Train controller sacked over safety incident on Newcastle-Sydney line

A rail signaller who incorrectly allowed a Newcastle-bound train onto a closed track while “possibly” distracted playing online games was sacked over the incident.

The Newcastle Herald reported on Monday that an Office of Transport Safety Investigations (OTSI) report tabled in NSW Parliament had shed light on a disturbing culture of signallers at Sydney Trains’ Homebush control centre using work computers to shop and play games when they were on shift.

The OTSI investigation followed an incident in January when the signaller allowed a train to enter a section of track at Cowan which should have been closed for maintenance, creating a “high risk of collision”.

The signaller failed to properly “protect” the track from train traffic despite giving verbal assurances to a manager that they had done so.

A Sydney Trains spokesperson said on Wednesday that the signaller had been sacked and the organisation had “increased enforcement” for employees not complying with its internet policies.

The Homebush manager told OTSI during the latest investigation that “after they had been made aware of the incident they observed a type of game open on the [signaller’s] work computer at their workstation”.

“The screen quickly went into screensaver mode as the [manager] approached and the [manager] was not able to identify what the game was,” the report said.

A Transport for NSW IT investigation found “evidence of activity on various news, games, social media, shopping and other non-related work sites and applications” on the workstation computer but, “due to the nature of the set-up of the computer, it was not possible to assign the usage to a particular person”.

The signaller later told the manager and investigators that they had not been playing the game at the time of the incident, but the manager described to investigators a “widespread culture among signallers of using the work computer to access non-work-related applications and sites during their shift”.

The OTSI report said the signaller had failed to read documents outlining the scheduled track closures in the hours before they were implemented “possibly due to inattention or distraction caused by the use of the signaller’s workstation computer for non-work-related purposes”.

The report said the signaller had been in the job for 18 years but had been involved in 16 recorded incidents between 2019 and 2023 that required coaching or other interventions.

The most serious of these incidents had involved the routing of two freight locomotives onto a closed track in western Sydney in 2020, when the signaller failed to set protecting signals to stop.

Asked if she had implemented new procedures to make sure signallers were focused on the job, Minister for Transport Jo Haylen said she was “pleased” Sydney Trains had investigated the incident.

“I know Sydney Trains takes any safety incident extremely seriously, and I’m pleased they immediately launched a safety investigation into the incident,” she said.

“Safety is our top priority, and we are constantly looking at ways we can make our railway, and the people who run it, safer.”

The Sydney Trains spokesperson said the organisation had proactively reported the incident to OTSI.

“Transport for NSW IT blocks countless non-work-related websites and are constantly looking for ways to proactively strengthen firewalls and manage internet access during work hours,” the spokesperson said.

“Sydney Trains has a policy that does not permit the use of mobile phones and devices for non-work purposes when on shift at signaller worksites and have increased enforcement for non-compliance.”

The OTSI report said 30 per cent of signallers at the Homebush control centre had received formal warnings for using personal devices, and the manager said many more had received informal warnings.

“The [manager] advised it was common for signallers to sit sideways facing their computers rather than facing their signalling operating panel,” the investigation report said.

“The [manager] called it ‘the sideways club’ and explained that [managers] saw it as an indication that non-compliance was possibly occurring.”

The OTSI report noted a fatal accident at Kogarah in 2010 when a train struck a worker at a time when the signaller “may have been using a personal laptop computer … while operating the signal panel”.