantograph in the pic that looks to be not quite right ?

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/ptv_official/status/899460854323851265

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/9NewsMelb/status/903304083339177985

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/903306126455750656

[ozbob]

ABC News --> Metro Trains and Yarra Trams win new $7b contracts with tougher performance targets

Metro Trains and Yarra Trams will continue to operate Melbourne's public transport after the Andrews Government awarded the pair new contracts worth $7 billion.

The widely expected seven-year deal to grant the contracts comes despite recent chaos on the train network and a push for public transport to be returned to public hands.

Under the new deal, Metro Trains, partly owned by Hong Kong's MTR Corporation, will be banned from the controversial practice of station skipping, a policy used to meet punctuality standards by not stopping when delayed.

The Government is also imposing tougher performance targets and penalties.

Trains will now need to be on time 92 per cent of the time per month, up from 88 per cent.

Trams will need be on time 82 per cent of the time, up from 77 per cent.

Metro will face fines of up to $700,000 if half the network shuts down, on top of performance penalties.

Daily inspections of stations, trains and major tram stops will be introduced, and restrictions on advertising — including a ban on wrap-around tram ads — will be put in place.

The French-owned Yarra Trams will also be banned from changing its services to meet punctuality standards.

There will also be a major investment boost to maintenance and recruitment, including a push to create 700 new jobs.

The Government said 150 new train drivers, 270 support staff for passengers and 90 maintenance workers would be recruited, with a push for people from disadvantaged backgrounds to be employed.

Failure to meet maintenance of the network could incur $10 million in fines.

Earlier this month, the Victorian Government revealed Metro Trains had been fined the maximum penalty of $1.2 million over a computer glitch that forced a temporary shutdown of the network in July.

Under the previous contract, the operators had an exclusive right to negotiate with the Victorian Government for a new deal before other businesses could bid.

The exclusivity agreement is not in the new contract.

The contract's seven years include a major period of disruption on the network, with the construction of the Metro tunnel, signal upgrades and Mernda rail extension all planned.

Metro will receive a more lucrative performance bonus of $1.25 million per month.

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union has been leading a campaign for more than a year for trains and trams to return to public hands, arguing profits are going overseas rather than being reinvested in network service improvements.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/theheraldsun/status/907411787787759616

[ozbob]

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/putting-people-first-a-better-deal-for-passengers/

Putting People First: A Better Deal For Passengers

Minister for Public Transport 12 September 2017

The Andrews Labor Government is putting passengers first with new contracts to operate Melbourne's trains and trams that will mandate higher performance targets and enforce tougher penalties if these targets are not met.

Minister for Public Transport Jacinta Allan today announced Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) and Keolis Downer (KDR) will operate Melbourne's train and tram networks for the next seven years.

The new train and tram contracts also deliver 700 new jobs including 375 apprenticeships and include a minimum 85 per cent local content.

Passengers have said they want to see improved performance and these new contracts will crackdown on operational practices such as city-loop and station skipping, short running of trams, graffiti, poor communication and information and dirty trains and trams.

A massive 37 per cent increase in maintenance and renewal investment will improve network infrastructure to reduce the number of faults on the system including signalling failures, overhead wires and points failures which lead to train delays and cancellations.

For the first time, MTM will face a $10 million penalty if they do not achieve new higher maintenance standards in the first two and half years of the contracts.

The new contract will also ensure that MTM will be penalised up to $700,000 to compensate passengers if a network failure results in more than 50 per cent of services cancelled or delayed by 30 minutes or more within a two hour period.

Passengers will no longer have to deal with overbearing and in your face advertising at stations and on trams and trains.

Passengers will benefit from more timely and accurate information through face-to-face, onboard and digital channels with station staff provided with up-to-date information and the tools needed to give passengers the information they need.

The Labor Government is investing more than $20 billion in our public transport network to ensure passengers who use trains and trams get to their destinations.

