‘Rare’ outage causes rush-hour delays
KiwiRail has launched an investigation into an ‘‘extremely rare’’ outage which caused delays on its rail services in Wellington.
Freight and metro train services were suspended when the system’s signals failed on Monday afternoon.
While the system was back online in less than 15 minutes, passengers on the Hutt Valley, Johnsonville, Kapiti, Melling and Wairarapa lines were delayed by as much as 40 minutes during rush-hour.
The signals reverted to fail-safe stop mode when the outage occurred.
A KiwiRail spokeswoman said an initial review was underway, but it wasn’t clear how long it will take to establish the cause of the incident.
She reiterated that ‘‘at no time was safety compromised.’’