Telstra outage strands V/Line passengers and disrupts Triple Zero calls

A nationwide Telstra outage on Wednesday halted regional rail services in Victoria and prevented some emergency calls from connecting. , affecting up to 10,000 passengers during school holidays. The rail operator lacked enough buses to replace the cancelled services and could not contact bus companies during the outage.

m. it advised passengers that services would not resume until the next morning.

Emergency services response Police conducted welfare checks on 32 people in Victoria who had called Triple Zero but could not get through. , officers had checked on 20 of those callers and found no major issues, a spokesman said. Ambulance Victoria faced difficulty connecting some Triple Zero callers with triage services.

Callers with lower-priority conditions were referred to call-back services, Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said. Some paramedics also reported issues with pagers and relaying ECG transmissions to hospitals.

Passenger accounts and compensation Passengers attempting to travel from Southern Cross station on Wednesday evening were told there were not enough replacement buses and were advised to make their own way home. Those delayed by at least 60 minutes can apply for compensation, the rail operator announced.

V/Line accessed Telstra’s network through a national contract with the Australian Rail Track Corporation and did not have a back-up system. Tieppo said the operator would review options with the rail corporation, while Victorian minister Nick Staikos said the government would investigate why V/Line lacked a back-up network.