The new franchise term commences on 30 November 2017.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Public Transport Jacinta Allan

"Passengers have said that they want cleaner trains and stations, more reliable services, more timely and accurate information, less graffiti and scratching and that's what these contracts will do."

"We've listened to passengers, staff and unions so that these new contracts hold MTM and KDR to account in delivering increased maintenance, better services and real time information."

"We're fixing services now as well as making the biggest investment in public transport infrastructure in Victoria's history by building the Metro Tunnel, removing 50 dangerous and congested level crossings and upgrading high capacity signalling."

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/7NewsMelbourne/status/907516101860265984

[#Metro]

^^^ Let's get this for Queensland Rail.

Can't or won't deliver? BYE! 

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/ClayLucas/status/907747322594914306

[ozbob]

Rail Express --> More Melburnians using public transport

There are more passengers using Melbourne's train and tram network than ever before, while the number of over-crowded services has fallen, according to figures released by Public Transport Victoria.

The state's public transport authority recently released the train and tram load reports from the month of May, which indicate that more people are using the services during peak hours than previously.

According to Alan Fedda, PTV's acting CEO, the increase is due to changes to train design and extra services.

"We've got more people choosing to take public transport every day, with the new trains providing more capacity for more people as we move towards a modern metro system," Fedda said.

Reconfiguration of the trains has provided more standing room for passengers, with added space for 102 per train in the peak.

"We introduced 30 extra metropolitan train services in August to provide room for 27,000 extra trips every week, and we've provided more room on trains for passengers in peak hour."

The Metropolitan Train Load Standards Survey Report for the same month shows that there has been a reduction over-capacity train services in the morning and evening peaks.

A total of 17 services breached the benchmark standard of capacity during the AM peak period in May 2017, a decrease from the 51 breaches in May 2016. The PM peak saw a decline in capacity breaches from 22 to 7.

Over the same period, the percentage of passengers travelling on over-capacity train services in the AM peak decreased from 27.7 per cent to 9.7 per cent, while the PM peak saw percentages drop from 11.2 per cent to 3.3 per cent.

Public Transport Victoria expects that passenger capacity of the Cranbourne-Pakenham line will be increased by 20 per cent when 65 new longer trains begin their services in the middle of 2019.

Tram services have also reportedly benefitted with the rollout of the higher-capacity E-Class trams.

"We've got 56 new E-Class trams running on our network providing more room to passengers on some of the busiest routes, with a further 24 trams on order," said Fedda.

"Every time a new E-Class tram rolls out onto our network it provides more room for more passengers as Melbourne continues to grow, and means other larger trams can be allocated to different routes."

[Otto]

Just returned from a 1 week stay in Melbourne. The tram stop we used was William St on Bourke st. As we were between Southern Cross and Bourke st Mall, we often had to let the 96 and 86 trams pass as they were too full to board. Surprisingly, there was standing room only well into the nights. Nice to see the E class are now on a few different routes rather than just the 96 during our visit 2 years ago.
Also checked out the buses that terminated around the CBD and found there was no comparison to loadings on the trams. Buses rarely had more than half a seated load during our travels.
Unfortunately, I gained a foot infection during the last 2 days of our stay, so was unable to walk to the tram stop with our suitcases and make the 1 stop trip to Southern Cross for the Airport Bus. Also our chances of actually getting on a tram may have been next to zilch as Collins St was closed due to the AFL parade. So I ordered an Uber which turned up immediately at our accommodation and whisked us away to the Airport. Uber fare was $49.

Was nice to travel on Trams and Trains where I could look out through the nice clean windows. It's a shame that some of the A, B and Z class trams are starting to get the standard QR treatment, i.e. Scratched windows.

