Off the rails: A commuter rushes for a bus at Geelong Railway Station this week.
By Cherie Donnellan
RAIL commuters can expect a return to normal services after more than a week of delays due to a faulty cable, according to V/Line.
Spokeswoman Clare Steele said the cable was fixed after delaying thousands of commuters between Geelong and Melbourne.
Ms Steele told the Independent V/Line had installed a new cable, so “no further delays would occur”.
Commuters were stranded at midday Tuesday when V/Line shut down Geelong services between Southern Cross and Marshall stations.
Ms Steele said a temporary replacement for the faulty 25-year-old underground cable “failed to hold”, leading to further delays after last week’s service suspensions.
V/Line cancelled services for 24 hours while engineers worked on the line between Lara and Little River stations.
Travellers heard on Tuesday they should expect “to add up to half an hour” to their trip if they used V/Line’s replacement bus services.
The company announced services had resumed “as normal” at midday Wednesday.
Public Transport Users Association’s Paul Westcott said the string of suspensions was “almost farcical”.
“I was using the trains on Tuesday when the suspensions were announced and people on the platform (at Southern Cross) seemed to react with resignation.
“I think commuters have just become used to hearing there are problems with the service.”
Mr Westcott said problems would continue until State Government ordered infrastructure upgrades.
“Because there’s more than one body in charge of public transport in Victoria there’s often a lot of blame-shifting going on when there are problems.”
“I’ve received a lot of complaints about the public transport system of late from people fed up with the lack of action.”
Mr Eren said Mr Mulder was failing to deliver his election promise that “the buck stops with him”.
University student Sri Constable said she spent two and a half hours travelling home after last week’s suspensions.
“Then yesterday I was told I had to go back to Southern Cross Station and catch the bus home because the trains stopped running.”
