Wellington train fault fixed but too late to change timetable - KiwRail

KiwiRail has fixed a fault which led to major disruptions of Wellington train services.

Specialist engineering staff got the signalling fault fixed around midnight but it was too late to change this morning's timetable, KiwiRail chief executive David Gordon said.

He told Morning Report the problem was with the signalling cards in the field.

KiwiRail couldn't track the fault yesterday and the manufacturer didn't recognise the error codes, he said.

"When something like this happens, the fault could be in one of four places, software in the centre, software in the field, hardware in the field or the comms between them."

The cards had worked loose but having been in place for ten years there was no reason they should have failed, he said.

The train operator would decide when services return to normal, but he was expecting that to happen late morning or early afternoon.

"It's been an incredibly frustrating 24 hours, for the commuter particularly because yesterday's weather was absolutely abysmal so to be stuck in that - we're really sorry about that.

Metlink general manager Samantha Gain said a Saturday daytime timetable was being run on the Hutt Valley and Kāpiti line - with trains running every 30 minutes rather than every 15 minutes.

All Porirua, Plimmerton and Taita services were cancelled.

There were no rail replacement buses running.

"We've got maybe a quarter of the trains the we would usually have at this time of the day."

People should look at alternative transport, Gain said.