Commuters were briefly left waiting at train platforms in Auckland once again this morning, with services halted across the city.
Disruptions to rail services have become commonplace this summer with services cancelled or delayed several times recently.
It happened again on Thursday with Auckland Transport (AT) briefly suspending all rail services because of a KiwiRail track issue.
This latest disruption left city councillor Richard Hills flabbergasted, posting on X that KiwiRail needs to "up their game urgently".
"I'm not an engineer but surely there's a better way to manage a track issue than closing down an entire network," Hill said on X in response to AT's tweet about briefly suspending trains.
"Govt only just invested $330m to finally upgrade track network but it feels less resilient than before."
An AT spokesperson told Newshub that most trains had resumed by 9:03am. They blamed a "signaling issue" for the cancellations.
As of 10am, all Onehunga Line services remained suspended.
"Because trains were held in place during this period it will take some time for us to get our services back running to their usual timetables," the spokesperson said.
"We'll need to move our trains and crews to the right location to start their next timetabled trips."
Ongoing disruptions
It's not the first time Auckland commuters have faced disruptions due to train cancellations.
Several trains on different days have been cancelled or delayed recently due to "heat".
AT director of public transport services and active modes Stacey van der Putten said at the time the cancellations put it in place by KiwiRail due to hot tracks were disappointing.
"These speed restrictions would be unlikely to be needed today if the Auckland rail network was not vulnerable because of numerous known faults."
KiwiRail said it would be carrying out an "aggressive plan" to fix the issues.
Auckland trains have been hit with chronic delays and cancellations over the past few weeks, with Auckland Transport saying it's largely out of their control.
One person even complained they were trapped on a motionless train for half an hour.
