KiwiRail cites humidity, weather for Auckland train cancellations

• There were major train cancellations in Auckland on Friday morning due to an issue with overhead lines.
• AT said it would meet with senior KiwiRail executives on Friday afternoon to discuss the issue.
• KiwiRail said electrical arcing was discovered between overhead power lines in Auckland’s Newmarket area at 4am.
• AT called the cancellations “hugely disappointing and frustrating”.

KiwiRail has pinned Friday morning’s Auckland train chaos on humidity and weather conditions.

The national rail operator has also apologised after numerous services were cancelled on Auckland’s Southern, Eastern, Western and Onehunga lines on Friday morning.

“Shortly before 4am we were advised of electricity arcing from overhead electric lines under the Broadway overbridge and we had to turn the power off to investigate. 25,000 volts run through the overhead lines.

“Our people had to make that call and I support their decision. Though it caused disruption, the safety of passengers and the public has to be our top priority,” KiwiRail chief operations officer Siva Sivapakkiam said.

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High humidity and weather had resulted in grime/dust getting into the insulator and had caused the electricity to arc.

The arcing happened before 4am on Friday. Stuff understands no electric computer trains operate overnight.

Crews were mobilised by 4.15am, with the train operator contacted at 4.25am, before power being restored by 8.15am after the insulator was cleaned.

“The short amount of time between the fault being discovered and commuter trains starting this morning seriously limited Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail’s ability to put alternate public transport in place,” Sivapakkiam said.

Insulators across Auckland are inspected every six months and cleaned annually. The site was last visually inspected in December last year and cleaned in July, KiwiRail has confirmed.

Shortly after 6am, Auckland Transport (AT) said all Eastern and Southern line services were currently cancelled between Ōtāhuhu and Briotmart. Western line and Onehunga line services were also cancelled.

At 11.15am, AT said train services across the network had returned to normal schedule, but a Stuff reporter waiting for a western line service into the city, said no trains had arrived since 10am.

The “significant fault” was due to issues with KiwiRail’s overhead power lines at Grafton, AT Group Manager Metro Services Darek Koper said.

“Unfortunately there will still be flow-on cancellations and delays all morning as a result of the enormous disruption to our services so far.

“Tens of thousands of Aucklanders rely on our rail network every day. It’s hugely disappointing and frustrating that we’re not able to operate our services as usual.”

Because of the short notice, Koper said AT could only arrange a few rail replacement buses.

“We will be seeking more detailed answers from KiwiRail about the cause of this morning’s outage.”

Auckland Transport said it would meet with KiwiRail senior executives on Friday afternoon to discuss the issue.

KiwiRail chief operations officer Siva Sivapakkiam said around 4am electrical arcing was found between overhead power lines in Auckland’s Newmarket area.

“For safety reasons, power to the overhead lines had to be turned off between Penrose, Swanson and Britomart – so the electric commuter trains couldn’t operate.”

National MP Simeon Brown said in a tweet the news was “devastating” for Auckland commuters.

“KiwiRail needs to urgently explain what has gone wrong here and when this will be fixed. People quite simply won’t use public transport if it isn’t reliable.”

Earlier this week, a track checking train was broken in Auckland, causing significant delays to train services in Wellington as tracks couldn’t be checked.

Due to “unforeseen technical issues” with the track evaluation car, KiwiRail could not do the necessary inspections on the Kāpiti Line at the start of May when it was due.