Rail passengers affected by this week’s statewide V/Line shutdown could soon get two days’ worth of free travel.
That pledge comes directly from Premier Jacinta Allan as the fallout continues from a communications bungle that saw trains unable to operate in regional Victoria.
Services on the Bendigo and Maryborough lines resumed on Thursday afternoon (July 9th) following “extensive testing of train radio communications”.
“Before resuming services, V/Line conducted its own testing and operational checks to ensure communications between network controllers and train crews were stable, continuous and reliable,” a V/Line spokesperson said.
“These tests were successful and confirmed that critical communications systems are operating at the level required for the safe operation of trains across the network.”
V/Line’s fleet ground to a halt on Wednesday morning after its communications system stopped operating, which was blamed on the nationwide Telstra outage.
In a statement, Ms Allan described the situation as “completely unacceptable”.
“V/Line trains stopped because the Telstra outage knocked out both the train radio system and interfered with the backup system,” the Premier said.
She went on to demand that Telstra compensate Victorians impacted by the fiasco, including those who were forced to pay for overnight accommodation.
“To start with, V/Line will reimburse regional rail passengers who incurred extra costs. I expect Telstra to match it, dollar for dollar,” she said.
“In addition, my government will fund two days’ free travel on V/Line – more detail on all this to come.”
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