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Delays to Auckland passenger trains on Tuesday, for the second night in succession, have been blamed on contractors who cut a signals cable on the western rail line between Swanson and Waitakere.
Veolia Transport communications manager Tessa Marjoram, who was unavailable for earlier comment, said yesterday that the cut disabled the line's centralised traffic control system and forced train crews to get out and set signals manually.
The incident followed even worse disruption on Monday night after a smoking locomotive forced the evacuation of about 150 people from the Britomart station.
Ms Marjoram said that although that event remained under investigation, it appeared the source of the smoke was probably a faulty brake unit on the locomotive, which had just arrived at Britomart at the head of an SA passenger train.
She said the problem was with the brake's release mechanism, after it had successfully brought the train to a halt, and the locomotive returned to service on Tuesday after being cleared by maintenance staff from Toll Holdings.
It was unclear whether Tuesday's cable fault was related to track duplication work on the western line. The incident caused speed restrictions that led to long delays for commuters heading into Auckland on both Thursday and Friday last week.
Ms Marjoram said government rail agency Ontrack had made good progress on the project until last week without causing serious disruption, but she warned that there may be more "short-term pain" in store in coming months as part of the price of improving the line's capacity in the longer run.
