About 150 passengers were evacuated from a driverless metro train stuck in a tunnel at Hills Showground station on the M1 metro line on Saturday afternoon.
Internal communications by Fire and Rescue NSW obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald show the passengers were stuck on the train for about half an hour. The train was stuck in the tunnel towards the end of one of the platforms at the station.
Firefighters were called at 3.17pm to help evacuate the train. Firefighters were not aware of any medical issues with passengers, but the event was classified as a “rescue incident”.
It puts a dampener on what has otherwise been a smooth six days for the M1 metro line since the city section between Chatswood and Sydenham opened in the early hours of Monday.
The NSW Transport Management Centre said in an update on Saturday about 5pm: “Metro services are running again between Bella Vista and Castle Hill on the Metro North West & Bankstown Line after power supply issues at Hills Showground earlier.
“Buses had been replacing services between Bella Vista and Castle Hill. Passengers should continue to allow extra travel time, listen to announcements and check information displays for updates as services return to normal.”
The fully automated line is operated by Metro Trains Sydney, a private consortium led by Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation, John Holland and UGL.
Saturday’s incident comes six weeks after a system-wide outage left passengers stuck on trains in tunnels for two hours.
Sydney Morning Herald
