Sydney train delays: Communication issue stops all public transport, commuter chaos ahead

Sydney’s entire train network was grounded to a halt, throwing the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of commuters into chaos due to a ‘communication issue’. 

All trains stopped just after 3pm on Wednesday – with the computer screens at Central Station in the city’s CBD, which usually show stops and next trains coming, completely blank. 

Sydney Trains’ warnings for passengers to ‘expect delays’ early in the afternoon turned into blunt messages saying ‘trains are not running … please use alternate travel options when possible’. 

Transport NSW also warned that the issue would affect services throughout the afternoon and urged commuters to allow plenty of extra travel time. 

There was similar chaos at Wynyard Station where travellers were turned away from the gates due to the network being down.

The screens at Central Station were completely blank on Wednesday afternoon

One station attendant told a Herald reporter that the such an issue had ‘never happened before’.

One woman said on Twitter that her brother, who is a train driver, advised her that all communications were down and there was a major outage.

She said that he had gone to work ‘two hours ago’ to start his shift as a driver and was still stuck on the train waiting to get to his destination. 

Anyone hoping to escape the train chaos and get an Uber instead was also in for bad news with prices surging well above their normal levels. 

The outage has jacked up the prices of Ubers, with trips across Sydney costing commuters up to $90. 

One commuter posted a screenshot of one trip from the middle of the city to Bondi that was charging $88.21.

More buses are heading into the city to take train commuters left in limbo.

There was chaos at Wynyard Station (pictured) where travellers were turned away from the gates due to the network outage

The outage has seen prices surged for Ubers, with trips across Sydney costing up to $90

The NSW Shadow Transport Minister, Jo Haylen, blasted the Perrottet government over the outage. 

‘The Liberal government’s neglect of our existing train network has left old infrastructure that breaks down too often, and when it does, the entire network is disrupted leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded,’ she said in a statement.

‘Our existing rail network needs investment. It needs new rolling stock and new infrastructure. Instead the Liberals have neglected it and ran it down.’

‘Labor will invest in our train network so it gets passengers from A to B. The Liberals have neglected it and there’s a real risk that they would privatise it’

Former political advisor Eamonn Fitzpatrick said the mass outage did not bode well for Dominic Perrottet, given the NSW state election is less than three weeks away.

‘This is the Dominic Perrottet’s worst fear,’ he said on Sky News. 

‘State governments are about service delivery. With people all stuck together, it doesn’t take them long to start thinking about your performance.’

Trains have started running again, well over an hour after the outage began.

More to come.