KEY POINTS:
Thousands of commuters were stranded along Auckland's western railway line yesterday morning by a second signals meltdown in a week.
Trains ran more than an hour late while a back-up signalling system struggled into action and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority called in replacement buses for despairing passengers.
Although the back-up signalling reduced delays from about 9.30am, services took until yesterday afternoon to return to normal.
The transport authority estimated about 2500 passengers were disrupted.
As Government agency Ontrack worked into last night to isolate the fault, Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said it was "totally unacceptable and extremely frustrating" for passengers to face such frequent disruptions so long after the renaissance of rail was signalled by the opening of Britomart Station five years ago.
"Somebody needs their rear kicked to get this sorted out," he told the Herald.
"The rail project was started in Auckland with the opening of Britomart and they are still having what are fundamentally wiring problems - we are not talking about high technology here."
Although Ontrack has yet to confirm the cause of yesterday's disruption, it suspects damage to a cable from rail construction between the Newmarket and Boston Rd stations.
That has left it relying on its back-up system while it hastens to lay a bypass cable, work which it hopes to complete by Friday.
Yesterday's fault followed hours of delays on Tuesday last week, when all three Auckland railway lines were hit by a signals failure.
Maintenance workers also rushed to Avondale station yesterday afternoon after a waiting passenger noticed metal plates sandwiching a track joint were being held together by just two out of four required bolts.
Two of the bolts had been dislodged entirely from one side of the joint, and a nut had somehow worked its way off one of the other two.
Ontrack operations general manager Phil McQueen said the track remained secured to sleepers on both sides of the joint, so chances of a derailment were "very, very low". "But I have to say having only the one bolt there is not satisfactory and that's why we were so quick to rectify it."
He said the tracks were inspected twice a week, but he could not explain what sort of event would have knocked out two bolts, and a third nut.
Despite that level of inspection, he invited any members of the public who might notice any other problems on the tracks to phone 0800-808400.
Mr McQueen said Ontrack had commissioned work to improve the robustness and reliability of the western lines signalling system by Christmas, by providing two alternative links between points on the track and its Wellington-based control centre.
Although reliance on centralised control had been lessened as progress continued on duplicating the line, the new links were needed to limit the extent of disruption from events such as lightning strikes or cuts to cables.
"This inflexibility is a major problem for us and for those providing rail services in and through the city."
Regional transport authority spokeswoman Sharon Hunter welcomed advice of the new work, saying her agency expected a far higher level of service at this stage of the rail development programme.
Mr Lee said he remained at a loss to understand why alternative links were not provided about 18 months ago, when Ontrack laid new cable and augmented its signalling back-up system to end weeks of disruption to signals from track duplication work between Henderson and New Lynn.
"It is heartbreaking, it is hard enough to persuade people to get out of their cars without this kind of stuff."
