Article: Trains to get brake-safety upgrade - three years late

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From the Melbourne Age click here!

Trains to get brake-safety upgrade - three years late

Trains to get brake-safety upgrade - three years late
Reid Sexton
April 5, 2011

A MAJOR safety upgrade to Melbourne's trains, recommended after a derailment in Sydney killed seven people, is set to be carried out three years behind schedule.

The new emergency braking system will increase passenger safety by automatically stopping trains if a driver doesn't perform a regular task such as accelerating or braking for a period of time.

But the delay in implementing it means it joins a long line of proposed upgrades for Melbourne's public transport network - including myki and the South Morang rail line extension - that have been held back for years.

Melbourne trains currently have a ''dead man's brake'' that is supposed to stop a train if a driver becomes incapacitated but the failure of the device on a train in Waterfall, Sydney in 2003 resulted in the death of seven people in a horrific crash.

An investigation commissioned by the Victorian government in response to the tragedy recommended in 2005 that the new electronic system be introduced to supplement the dead man's brake.

Such a system would have prevented a 2001 train crash in Footscray that injured two people and a crash in Epping in 2002 that injured six, according to former public transport director Graham Edkins.

The $37 million Vigilance, Control and Event Recording System will be introduced to Melbourne's Comeng fleet in July with Siemens and X'Trapolis trains to follow soon after.

In 2009, freedom of information documents obtained by then opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder revealed the technology was originally meant to be introduced in June 2008.

A spokesman for the Department of Transport, which is overseeing implementation of the system, said the main reason for the delay was that extensive testing needed to be carried out.

But the project only got the green light after Metro and the Rail, Train and Bus Union reached agreement on testing last week, just a week before it was headed to Fair Work Australia for resolution.

Union secretary Marc Marotta said the dispute centred on a letter Mr Edkins wrote to the union six years ago saying the system was ''safety critical'', meaning it had to be manually tested when a train entered service every morning.

But train operators Metro insisted that it was not safety critical and instead self-tested for faults.

Transport Safety Victoria finally settled the dispute last week, confirming the system was not safety critical and the union dropped its opposition.

Metro and the department said the system would improve the network's safety, but Mr Marotta said a lack of driver testing compromised its effectiveness. ''If you're not going to [manually] test it we won't know if it's broken or not and we won't know if it's effective,'' he said. ''The self-testing ... doesn't do a whole range of things.''

Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen said passengers would welcome safety upgrades.