Free rides after Telstra woes hit the brakes on trains
Millions of commuters from the region will start the week with two days of free train travel after a nationwide Telstra outage brought services to a halt.
The communications regulator is investigating Telstra’s widespread network outage on Wednesday, which affected transport, businesses, emergency services and healthcare.
While telephone services were gradually restored throughout the day, Victoria’s regional railway ground to a halt by Thursday evening.
On Friday morning, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced V/Line travel would be free on Monday and Tuesday to make up for two days of transport chaos.
It comes after the state Labor leader issued an impassioned statement on Thursday night demanding Telstra compensate passengers forced to pay for thwarted travel plans.
“V/Line will compensate regional rail passengers who incur extra costs,” Ms Allan said.
“I expect Telstra to comply dollar for dollar.”
The outage was caused by a software issue affecting the nodes responsible for keeping time on Telstra’s mobile network.
All regional V/Line train services across Victoria are suspended as signaling systems are tested; Delays and cancellations continued into Thursday evening.
Some passengers had to spend Wednesday night in city hotels because there were not enough buses on the V/Line to replace more than 300 canceled trips.
On Thursday, the platforms at the train station were largely cleared of traffic, while passengers flocked to the bus terminal for a limited number of replacement services.
As service announcements were broadcast, V/Line staff were on hand to hand out snacks to families, couples and returning vacationers.
Old lady Pam Promnicz was having trouble returning to Warrnambool and was worried she had too many bags for the coach.
“I’d rather be on a train,” he told AAP.
Network engineer Brian Rigby said the outages could have been avoided if V/Line had not been connected to the Telstra network.
“When Telstra has outages, they are major outages,” he said.
“You wonder what will happen next time they go down and stay on the ground.”
On Thursday, Communications Minister Anika Wells said the Australian Communications and Media Authority had begun preliminary investigations into the outage.
In 2025, Ms. Wells increased penalties for telecommunications companies that violate triple-zero obligations to $30 million.
Telstra CEO Vicky Brady, who was traveling at the time of the outage, comes into the line of fire at a press conference in Sydney on Friday morning.
Former deputy prime minister Wayne Swan criticized the telecommunications giant’s corporate leadership and said they should be financially punished.
“There’s no doubt that bonuses for all executives will be at stake,” he told Nine’s Today programme.
“I’m confident the public will want to see fair accountability.”
AAP has contacted Telstra for comment.
