Central Coast train users caught up in a total rail network standstill on Wednesday afternoon, March 8, are still searching for answers.
School children, travellers and commuters were amazed by the fact that all trains across the entire city network were at a standstill from approximately 3pm to 4.30pm.
The situation arose after the failure of the digital radio system which train controllers use to communicate with rail crews, said NSW Transport Management Centre spokesperson Derrick Peterson.
Rail users were advised by staff at Gosford station to consider other forms of transport as staff were unsure how long the outage would last.
The CEO of Sydney Trains Matt Longland said a communications system upgrade occurred over the weekend prior, but his advice was the failures were unrelated.
Chief Operations Officer for Transport for NSW Howard Collins told ABC Radio Sydney that the radio system failure was significant.
“We’ve not had a similar incident across the rail network with this particular system,” he said.
Premier, Dominic Perrottet, apologised for the chaos on the rail network just weeks out from the state election.
Retiring Transport Minister David Elliot speculated that it could have been caused by “foreign interference or industrial sabotage”, though these statements were rebuffed on Thursday by senior managers at Sydney Trains, who said the network had been stopped for safety reasons due to a digital train radio system failure.
The NSW Labor party jumped on the failure, with Shadow Tansport Minister Jo Haylen saying the government’s own Minister was at fault.
“The lights were out across Sydney trains but they were also out in the retiring Transport Minister’s office,” she said.
The Premier has ordered a free day of travel as compensation for the failures, saying “These challenges occur from time to time”.
An internal investigation has been initiated to get to the bottom of the problems.
Details of the fare-free day are yet to be announced.
David Abrahams