Off topic a bit, but a bit of a story. We were on the leading Restaurant Tram traveling along Park street, St Kilda heading towards the Park St terminus for regular services.  The Restaurant tram was to continue left into Fitzroy Street and as we rounded the bend, we lost power therefore blocking all traffic and Trams coming from St Kilda. Unknown to the motormen on the Tramcar Restaurants,  the overhead had been turned off on the short curve between Park St and the Fitzroy St main line. So it was a case of the Tram crews having to push our Restaurant tramcar back into Park St onto the powered overhead. Must admit, it was amusing to see ...

[ozbob]

Melbourne Age --> Less train overcrowding, but it comes at a cost

Melbourne's trains are less overcrowded, but it comes at a cost: your seat.

Metro's move to rip out seats from train carriages to accommodate exploding patronage numbers has eased overcrowding on peak services across the network, PTV data reveals.

The seating reconfiguration has increased passenger capacity from 798 to 900, resulting in a dramatic drop in passenger load breaches on the Frankston, Upfield, Sandringham, Werribee and Craigieburn lines.

Nearly 7 per cent of passengers were squashed in overcrowded trains on the Sunbury Line this year in the morning peak, down from nearly 47 per cent last year.

On the Craigieburn Line – the most overcrowded line this year – nearly 36 per cent of passengers travelled in trains that were more than 100 per cent full. But this was down from 57 per cent in 2016.

Overcrowding on the Frankson line dropped from 17 per cent to zero this year.

The removal of train seats comes as Melburnians brace for a shoulder-to-shoulder, Tokyo-style commute on a new fleet of 65 high-capacity trains to be rolled out from mid-2019.

Technical documents show the trains are designed to seat 40 per cent of passengers, but will "enable a future reduction of seating in the range down to 30 per cent of the original gross train capacity".

Removing seating to deal with overcrowding increases capacity, but it provides only temporary reprieve, said Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen.

The free tram zone had triggered huge patronage growth, but removing seating had caused a serious lack of seating on most trams, he said.

The B-class trams were modified to reduce 52 seats to 40 seats, but this did not change the tram's maximum capacity of 120 passengers in the CBD.

"The B-class [Apollo] trams have very little seating," Mr Bowen said. "If you need a seat, it's often very hard to find one.

"The question will be what's the next step? As patronage keeps growing, they can't keep taking out more seats ... they really need to start running more services."

Despite Metro's efforts, some lines on the network are showing signs of overcrowding.

The South Morang line – the route servicing the country's fastest growing suburb – had a spike in overcrowding this year, jumping from 26 per cent to 33 per cent of passengers crammed inside full trains.

The service is to face high patronage growth, and no peak services will be added, despite an extension of the line to Mernda.

The annual passenger count is done in May every year by independent surveyors, but it appears this will be the last year passengers are counted manually.

Myki transactions or "automatic passenger counters" are to provide data on loads from "all year round on any given day, and at any location in the network" on trains, trams and buses from next year, the tram passenger load survey stated.

A spokesman for Public Transport minister Jacinta Allan said peak services were added to the Craigieburn, Sunbury and Werribee lines in August, creating space for 27,000 extra passengers.

"We're building the Metro Tunnel and manufacturing bigger, better trains to boost capacity and move more people on our busiest train lines," she said.

Opposition public transport spokesman David Davis said: "The tearing out of seats to cut train overcrowding is clearly not a long-term solution to the surge in Melbourne's population and the usage increase and there is no question it smashes passenger comfort."

Greens transport spokeswoman Samantha Dunn said high-capacity signalling was needed to deal with long-term population growth.

"Until we have a network-wide approach, our trains, our system will be hamstrung by the signalling."

[ozbob]

Herald Sun --> Flemington racegoers stuck as lines crash

Extra trains had been put on from Southern Cross Station to service punters and racegoers attending The Turnbull Stakes — a the feature event on a nine-race card at Flemington Racecourse.

Champion mare Winx will make her highly anticipated Flemington debut as she aims to extend her winning streak to 21 in the Group 1 Turnbull Stakes.

