Sydney commuters have been warned there could be “knock-on effects” on Wednesday morning after high-voltage wire fell on the top of a train on Tuesday afternoon, trapping 300 passengers and causing massive disruption across the city during the evening rush.
Howard Collins, the coordinator general for Transport for NSW, told reporters the incident happened at 2.30pm on Tuesday, leaving 300 passengers trapped at Strathfield in Sydney’s inner west and other trains stranded when the power was switched off.
Transport for NSW teams worked to allow passengers to safely leave the train and three others that had been stopped for safety reasons, with Collins telling reporters: “It’s life threatening if you get very near or touch wires with that amount of voltage … it will kill you straight away.”
“The most important thing here is safety, making sure we do that under safe conditions and there’s no risk of the power being switched on by accident or other means,” Collins said.
On Tuesday evening, the NSW transport minister, John Graham, said the passengers had “been taken off the stranded train that was entangled in wiring, as well as three other trains that were stopped with passengers onboard”.
“This is a very serious incident in a critical part of the rail network and we apologise to all train passengers affected and trying to get home tonight. The position of the train at Strathfield is [at] a major artery of the network and has caused huge disruption,” he said.
“Teams are now working to cut the entangled train away and an assessment made of recovery work needed. We will update on how that work progresses tonight and any flow-on impacts into tomorrow morning.”
“We are advising in the morning to make sure you check the latest information,” he said.
“It’s possible there could be some knock-on effects.”
Passengers on the T1, T2, T3, T5, T8 and T9 lines were advised to delay all non-essential travel or use alternative modes of transport on Tuesday evening. Shuttle buses replaced services on the T1, T2, T5, T8 and Blue Mountains line between Lithgow/Mt Victoria to Penrith, with limited services running on the T9 and Central Coast and Newcastle.
The T4 (Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra), T6 and South Coast Lines were not affected, and the Metro, Light Rail and local buses are not affected.
Sydney Trains is investigating the root cause of the incident.
Commuter chaos
There were chaotic scenes at Sydney’s Central station as thousands of commuters heading home flooded platforms to board trains that were mostly not running.
Trains on the main western suburbs line were not moving, with carriages at crush capacity as commuters boarded, seemingly unaware that their services had been cancelled.
Station staff erected tape to block entry to various platforms but commuters remained unclear about the closures, with many ducking under the barriers to continue to the platforms.
Jordi Bradley had travelled to Central for what she thought would be a quick transit to an express train home to Meadowbank, but soon realised she’d be spending much more of her evening on platform 19 than she had expected.
“It’s a good thing I’ve got no plans tonight because I don’t think I’ll be getting on a train anytime soon,” she said.
“There were people heading to the airport on the train I was on to get here, but they’re now stuck at Central with their luggage.”
She decided to wait on the platform rather than board one of the crammed trains, saying “nothing is moving”.
Rose Bilyk was at Central to catch a train home to the Fairfield area.
She lives on the T3 line, and previously relied on the Bankstown-Sydenham train line which is now shut for conversion to Metro, so her only alternative rail route in recent months has been via Strathfield.
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“This is nuts, they have totally isolated south-west Sydney because the only passage we had left was via Strathfield,” she said.
“There is no train alternative for me, and they have cut the bus routes, so I have to try to get as far south west as I can and then just get an Uber.”
Frustrated commuters swarmed around rail workers at Central station asking how they could get home, but officials did not have much information other than to suggest people caught buses.
Guardian Australia saw transport officials checking Google Maps for routes commuters could take, rather than relying on data from internal communications.
Platform announcements also conflicted with the train information screens for each service. At one point, passengers piled off a packed train that appeared to be headed for the airport when a platform announcement informed them that a train on a neighbouring platform would instead operate the airport service.
Collins said the problems should be fixed on Tuesday night, but advised commuters to check the news in the morning.
Transport for NSW advised people to plan for extra travel time or consider using Metro services between Epping, Chatswood and Central, or alternative bus routes.
Collins said the alternatives were very limited, so people should avoid using the rail network where possible.
He said Uber had activated a price surging cap to prevent sharp price increases for the ride-share service.
It was too early to say what brought the cable down, Collins said, but the overhead wire was “maintained to a very strict standard”.
“But like anything mechanical, there may be a reason why this has occurred,” he said.
“It is very unusual but does happen on overhead wire lines around every state and around the globe.”
Graham told the ABC he didn’t believe the rainy weather had caused the wire to fall but said it had made the operation more complex, with crews “working out in the dark, in the wet weather”.
He said crews were expected to be working until the early hours of Wednesday morning, and there could be knock-on effects for commuter travel as late as Wednesday morning.
“Anyone who’s been through there regularly on the train would understand why [Strathfield] is such a big part of the network, those lines running very close to each other,” he said.
“Any disruption here, it really has a ripple effect. It’s impacted on every line in the Sydney metro basin, apart from the T4 line; that has had a big impact over the course of tonight.”
