A metro suburban train has derailed in the Clifton Hill Railway Station area closing both the Mernda and Hurstbridge Lines. The incident believed to have occurred around 22:30 Sunday evening has blocked the junction of two busy Melbourne railway lines.
The photos taken show a collapsed bogie where the wheels have detached from the train. There is damage to the side of the train and also to trackside infrastructure. Damage to the overhead power delivery can clearly be seen with wiring becoming slack above the train.
The media has been reporting there is a rail power issue in the area clearly this is a consequence of the derailment.
If the decision is made the only way to remove the broken rolling stock is a crane, then this will be a carefully managed effort considering where the train is located and it proximity Clifton Hill Railway Station.
At this stage it is not easy to see how the afternoon peak could be served by rail.
A further update to the incident has been filed. Train split, carriages removed and crane has arrived. The process has been rather slow and is approaching 48 hours since the derailment.
Hurstbridge Line Suspended
Buses replace trains between Parliament and Heidelberg due to an overhead power fault.
*Note – Buses are in operation between Heidelberg and Eltham due to planned works.
Replacement buses are in operation.
Allow an extra 45 minutes for your journey.
A train service will operate between Eltham and Hurstbridge, with delays to the service.
Consider alternative transport options.
Check information displays and listen for announcements.
wow, only 40 minutes maybe 2 days to fix, live in the rural regions where the shuts happen at the drop of the metro hat. I feel really sad that townies have 40 minutes added to their journey. I am talking about people that might have 1 to 2 hours added to their 3 and 1/2 hour journeys sometimes several times a year. What happened to the dolly bogies that fit under a defective bogie and diesel hauling of the same to clear the section, What happened to pilot working each side of the obstruction. If the power is It is cheaper to run a bus, that is why. I bet the metro chinese investers still get their returns!
The above message is 10 hours old so when did the accident occur?
Signal logging shows at 22:29:02 loss of detection on 121 Trainstop as it got destroyed by the train!
Why has it taken so long without any real progress on the cleanup?
They will probably get equipment in overnight when they can close the road around the rail line and the road under the bridge, just how will they get it in without taking down the wires?
The overhead as it is called can be taken down and put back overnight, Metro has pruned down and privatised that much they don’t care anymore about collateral damage ie the travelling public, its all about the chinese replublic investors that owns them. Ask V/line how much they pay metro rent to use metro tracks that are owned by the taxpayer for a taxpayer owned company, go figure, 10 years ago it was $40 million, cheers retired employee
It would seem so when you consider the carriage could have been dragged out on a new bogie avoiding all the cost. They are not interested in the very reason they exist which is to carry passengers.
Why did Metro Trains lie to the public about the gravity of the derailment? They only mentioned for two days running it was an equipment fault.
Public services should not be privatized, maybe it’d get fixed faster. I’ll take tipping culture over that any day of the week =)
The investigation should include why it has taken a week to fix a derailment. Then again it has taken years to fix the Echuca line and years to fix faults on other lines. Theme emerging?
It a big incident a train come off the track knock overhead down as well the stuachans and this will take a few days for Vic Track who oversees safeworking ops in Vic to sort out and metro centro, blackboxes for sparks driver activity before and after will be included in the investgations…..
Hopefully this will not hand balled for Metro to look at as they did with V/Line incident with the freight coming of near Geelong on the Standard Gauge as ARTC oversee this in Adel aswell as Vic Track!
Railpage on Facebook will be doing a live cross to the scene later tonight.
Well this going messy…..a derailment has occured a big investergation may take place, as they got rule out human error, lack of maintance, weather conditons and verfiy the black box of the driver’s activtiy before and after……to be considered….
for now TBA…..
1. Human error in maintance?
2.lack of maintance?
3.Weather conditons
4.Maintance programes of way and works
5. Train mechical failure of moving parts
6. Quality control of the work performed on train and who sign it off.
A mess for Vic Track to look at as well as Metropol…..
takes alot of force and energy for train wheels and bogies to climb few inches to come off the railhead…..
Thx for covering this incident the photos and commentary were excellent.