Melbourne’s rail commuters face more disruption on the journey home on Monday, with evening peak trains to be hit by delays in completing major signalling work. The delays could also stretch into the Tuesday morning peak.
The works, part of the Regional Rail Link project, were meant to have been completed overnight on Sunday, in time for the Monday morning peak but are taking longer than the four-day schedule.
Metro has warned travellers on four lines to expect delays and possible overcrowding on trains heading out of the city.
Delays in the completion of major signalling work near Southern Cross Station will significantly disrupt services on Monday evening on the Werribee, Williamstown and Frankston lines and on the Altona loop.
Buses have been put on stand-by at North Melbourne station in case there is a repeat of Monday morning’s severe overcrowding on the Werribee line.
Metro chief executive Andrew Lezala said commuters could expect delays of up to 20 minutes on Monday evening on affected lines.
Williamstown and Altona trains will operate as shuttles from Newport station, Werribee trains will run direct from Flinders Street Station with no express trains and Frankston trains will bypass the City Loop.
V/Line Traralgon services have also been heavily affected, with replacement buses to run from Southern Cross and Pakenham stations.
Mr Lezala said there was always a risk that the signalling work would not be completed in time for Tuesday morning’s peak.
“I desperately want it to be complete tonight, I know the guys are doing everything they can but there is a risk to tomorrow morning. So we are planning for that and if we get the railway back we will run more services,” Mr Lezala said.
The scale of the work involved was always going to make it difficult to finish in the four days that were set aside, Mr Lezala said.
“It was a huge amount of work to fit in to the Anzac weekend, it was the only opportunity to do so and it was a high risk piece of work relative to other pieces of work that have been done by the Regional Rail Link program.”
Metro said there would be more disruptions on the Frankston line after a person was hit by a train at Cheltenham on Monday afternoon. Buses will replace trains between Mordialloc and Moorabbin.
Monday morning’s delays affected commuters on several urban lines and have severely disrupted some V/Line services, particularly on the Gippsland line.
“We know the disruptions were significant and frustrating for many of our customers this morning and apologise sincerely for these works extending further,” Metro said in an earlier statement.
Tony Morton, president of the Public Transport Users Association, said there was a pattern of recent major works running over time and creating peak-hour disruption, and that Metro needed to improve its time management.
“Just about every piece of major infrastructure work that’s been done over a weekend, almost without exception, they’ve all run late and gone into Monday,” Mr Morton said.
“If you’re given a four-day window to do things then you plan things so that you reduce your chance that you won’t complete it in time.”
