Wellington train services grind to a stop, twice, after major signal outage

Thursday, 27 March 2025

A signal failure took trains offline on Thursday morning, sending commuters into their cars.

Wellington train services were stopped twice on Thursday morning due to a mass signal outage, causing commuter chaos.

The day started off with crowds of commuters gathering at stations for trains that weren’t arriving and roads filling up fast as people chose to drive instead.

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Metlink said around 7am on Thursday that train services arriving and departing Wellington were suspended. It announced they had been clearance to resume services just before 8am - only for some services to stop again just after 9am for around half an hour.

Passengers wait at Porirua following a mass signal failure across Wellington.

Metlink’s senior manager of Operations Paul Tawharu told Stuff a KiwiRail signal/power outage at Wellington Station took place at 6am, during which time Metlink passenger trains were unable to operate in and out of the station.

Power to signals was restored by 9.20am and services then resumed running on all lines and trains, he said. Staff were working to return services to schedule.

KiwiRail has been contacted for comment.

As the services started to came back on line the first time, there were reports of packed trains not stopping at stations.

A commuter told Stuff they had been waiting for over 30 minutes at Petone station. They said there were no staff at the station and the communication was really bad.

“We could barely hear the conductor on the train - speakers were faulty.

Crowds of commuters are building at train stations across the Wellington region, as a mass signal failure has stopped services.

“[There are] 300 or so people here, one bus replacement has been and gone,“ they said.

Rachel arrived at Waterloo station at 7am and would normally be at work on Cuba St by 8. She got on a train to the Ava station, then got off for a bus replacement the rest of the way.

The delays led to commuter congestion at the stations, as well as on the roads as people chose to drive in.

She was waiting in a queue when a Wairarapa train came through , so she so crammed on that. Eventually arriving at 8.45am, she said the conductors were fantastic even though some passengers were angry.

Another commuter said there was “zero communication”, there was no announcement at the station, the app or onboard the train.

The usual 7.45am express to Wellington from Trentham was three mins late. There was no indication it would be changing from an express service, to stopping at all stops.

Traffic into Wellingon on Thursday morning.

One hour later the train only made it as far as Petone.

Another commuter said some individuals were left waiting in Waikanae as buses were slow and sparse. The first train from Waikanae left at 7.58am.