But just minutes before the additional services were scheduled to start operating, the train network crashed in the city between Flinders St and Richmond. A Metro Trains spokesman said the failure was the result of a "signalling issue".

Services have been suspended on the Glen Waverley Line with buses replacing trains between Caulfield and Darling.

"Some services may be held," a Metro Trains tweet read.

"Buses will replace trains Parliament — Camberwell due to a signalling issue."

One passenger stuck on a train told news.com.au that Metro Trains had "just made an announcement that they basically won't be able to fix anything within an hour or so".

Others took to social media to air their frustrations.

"Trying to get to the races has never been so difficult #ridiculous, " one person posted to Twitter.

"Waiting 4 replacement bus. Lady in wheelchair waited over an hour for an accessible bus. Turns up full!," another wrote.

The incident comes after a computer fault brought down Melbourne's entire train system and caused peak hour chaos just three months ago.

Metro was forced to plead with commuters stuck between stations from 4pm-10pm not to attempt to open the doors of their train.

Uber initiated a 3.6x price surge, with a fare from Southbank to Cheltenham costing more than $130 shortly after trains stopped.

Metro Trains' website crashed, further adding to the chaos.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railmaps/status/917498152814444544

[ozbob]

The Age --> 'Monumental safety breakdown' the real cause of Winx race train delays


A train comes dangerously close to a maintenance vehicle between Flinders and Richmond stations on Saturday. Photo: Supplied

A potentially life-threatening incident prompting questions from the national rail watchdog was the true cause of train disruptions delaying racegoers headed  to see champion mare Winx race on Saturday, not a "signalling issue", as Metro Trains told commuters.

The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator is investigating the incident – a major safety breach that saw a train come dangerously close to hitting a maintenance vehicle on Saturday morning, which a union official has labelled a "monumental safety breakdown".

Frustrated racegoers and punters flocking to the Turnbull Stakes at Flemington Racecourse were told a "signalling issue" caused major delays on the Lilydale, Belgrave, Alamein and Glen Waverley lines.

The disruption happened just as new services were to be added from Southern Cross Station to the racecourse for the event.
A train comes dangerously close to a maintenance vehicle between Flinders and Richmond stations on Saturday.

But the true cause of the disruption was a major blunder, which saw a Glen Waverley train nearly hit a maintenance vehicle on the tracks outside of the city.

A photo provided to Fairfax Media shows the train stopped just metres away from the vehicle between Flinders Street and Richmond stations.

A maintenance worker in a high-vis vest can be seen sitting on the back of the vehicle facing the oncoming train.

Fairfax Media understands that a contractor working on the City Loop should not have been on the tracks, and was responsible for the breach.

Gerry Glover, an organiser in the Electrical Trades Union, described the incident as a "monumental safety breakdown".

"It's only because of the vigilance of the driver of that train that a tragedy was prevented," he said. "It's something that should never happen on a modern railway system."

Metro Trains was notified of the maintenance vehicle about 10:15am and "launched an investigation immediately to understand all factors involved", said spokesman Marcus Williams.

The train is said to have slowed and stopped more than 60 metres from the maintenance vehicle, and was moved to a platform at Flinders Street, where passengers disembarked.

The incident triggered a signalling response, which brought all trains in the vicinity to a stop.

"Trains were stopped while we ensured we had eliminated any safety risk and apologise to our passengers for the delays this caused, which we know were frustrating," said Mr Williams.

"We are absolutely committed to running a safe rail network."

The disruptions on Saturday were embarrassing for Metro, which was forced to suspend multiple services about 10:15am, just before they were adding new services at 11am for the race.

Buses replaced trains on the Alamein, Belgrave, Lilydale and Glen Waverley lines, with train services resuming about 11:30am, but with 10 minute delays.

It comes three months after Metro Trains was fined $1.2 million after a computer malfunction shut down the entire train network during the evening peak, leaving tens of thousands of commuters stranded on their way home from work.

