Lemons on rails

New trains riddled with more than 100 defects

NEW trains brought in for the Commonwealth Games have more than a hundred faults, including door controls and braking, and may not be ready by next April.

An internal inquiry by German rail operators Deutsche Bahn is brutal in its findings about the rollout of the New Generation Rollingstock units and recommends Queensland Rail finds a back-up plan.

“At the time of interviewing (Queensland Rail staff), there were 140 deficiencies, including door control and brake control, that needed rectifying in the NGR commissioning process,” the report said.

“There appears to be a blockage in resolving the issues with the remaining deficiencies.”

Eighteen new trains were needed to service the Games timetable but that number could change given agreement had yet to be reached on services, the report said.

“There is a tight commissioning schedule for NGR trains as two to three are planned to be commissioned every month,” the report added.

Given the problems and the high risk of failures with the new trains “a conservative view would be that the 18 NGR trains will not be ready by 2018”.

Consultants also believed not enough train crews would be ready and given older trains might be used there was an increased risk of delays due to failures.

Before the report was tabled in Parliament yesterday, Opposition transport spokesman Andrew Powell asked Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk how she could maintain “optimism” about Games services being delivered.

Mr Powell said the older trains had “contributed to 84 per cent of major rail fails over the past 12 months”.

Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Jackie Trad said the report confirmed QR had state-of-the-art risk management and response mechanisms in place.

“What this report shows is that our plans to fix the trains is working,” she said.

THERE APPEARS TO BE A BLOCKAGE IN RESOLVING THE ISSUES. CONSULTANTS’ REPORT

Opposition leader Tim Nicholls tabled several copies of the Bulletin, one including a front-page story where Labor backbencher Bruce Saunders said transport planning for the Games was a “debacle”.

LNP frontbencher and Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates asked the Premier if a guarantee could be given about the 18 new trains being available for the Games. “We are entirely optimistic we will have those new trains – always optimistic,” the Premier replied.

Burleigh MP Michael Hart asked the Premier if train services would have to be cut on other lines because the new trains would not be available.

Ms Palaszczuk said the Government was working to resolve several issues and about 130 staff had been assigned to the task.