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KiwiRail has apologised after tens of thousands of rush-hour commuters were left without a train to catch when a power fault hit the network this morning.
More than seven hours after the fault was first detected and caused the network to grind to a halt, trains are now running to normal schedules.
“I apologise to Auckland rail commuters for the disruption caused to services this morning,” said KiwiRail chief operations officer Siva Sivapakkiam.
He blamed Auckland’s humid conditions and contamination from recent weather events that had compromised a key piece of the infrastructure for the failure.
Shortly before 4am KiwiRail was advised of electricity arcing from overhead electric lines under the Broadway overbridge.
“We had to turn the power off to investigate, 25,000 volts run through the overhead lines.
“Our people had to make that call and I support their decision. Though it caused disruption, the safety of passengers and the public has to be our top priority,” Sivapakkiam said.
KiwiRail had track crews mobilised by 4.15am and contacted the train operator Auckland One Rail at 4.25am.
“As soon as were advised of the arcing we took action.”
Due to high humidity and recent wet weather, contaminants had got on the insulator, which was cleaned with power restored by 8.15am.
“Insulators across Auckland are inspected every six months and cleaned annually. This site was within tolerances for checking and cleaning.
“The short amount of time between the fault being discovered and commuter trains starting this morning seriously limited Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail’s ability to put alternate public transport in place,” Sivapakkiam said.
The issue is not related to the disruption in Wellington earlier this week.
Earlier, inconvenienced rail commuters were warned to expect ongoing disruptions this morning right across the network. All trains on the Onehunga Line remained cancelled until further notice.
Auckland Transport said with the fault repaired commuters should expect minor delays and minimal cancellations.
Auckland’s Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson blasted KiwiRail earlier this morning over the widescale disruption.
“I can only apologise to Aucklanders, but this is not our fault, this is one for KiwiRail,” Simpson said.
She wants to see a plan from KiwiRail to ensure this disruption will not happen again, but she wasn’t sure if there was one in place.
“This is no different from a sort of emergency weather event, we have to plan for disruption and immediately be able to have a flow-on effect, so commuters are not inconvenienced.
“I’m not sure they have that plan and I want to see from KiwiRail that they absolutely have a plan so this will not happen again.”
She is concerned that Aucklanders have another reason to doubt that public transport will work.
“We have to have a reliable public transport network that works across multiple modes and when KiwiRail have a failure like this and don’t have an immediate plan of action which they can put together and get working straight away ... I mean, this is so frustrating for Auckland.”
Mayor Wayne Brown said he was “disappointed” with the incident this morning that caused disruption to tens of thousands of Aucklanders.
“The reported line fault at Grafton is the result of many years of under-investment that we are finally addressing.”
Brown was not available for an interview.
There were no trains in or out of Britomart station on Friday morning. Photo / Michael Craig
Auckland councillor Mike Lee, who has been instrumental in the revival of rail in Auckland, said he was not sure what sort of apology long-suffering Auckland public transport users can expect.
“When trains in Wellington this week were slowed to 70km/h and KiwiRail senior executives had to make humiliating apologies to Parliament, here in Auckland train speeds are reduced to zero.
“While equipment failures are as usual blamed, clearly there is something deeply dysfunctional in present-day corporate management systems - especially so in public transport,” said Lee.
As chairman of the former Auckland Regional Council, Lee successfully pushed for electrification of the city’s rail network and the reopening of the Onehunga branch line - and remains a strong advocate for further improvements to rail.
For safety reasons, power had to be switched off between Penrose, Swanson and Britomart and electric trains could not operate.
UPDATE 9:15AM
Eastern Line services will only operate between Otahuhu and Manukau. Onehunga Line remains cancelled until further notice. Expect further delays and cancellations to all services across the network while some return to schedule. Updates to follow. https://t.co/nFpaOUx5G9
— Auckland Transport Travel Alerts (@AT_TravelAlerts) May 4, 2023
KiwiRail’s website states that the national rail system has experienced “decades of under-investment”, until the recent unprecedented investment in rail by the Government.
“Our technicians have been on site this morning and have assessed and repaired a fault. We are aiming for the power to be switched back on shortly, so that train services can resume.”
Auckland Transport group manager metro services Darek Koper said tens of thousands of Aucklanders relied on the rail network every day to get to school, work and access essential services.
“It is hugely disappointing and frustrating that we are not able to operate our services, as usual, this morning.
“Because of the short notice of this outage, our teams have only been able to arrange for a small number of rail replacement buses, so we’re encouraging our train customers to consider using one of our scheduled bus services instead this morning.”
The city is already facing shortages of buses and bus drivers and Uber fares were hiked this morning for those wanting to catch a ride from the western suburbs to central Auckland.
On some routes, fares were almost three times higher than a usual trip.
An Uber X from Mt Albert to Britomart Train Station would have cost $60 and one from New Lynn to Britomart Station $75.
