Auckland rail disruption: Southern line now 'fully operational'

Thursday, 13 February 2020

Part of Auckland's Newmarket train station was off limits due to reduced services following a Kiwi Rail signalling fault.

Three days after a fire at a rail signal box disrupted services across Auckland train lines, one line has been reopened.

A fire in a box containing signalling switchgear struck early on Monday morning. As of Wednesday, the Southern and Onehunga lines remained significantly disrupted.

On Wednesday evening, KiwiRail advised it was on track with repairs and testing of the damaged signal box, and estimated the Southern line would reopen in both directions about 4.30am on Thursday.

At 6.10am, Auckland Transport advised the signal box had been fixed and the Southern line had reopened.

The signal box fire has caused delays and disruptions across the Auckland rail network since Monday (file photo).

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'All services are operating to a normal timetable,' it said.

The incident was the third major signal failure in Auckland in a year on a network run by state-owned KiwiRail.

Earlier, group chief operating officer Todd Moyle told Stuff getting things back up and running would be a 'lengthy process': involving cleaning the smoke-affected site, replacing the damaged components and carrying out extensive safety testing.

Moyle said the failure was in one of hundreds of similar boxes across Auckland, but the wide impact was due to its location near the Newmarket junction of the western and southern lines.

KiwiRail publicly apologised in January 2019 after a three-hour shutdown when a signalling system and its back-up both failed.

A further signal failure in June left commuters stranded for more than an hour, and in the same month some services were cancelled over a period of days due to accelerated work to replace worn rails.