“We are working extremely hard to resume services,” he said.
The cancellations began after a bogie – a series of four wheels – on the fifth carriage of a city-bound train with 55 passengers on board came partly off the rails on Sunday night. The carriage hit a trackside stanchion (a rail pillar), causing significant damage and the train’s pantograph – the antenna-like structure – became entangled in overhead wires.
No one was injured. A crane was used at the site on Tuesday afternoon to remove the derailed carriage, allowing Metro Trains to assess the extent of the expensive damage.
“We had to commission a special crane to come in and lift that away from the site. But obviously, it was a very complex operation,” O’Flaherty told 3AW.
Safety investigators are probing the cause of a train derailment as repairs continue on the track.
Rail Safety Consulting director Phillip Barker, who has investigated scores of derailments over his 45-year career, said it was difficult to be sure what caused the derailment until the full investigation was completed.
However, Barker reviewed photographs from the scene and said it was unusual for a bogie to be so significantly damaged in a derailment. The photos show it twisted out from underneath the carriage.
“It’s obviously hit something, or it’s travelled some distance [after derailing],” he said.
Barker said derailed trains usually remained in reasonably close alignment with the tracks, but in this case, the carriage swung out far enough to hit a stanchion, which are at least a metre from the tracks. “So there’s something else going on that drives it sideways,” he said.
“It looks like a textbook derailment but the consequences – how the bogie is so skew-whiff and how the coach has collided with a stanchion – that’s unusual. It’s not often you see that sort of thing.”
The Department of Transport and Planning said Hurstbridge Line passengers will need to use buses between Eltham and Parliament stations, while Mernda Line passengers will use buses between Reservoir and Parliament until the last service on Sunday.
Buses had already been operating on the Hurstbridge Line between Heidelberg and Eltham due to planned works, which will continue until Thursday, July 24.
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