Rats and fairy grass blamed for Ballarat's late trains

By Kim Quinlan and Meg Rayner
Updated November 2 2012 - 2:10pm, first published June 18 2010 - 1:58pm
Rats and fairy grass blamed for Ballarat's late trains
Rats and fairy grass blamed for Ballarat's late trains

GRASS and rats have been blamed for continuing the trend of late trains between Ballarat and Melbourne.V/Line clocked up its fifth consecutive month of late trains on the line in May.Only 89.9 per cent of services ran on time to five minutes, compared with 90.9 per cent the month before.Earlier this week, a build-up of fairy grass along the line near Bacchus Marsh caused the cancellation of four V/Line passenger trains on the Ballarat to Melbourne line.Strong winds that whipped through the state on Thursday blew fairy grass weed over the line at Parwan, near Bacchus Marsh, causing a film to build up on the tracks.Initially this forced the trains to slow down to 25km/h before a scrubber machine was used to clean the tracks.While several kilometres of track were being cleaned, four train services were cancelled. The 300 passengers on the trains at the time were bused to their destinations. Trains affected during the stoppage were the 1.08pm and 2.23pm services from Melbourne to Ballarat, the 1.13pm from Ballarat to Melbourne and the 12.10pm from Ararat, which was terminated at Bacchus Marsh.A V/Line spokesman said the fairy grass weed was an unusual problem for V/Line."It has never happened before and just proves the many challenges that are thrown at V/Line,'' spokesman James Kelly said.In April this year, about 800 metres of signal cables were replaced after rats chewed through the lines at Ballan."We have had problems with rats at Ballan before, so V/Line track workers have been going up and down the line poisoning the rats,'' Mr Kelly said."Different (V/Line) areas have different challenges, like livestock over the tracks and millipedes causing problems on the lines at Seymour. These are just some of the examples of what Mother Nature throws at us,'' Mr Kelly said.Opposition spokesman Terry Mulder said the delays were "adversely affecting'' Ballarat commuters, among other regional cities."With petrol prices at high levels of between $1.23 and $1.33 a litre in rural Victoria's major centres, V/Line is the most affordable way for commuters to reach jobs, education or medical facilities in Melbourne,'' he said."V/Line's disastrous unpunctuality results in employees, students and those with medical and hospital appointments having to continually explain why they are late.''However, Mr Kelly said the results were far from "disastrous''."The Ballarat line, for the most part, is our most reliable and best performing line, particularly during the cooler months," he said.

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