Last Tuesday evening, V/Line’s newest, shiniest V/Locity DMU was stopped for almost 30 minutes at Spotswood station, operating service number 8229, otherwise known as the 16:40 Southern Cross to Marshall. Passengers were told that the new unit – (running at the front of the three unit consist) – had become “uncoupled” from the two rearward units. Passengers near the driver’s cabin – (like myself) – could actually hear the radio chatter between driver, conductor, V/Line, and the Metrol control room. This revealed that the pneumatic line interconnecting between each unit to operate the brakes was the offending item that had become uncoupled.
Excellent – basically, a braking failure. On a brand new train.
Last night, the same brand new unit, scheduled to operate the exact same 8229 service, was declared defective, and pulled away from the other units at the platform, while another unit was sourced. The train therefore firstly became a late departure, and then an outright cancellation when a signal failure prevented all rail access to and from platforms 4 through 7. It was replaced with buses, with many passengers leaving Southern Cross around 50 minutes late.
The brand new unit in question is VL42, which entered service on the 23rd of July – less than two weeks ago. A two week old train, breaking down two nights in a row.
Victorian taxpayers spent almost one billion dollars and endured months of disruptions while these trains and the Regional Fast Rail project were delivered. That’s a lot of money for brand new trains that are breaking down left, right, and centre.
This morning, I travelled on service 8214 – (07:17 South Geelong to Southern Cross) – made up of a consist that contained VL33 as the front-most unit. VL33 is four years old, but returned to the factory in February this year to have its middle carriage added. One presumes it was inspected and serviced at that time.
I guess I was a little disturbed when I saw this at the rear of carriage 1133:
Sticky tape? Holding a wall panel on? I can appreciate that someone has tried to keep the train in service by doing a quick repair, but sticky tape?
Why are simple structural items like wall panels – on relatively new trains – even falling off at all? I for one, want to know where the one billion dollars went! Constantly failing trains. Constantly failing infrastructure.