The company forked out a further $627,000 to 175,000 to affected commuters.

The Victorian state government has entered a new seven-year contract with Metro Trains, which is due to take effect from November 30.

The conditions of the new contract are said to include higher performance targets and tougher penalties if targets are not met. This will include a requirement to compensate passengers up to $700,000 if a network failure results in more than 50 per cent of services cancelled or delayed by 30 minutes or more.

However, the government has still not released the agreement to the public.

A spokeswoman for public transport minister Jacinta Allan said the government was "aware of the incident on Saturday and would await the outcome of the investigation".

"Passengers deserve accurate, timely information about their train – something the new contracts address directly," the spokeswoman said.

Rail Tram and Bus Union branch secretary Luba Grigorovitch​ said the incident was the result of a lack of training of safeworkers, who are responsible for safety  during construction or maintenance works.

"Skills shortages and casualisation have created poorly trained safeworkers leading to more dangerous outcomes for passengers and workers alike," she said.

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https://twitter.com/9NewsMelb/status/917651084117549057

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Herald Sun --> PTUA urges Andrews Government to fund plan for trains every 10 minutes

THE Andrews Government has been urged to run trains every 10 minutes by an influential public transport lobby group.

The Public Transport Users Association has called on the Government to fund the official PTV rail network service plan, which included trains every 10 minutes on most Metro lines by 2016.

The PTV plan, written in 2012, proposed that by 2016 there would be six trains an hour off-peak and on weekends to Sunshine, Craigieburn, South Morang, Macleod, Ringwood, Glen Waverley, Sandringham and Newport in addition to existing services to Frankston and Dandenong.

Three trains would also run every hour off-peak and on weekends to outer suburban stations at Sunbury, Belgrave, and Lilydale.

PTUA spokesman Daniel Bowen said the upgrade would revolutionise train travel around Melbourne by cutting waiting times and crowding outside peak hours, and making more trips viable by public transport, including those requiring a change of service.

"Studies show that waiting time for public transport is often perceived negatively, with passengers believing waiting time is longer than it actually is", Mr Bowen said.

"This actively discourages people from using infrequent public transport, especially for journeys requiring connections between services.

"Running trains every 10 minutes every day, just as we see already on a few lines, and just as we see in other cities of Melbourne's size around the world, will get people off the roads."

Mr Bowen said weekend road traffic was almost as bad as weekdays. He said rail commuters still waited up to 40 minutes between trains on Sunday mornings.

"We know from VicRoads figures that there is almost as much travel demand in the middle of the day, and on weekends as there is at traditional peak commuting times", Mr Bowen said.

"There is plenty of spare fleet and track capacity outside traditional peak times.

"Public transport users should not have to wait another decade until the tunnel opens in 2026 to see better services."

A Government spokeswoman said it would deliver more train services with each timetable change, with one to metropolitan services already delivered this year.

Ten-minute services operate during the weekday inter-peaks to Dandenong, Frankston, Clifton Hill and Newport and to Ringwood on weekends.

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3AW --> The bold plan to get trains running every 10 minutes in Melbourne

Melbourne needs trains every 10 minutes, the Public Transport Users Association says.

The lobby group is calling on the State Government to endorse the bold plan by the transport lobby group to get Melburnians off the road and revolutionise the public transport system.

    Melbourne is a big city... Our public transport system needs to catch up and provide 10 minute services seven days a week.

Daniel Bowen from the PTUA told Ross and John passengers on the Dandenong and Frankston lines had trains every 10 minutes, 7 days a week.

"It's a terrific benefit to people on those lines," he said.

"It would be great to see that spread across the network because it would make getting around Melbourne so much easier.

"The VicRoads figures show the number of people moving around on weekends in the middle of the day is almost as many as driving around in peak hour."

Click PLAY to hear Daniel Bowen on 3AW Breakast

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https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/927214720028782594

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Melbourne Age --> Summer bus hell awaits as rail commuters face January network shutdown

Working through early January will be even more painful than usual for tens of thousands of Melburnians this summer.

