Auckland rail disruption: Commuter woes continue for third day after signal box fire

Tuesday, 11 February 2020

Part of Auckland's Newmarket train station remains off-limits due to reduced services following a Kiwirail signalling fault

Auckland rail commuters will have a third day of disruption as KiwiRail continues repairs to fire-damaged signalling equipment.

Auckland Transport, which runs the train services, said the disruption was very frustrating, and it was keen to know from network owner KiwiRail why the failure had occurred.

A fire in a box containing signalling switchgear struck early on Monday morning, and the southern and Onehunga lines remain significantly disrupted, while the western and eastern lines have returned to near normal.

It is the third major signal failure in Auckland in a year, on a network run by state-owned KiwiRail.

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'Of the back of (signalling) issues last year these are a concern to Auckland Transport,' Stacey van der Putten, the group manager of Metro Services told Stuff.

'We want to know why and what's going to be done to prevent future occurrences,' she said.

KiwiRail hoped the system would be fully restored in time for Thursday's morning peak.

'Unfortunately, this is a lengthy process involving cleaning the smoke-affected site, replacing the damaged components and a comprehensive commissioning process that involves extensive testing to ensure safety,' said Group Chief Operating Officer Todd Moyle.

Moyle doubted trains could run on Wednesday between Newmarket and Penrose, with equipment being replaced overnight on Tuesday, but needing extensive testing.

'We apologise again to Auckland commuters,' he said.

Moyle said the failure was in one of hundreds of similar boxes across Auckland, but the wide impact was due to its location near the Newmarket junction of the western and southern lines.

Auckland Transport said the timing was particularly frustrating, hitting the build-up to its busiest time of year.

'There's a number of people who make decisions about whether they are going to use public transport as their main form of transportation - it's really important that service consistency is there,' said van der Putten.

'It can change habits or break habits,' she said.

Commuter rail has been one of the success stories in Auckland's increased use of public transport, with patronage rising nearly 5 per cent in the past year, to around 22 million trips annually.

The city is putting into service 15 new electric trains to take it's fleet to 72, three-car trains, to provide increasingly frequent services and boost capacity.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff was briefed on Monday morning by Kiwirail on the disruption and had updates from council agency AT, but had no further involvement, said a spokesperson.

KiwiRail publicly apologised in January 2019 after a three-hour shutdown when a signalling system and its back-up both failed.

A further signal failure in June left commuters stranded for more than an hour, and in the same month some services were cancelled over a period of days due to accelerated work to replace worn rails.