A bad

PEAK-HOURcommuters heading into the city from Newport Station will lose a busy morning train service after train operator Connex cancelled services because of safety concerns.
Connex last week announced the “indefinite cancellations” of dozens of morning and afternoon train services on lines across Melbourne, after problems with the brakes were detected on 37 Siemens trains.
The 7.51 morning service from Werribee to the city was among the cancellations, a popular morning express train that stops at busy Newport Station.
Connex spokesman Andrew Cassidy said withdrawing so many trains from service meant that Connex now “didn’t have enough trains to run the (Melbourne metropolitan) timetable”.
He said it was hoped the indefinite cancellations would bring “a little more certainty” to commuters, who have been dealing with up to 80 service cancellations a day since January because of the problems with the Siemens trains.
“Rather than (cancelling train services) on an ad hoc day-by-day basis …we’re trying to make it planned and give people a little bit more certainty so if they know a train is cancelled they can go for an earlier or later one,” Mr Cassidy said.
“We’re trying to spread that around the network so that there is a fair spread across all lines and all customers.”
Kate Wentworth, from Newport, a regular user of morning peak-hour trains at Newport Station, said the cancellation of even one morning train to the city would affect commuters.
“There are other trains you can catch before and after this one …but losing one of the most-used morning trains will just make the other trains busier,” she said.
“It’s already busy enough at Newport in the mornings.”

Another Newport Station regular, Tim Southwell, said the uncertainty surrounding train safety was more important than public convenience.
“The cancellation of this service will make things more difficult for a lot of people, including me, but there is a bigger picture here, safety. I would rather they fixed the trains than run a service that is not safe.”
Mr Cassidy said Connex had no clear timeline as to when the Siemens trains would be back in service, meaning commuters might have to get used to reduced services.
“We don’t have an estimate and it would be counterproductive to give people a guesstimate that might turn out to be wrong,” he said.
Alex Makin, vice-president of the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA), said the train cancellations showed that “the Government has completely lost its grip on the handling on Melbourne’s public transport system”.
“The Government’s lucky that there are no serious incidents given that they had known about the breaking issues for the last few years,” he said.
“The reason why we’re in this state is that no back-up trains were available to provide some level of service … there’s no back-up or alternative in place.”
Mr Makin said the train withdrawals and continuing safety concerns showed that privatising the public transport system had not worked.
“We’re encouraging the Government to either take back complete control or certainly ensure that if there is a private operator that the Government dictates the terms and not the other way around.
“It is a definite blow to Melbourne’s West given that western Melbourne is one of Melbourne’s fastest growing urban regions, and it’s also the area that the Government’s said that they want to concentrate urban growth within.”
Mr Cassidy said Connex was working with Siemens engineers and local and overseas experts in an effort to quickly fix the problem.
“There are perhaps 50 different issues in the train that have been identified that may play some part because it is a highly complex problem,” he said.
“It’s not something Siemens has experienced anywhere else in the world.”

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