Melbourne trains cancelled again

Victoria's embattled Transport Minister Lynne Kosky's plan to put on extra staff and stand-by buses to ease the strain on Melbourne's rail network had little impact on Monday.

More than 50 trains were cancelled on Monday, the first working day back after over
100 services were called off during peak hour last week.
Fifteen of those cancelled services left thousands of commuters hot and stranded on
city stations in the evening peak as they tried to make their way home, while nine
morning peak hour city-bound trains were called off.
As temperatures hit 35 degrees, rail operator Connex offered frustrated commuters a
free iceblock as compensation.
The heat was blamed for many of last week's cancellations and also contributed to
Monday's failures, but the system has also been plagued by signal faults,
air-conditioning problems and vandalism.
Commuters, however, will need more than iceblocks to ease their frustrations as
temperatures in Melbourne are expected to sit in the mid-30s for the rest of the
week.
Ms Kosky told reporters she had met Connex on Monday morning and put contingency
plans in place to cope with the heat.
"Connex and the department are working very closely together to make sure that we
can respond quickly," Ms Kosky said.
"Commuters have a right to expect they can get to their destination on time.
"That's why they use public transport and our response is to make sure we can
deliver on that."
Ms Kosky said Connex would have staff on stand-by. Buses would also be on call in
the event of train cancellations.
Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu dismissed the response as spin and stepped up
pressure on Ms Kosky to be sacked.
"Lynne Kosky, her time's been up for some time and she should have gone ages ago,"
he said.
"She's hanging on for the spin, the advertising and to prop up the government and
it's failing commuters."
But Ms Kosky said she was not going anywhere.
"Public transport is a tough portfolio all around Australia," she said.
"That's why I asked for public transport and I absolutely intend to stay in this
portfolio."
Ministerial colleague Daniel Andrews threw his support behind Ms Kosky but would not
say if she had the government's support to remain in the portfolio in the lead-up to
next year's election.
"To be clear, Lynne is a first-class minister, she is a valued member of the team, a
senior member of the team and is working extremely hard to deliver the best possible
public transport to every single Victorian," he said.