00:01Freight services are still paused across the country according to the Australian Rail Track Corporation
00:07but spare a thought as well for passengers on the overland heading to Melbourne this morning
00:12who were forced to disembark the train and shuttled onto buses
00:16in order to minimise disruptions to their itineraries.
00:19We understand that at least 200 people missed their scenic rail journey
00:24but there was some good news for people on the GAN heading to Alice Springs.
00:28The train taking off just after 9.30am after falling behind a day.
00:34Some people were getting a little bit impatient however
00:36and decided to find other ways of getting to Alice Springs and avoid any further disruptions.
00:43Here's what one pair of travellers had to say this morning about the situation on board.
00:48Well I've got a tour booked out of Alice Springs tomorrow and I didn't want to miss that
00:53so decided that we'd fly up this afternoon.
00:56Now the reason rail services have been disrupted is because of what's known as the National Train Communication System
01:04which essentially helps trains communicate to their respective control centres
01:10and crucially relies on Telstra to operate and there were concerns that any potential mobile disruptions
01:17could pose a safety risk for people on board.
01:21The latest update we've received just before noon is that operations are progressively returning to normal
01:28with priority being given to restoring service for commercial passengers.
01:33The ARTC says it expects business as usual to fully resume later on Thursday
01:39with the focus now returning to Telstra and this outage which has affected more than 11 million customers across the
01:48country
01:48not to mention the wider fallout we've seen over the past 24 hours.
01:52The ARTC says it's only the same way as usual that we are currently running and strongly are just the
01:55same way as possible as possible as possible as possible as possible.
01:55You
Comments