Community
17 July, 2026
Riordan slams delays caused by outage
MEMBER for Polwarth Richard Riordan has called out V/Line for poor service along the Warrnambool Line, which was worsened last week when a nation-wide Telstra outage stopped trains.
The outage, which affected millions last Wednesday, disrupted radio services for V/Line trains and forced passengers to either find an alternative way to travel or placed on replacement coaches.
Mr Riordan said the outage was a sign of the lack of resilience and planning along the Warrnambool Line.
“To July 11 this year, 26.5 per cent of services to Warrnambool will have been cancelled or replaced with buses – that’s more than a quarter of all services and not what the community expects,” he said.
“The V/Line service to Warrnambool should be considered one of the biggest lifestyle support services in south west Victoria.
“Communities should be benefitting from this service for tourism, health care, education and employment – and yet time and time again, services are being replaced with the far less desirable bus ‘milk runs’ that are slow, uncomfortable and tedious.
“The growing inconvenience of the Warrnambool service is reportedly having a serious impact on people’s health and health care.
“It’s causing disruption to students trying to get to classes, and increasingly people looking to take up new employment options in our region are not seeing the train service as a viable work option.”
One resident (who asked to remain anonymous) impacted by V/Line service pause spoke with Camperdown Chronicle, saying they were forced to miss a medical appointment due to the outage.
“I was planning to travel to Geelong from Camperdown on the 7.14am service from Warrnambool to Geelong,” the resident said.
“Due to delays in the service, I left the service as I would arrive too late for the appointment and I would not have been seen if I arrived at the clinic later than halfway through the appointment time.
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“The appointment at Geelong Hospital, which I have been waiting six months for, will be arranged with another six months wait.
“Due to V/Line’s lack of forward planning, I have to wait 12 months to see a specialist who my doctor asked for me to be a priority appointment.”
The resident said, while they were frustrated with the outage, they did not blame the staff working on the train.
“I would like to commend all the train staff and members of the Camperdown station staff on how they handled the situation,” the resident said.
“Keeping everyone informed and helping everyone in the best way possible – this was V/Line at its best.”
Mr Riordan said regional Victorians need and deserved a better rail service.
“I am calling on the Public Transport Minister to demand that V/Line do better and offer a higher level of service,” he said.
“The reporting of V/Line reliability excludes the fact that more than 25 per cent of the time the promised service is not delivered.
“Warrnambool Line service levels have plummeted in recent years with fewer seats available each week, no catering services, regular cramped and uncomfortable conditions and bus replacements happening more than 25 per cent of the time.
“We now learn that when Telstra doesn’t work, nor do our trains.”
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