Three major railway lines servicing Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs will be shut down for a week between January 2 and January 9 for works, forcing commuters onto buses.

The seven-day shutdown will affect passengers on the Cranbourne-Pakenham corridor, Melbourne's busiest, and on the Frankston line.

The Cranbourne-Pakenham corridor will be shut between Flinders Street and Westall stations and the Frankston line will be shut between Flinders Street and Moorabbin.

Gippsland commuters on V/Line trains will also be affected.

On an ordinary working day those lines would together carry well over 150,000 passengers, more than some of Melbourne's busiest freeways.

Travellers have been warned to add an extra 40 to 75 minutes to their journeys.

The lines are being shut down to prepare them for the running of 65 new high-capacity trains that are due to enter service from early-2019.

The new trains will require upgrades to signalling, power and communications.

The high-capacity trains and rail upgrades are a $2 billion project.

Continuing work to remove nine level crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong and elevate the tracks will also take place during the week-long closure, and continue until January 17, meaning passengers travelling between Caulfield and Dandenong face two weeks of replacement buses.

The Andrews government said the upgrade would be the biggest restoration of the overhead and power system on the Cranbourne-Pakenham corridor in more than 20 years and the first rail systems upgrade in Melbourne's history to span the entire length of an existing metropolitan line.

Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said work was under way across the state to build a better transport system. 

"But of course with those projects does come some disruption to passengers," she said.

The government has been criticised for giving commuters less than one month's notice about the major disruption.

Daniel Bowen, the Public Transport Users Association's spokesman, revealed the week-long shutdown on his blog this week. 

"Some of these projects are years in planning. It beats me why authorities don't flag them further in advance," Mr Bowen said.

"If people had more notice, some of them might be able to plan leave from work, to make things easier for themselves."

Ms Allan said there would almost certainly be more disruptions across the network as further works are undertaken during the summer.

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https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/951855374172225536

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Herald Sun --> Yarra Trams and Metro Trains fail new punctuality targets

METRO Trains and Yarra Trams could face huge fines after both operators failed their performance targets in the first month of new multi-billion dollar contracts.

Public Transport Victoria yesterday released the companies' December results, with both companies falling short of the tough new guidelines that took effect on November 30.

Metro delivered 91.6 per cent of its services on time in December, just below the new target of 92 per cent, while Yarra Trams fell short of its 82 per cent goal by delivering 80.7 per cent of its services on time.

Under the old guidelines, the operators would have been above their targets but in September last year both agreed to the tough new measures to secure contracts worth a combined $7 billion.

Metro can now be fined up to $1.25 million each month it fails to meet its requirements, while Yarra Trams can be fined up to $500,000.

PTV will decide whether to penalise the operators for their December results over the next few weeks.

PTV CEO Jeroen Weimar said both companies needed to improve their performance.

"We've raised the bar in the new contracts with our train and tram operators to deliver a better travel experience for our passengers," he said. "After the first full month of the new contracts, both operators still need to lift their game."

"We acknowledge there are factors the operators cannot control, but we still require answers as to what they are going to do to improve future performance."

Hot temperatures, big events, wild weather and the Flinders St rampage are all believed to have affected services at the end of last year. In the same month 83 per cent of V/Line services ran on time.

Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said he hoped the new targets would translate to benefits for passengers.

"They are more ambitious but it does reflect that Metro and Yarra Trams need to do better to deliver the public transport services that Melburnians want," he said.

"The operators and the government need to do more to ensure our public transport infrastructure is up to scratch — including pushing ahead with upgrades such as rail duplication, to fix single track bottlenecks."

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https://twitter.com/theheraldsun/status/952441174144507904

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https://twitter.com/7NewsMelbourne/status/952800701230428160

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https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/952943139915907072

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https://twitter.com/andrew_lund/status/953753299936686080