Sydney train delays an 'act of God'

Thousands of Australian commuters in Sydney faced major delays over the past two days owing to a shortage of train drivers and three lightning strikes that damaged parts of the railway system, in what the New South Wales (NSW) transport minister on Wednesday called "an act of God."

Train delays occurred across the network with trains running less frequently and stopping patterns changing at short notice due to staff availability and "earlier incidents," the transport organization Sydney Trains said. 

A few hours later, the state-funded Sydney Trains tweeted that services were "returning to normal after earlier staff availability issues. The team will be back from 6 a.m." 

Many commuters called for free travel as compensation for the hours-long delays that caused some people to miss flights, but NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said none would be given.

"It's an act of God when you have three lightning strikes take out substations, train routes and signaling," Constance said. "Coupled with the fact that we've had to put more trains and more services on to cater for Sydney's growth, I'm not shying away from apologizing for what happened in the last 48 hours, but the train timetable has operated well for the past month and a half."

NSW government's priorities 'wrong'

The NSW government introduced a new, busier train timetable on November 26 last year, adding more than 1,500 extra services per week and a minimum 15-minute service frequency across most of the day for 71 percent of stations.

On Twitter, the NSW opposition Labor Party said NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian's priorities were "wrong" and that "This new train timetable isn't worth the paper it was written on."

NSW will head to the polls for state elections in March next year.

Sydney commuters also took to Twitter to vent their frustrations with the transport system, with one commuter jokingly asking the transport minister if he should leave work the day before to get there on time.

'Under-resourced, under-prepared'

State Secretary for the NSW Rail, Tram and Bus trade union Alex Claassens said he was "very disappointed" at the "shambolic state" of the transport system.

"The person to blame for this is quite clearly the NSW transport minister," Claasens said at a press conference. "He introduced a timetable that we were just not ready for, under-resourced, under-prepared, and now we're seeing the fruits of that."

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While some people have called for the old train timetable to be put back in place following the chaos, Classens said this was unrealistic and Sydney needed more trains.

"The problem is they've gone ahead and made promises for all these new trains when the growth trains aren't ready yet, so they've had to bring trains out of mothballs, there's no spare trains in the system and there's no spare drivers and guards, so of course it's going to be a problem when people get sick and tired and fatigued," he said.

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These so-called growth trains are the centerpiece of Sydney's "More Trains, More Services" program. The NSW government has ordered 24 of the trains, which are double-decked, and are scheduled to take to the tracks in late 2018.

The government has projected customer numbers to increase 21 percent by 2021.