Metro Trains is investigating a potential defect in its newest train fleet – which operates exclusively through the city’s $15 billion Metro Tunnel – after an incident in February that left hundreds of commuters stranded in carriages for up to two hours.
Metro believes issues with the pantographs (the arm mounted on top of the train which contacts with overhead wires to draw power) on its new fleet of High-Capacity Metro Trains (HCMT) could cause overhead wire entanglements.
On February 3, an HCMT pulled down an overhead wire near Armadale, leaving around 600 passengers stuck onboard two trains for almost two hours without air-conditioning on a 30-degree day. Passengers eventually evacuated the train before walking along the tracks to Malvern station.
Metro has identified that the Armadale incident was caused by a pantograph fault, and an alert sent to drivers and seen by The Age suggests it may be an ongoing risk.
“Following recent HCMT pantograph entanglement incidents in the past few weeks, [Metro Trains Melbourne] are working with all relevant stakeholders to help identify abnormal pantograph behaviour,” the February 11 notice stated.
The notice said Metro was looking for pantographs bobbing up and down and excessively arching, which was “considered a potential contributing factor to recent entanglement events”.
One Metro Trains driver, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their employment, said overhead entanglements were unusual.
The driver said it was not possible to monitor the pantographs in the HCMTs, as Metro had requested, because unlike older train models they do not have driver cabin-side mirrors. Instead, they have rear-facing CCTV cameras focused on the train doors and do not capture the top of the train.
Not the first time this has occurred with an incident a couple of months ago near South Yarra brought the network to its knees. Nothing seems to work right in the rail network here in Victoria.