Regional rail passengers across Victoria face a second consecutive day without train services, after a major nationwide Telstra outage knocked out V/Line's radio communications system, cancelling more than 300 services and leaving up to 10,000 passengers stranded during school holidays. V/Line confirmed on Wednesday evening that disruptions would continue through the night and into Thursday morning, with no clear end in sight.
Services suspended into Thursday as V/Line urges passengers to make their own way home
The outage began before 6am on Wednesday, when V/Line's train tracking radio system — which relies entirely on Telstra's network — went offline. As a safety measure, trains were immediately halted across the network: if the control room cannot confirm a train's location, it is stopped on the spot. Most trains managed to reach their next station before communications failed, but some were left stranded on the tracks while crews awaited clearance to move.
By 5.05pm, after earlier hopes of restoring an afternoon peak service, V/Line issued a blunt update to passengers: "Services continue to be impacted following the national Telstra outage. This includes all services tonight and tomorrow morning. Passengers are advised to defer travel where possible."
Passengers attempting to leave Southern Cross Station on Wednesday evening were told there were insufficient replacement buses and that they should find their own way home. A loudspeaker announcement advised commuters: "We're suggesting all customers make their own way home with your own transport." Those who remained were warned of a two-to-three-hour wait for a replacement bus.
V/Line has since confirmed that customers delayed by at least 60 minutes are eligible to apply for compensation.
No backup system left the network exposed
V/Line chief executive William Tieppo, speaking to reporters at midday, explained that the operator accesses Telstra's network through a national contract between Telstra and the Australian Rail Track Corporation — the federal government body that manages long-distance rail infrastructure. That arrangement prevented V/Line from independently establishing a backup connection with an alternative carrier.
"That's something that we rely on Telstra to do for us, and obviously, that hasn't occurred this morning," Tieppo said. He acknowledged the network should explore alternatives and committed to a "deep dive" with the rail corporation on other options.
The situation was further complicated when V/Line found itself unable to contact bus companies to arrange replacement coaches during the outage — the very communications breakdown that caused the rail disruption also hampered efforts to fix it. The operator did not have enough buses on hand to cover the cancelled services regardless.
Victorian minister Nick Staikos said the government would investigate why a backup system was not in place. "I would expect that we would minimise disruptions to Victorians as much as we possibly can," he said.
Triple Zero calls dropped as outage causes wider chaos
The rail network was far from the only casualty of the Telstra outage, which caused widespread disruption across the country. In Victoria, police conducted welfare checks on 32 people who had attempted to call Triple Zero but could not get through. By 4.30pm, officers had reached 20 of those callers and found no major issues.
Commuters bear the brunt of the breakdown
For many passengers, the disruption meant hours of improvised travel. One commuter travelling from Mount Duneed, near Geelong, saw his usual 90-minute trip stretch to four hours. His train was held outside Tarneit at around 6.15am when communications collapsed, and passengers received little information from staff who themselves had limited knowledge of the situation.
"They really didn't know anything unfortunately, they could only tell us what they knew and that was clearly not much," he said.
He eventually boarded a local bus to the nearby metro station at Williams Landing and changed trains twice more before reaching his workplace. With no resolution expected before Thursday morning, thousands of regional Victorians face yet another difficult commute ahead.
