KEY POINTS:
A string of technical faults aggravated by human error caused meltdown on Auckland's rail network yesterday, making trains up to an hour late and even jamming road traffic at level crossings.
Cars, trucks and buses queued at crossings along the western rail line in the after-school and evening traffic peaks after a power cut disrupted signals and brought down barrier arms, meaning police had to be drafted in for signalling duties.
The day's woes began just after the morning travel peak about 9.30 with an intermittent electronic communications failure on the western line, and last night were still causing delays for passengers who had to swap to buses at Avondale to complete journeys home.
Government rail agency Ontrack has apologised for the mishaps, the worst of which was the failure of 16 signalling points at the crucial junction of the western and southern lines at Newmarket at 11am. That disrupted all trains passing through Newmarket on both southern or western lines, including one which took 90 minutes to reach Henderson from Britomart.
A botched attempt to change the points manually at Newmarket made matters worse at about 11.30am, when an Ontrack worker left incorrect settings on the junction before calling through a passenger train from Papakura. The train managed to stay on the tracks, but caused even more damage to the points, leaving them unable to be changed manually for westbound passenger services needing to be shunted backwards at Newmarket before continuing to Waitakere.
That left rail operator Veolia Transport having to rearrange its fleet to ensure double-ended locomotive-hauled trains were sent west via an alternative track configuration through Newmarket, still at a crawl.
Ontrack took until just after 5pm to fix the 16 points, and is under criticism after an allegation by Veolia that a technician took 75 minutes to arrive at Newmarket to begin repairs.
Ontrack spokesman Kevin Ramshaw said in Wellington he did not know how far the technician had to travel but "knowing Auckland, it could take a while to get from one place to the other".
He confirmed that the other worker had been temporarily relieved from duty and an investigation into the points-setting error was continuing.
Worse followed at about 1.30pm, when power was cut to the western line's centralised signalling system, bringing down the level-crossing barrier arms and forcing trains to slow as they waited for verbal clearance from Wellington before entering each new section of track. Enough power was restored at 6pm to lift the barrier arms, but progress remained painfully slow for rail passengers, some of whom had to be transferred by bus from Avondale to western suburbs to clear the single-track line for trains stuck at Henderson.
Ontrack operations manager Carl Mills conceded the company was embarrassed, but promised big improvements as part of the Government's $600 million basic upgrade of Auckland's rail network.
'The Auckland network is not very resilient, which is one of the reasons we are working on a major upgrade ... When it's under pressure, it's prone to failure - unfortunately, today was one of those days."
