LITTLE River commuters have accused V/Line of leaving them stranded for almost two hours during a signal fault which caused the suspension of trains on the Geelong line for almost 24 hours from Tuesday afternoon.
Services resumed on Wednesday afternoon, but not before the train operator came under fire as commuters claimed a replacement bus failed to arrive in place of the scheduled 11.48am service.
Although the first train of the day left South Geelong at 12.23pm, it wasn’t due to stop at Little River.
The first train to stop at Little River didn’t arrive until 1.48pm.
V/Line spokesman James Kelly said two replacement buses arrived at Little River for the 11.48am service, but said nobody was waiting at the station.
However, between 11.30am and 12.15pm, the Weekly spoke to commuters waiting for the service, which they say failed to show.
One commuter, who asked not to be named, said she was furious the service hadn’t arrived because it meant a further 90 minute wait.
‘‘I was planning on going to my sister’s house in Newport, but now I’ll have to go home and come back to the station again later,’’ she said.
‘‘We didn’t hear anything about the trains not running … there should’ve been an announcement.’’
Mr Kelly said the drivers of the two replacement buses had maintained they stopped at Little River Station, but he was unable to answer the Weekly’s questions about when the last bus arrived.
Public Transport Users Association Geelong branch convener Paul Westcott criticised V/Line over its handling of crisis and for neglecting Little River commuters.
‘‘Little River is what we call a ‘wayside station’, where there are relatively few numbers, and they’ve been ignored or forgotten about in V/Line’s efforts to ensure the masses of commuters from bigger stations got where they needed to go,’’ he said.
‘‘Because Little River station is unstaffed, there was no way for stranded commuters to know about disruptions or replacement services.
‘‘It was a shambles, a hopeless situation. People were left in limbo.’’
On April 3, commuters were trapped on trains between Werribee and Little River for up to five hours after another fault on the line
V/Line chief executive Rob Barnett said the cause of both faults — a broken cable — had now been replaced.
‘‘Engineers will physically check every section of cable on the Geelong line over the next several weeks in addition to our periodical audits.’’
