Rush hour signal failure at Britomart

Kiwirail has apologised for a disruption at Britomart which left commuters stranded for an hour this evening.

A fault which occurred around 5.30pm affected all services in and out of the station.

Northern regional manager Stephen Collett said signals technicians were on hand within minutes to begin the process of resetting the system and it was restored by 6.30pm.

"Signalling involves complex electronics and computer programming, so it can take time to pinpoint the exact cause, but it appears there was a fault with one of the three computers which operates the system, and the system did what it is designed to do and failed to a safe state," Mr Collett said.

- NZ HERALD STAFF