Police have charged two men with allegedly damaging train infrastructure after wild train delays left tens of thousands of punters who attended the Matildas devastating game against England stranded at Sydney’s Olympic Park.
Police said officers were called to Ashfield station at about 11pm last night following reports of “malicious damage”, including cables in a railway signal box at Ashfield allegedly being cut, which Sydney Trains says affecting signalling equipment across the network.
A 33-year-old man was charged with aggravated break and enter commit serious indictable offence, endanger safety of person on railway, destroy or damage property, and enter enclosed land not prescribed premises without lawful excuse.
A 47-year-old man was charged with aggravated break and enter commit serious indictable offence, endanger safety of person on railway, destroy or damage property, possess housebreaking implements, possess prohibited drug, enter enclosed land not prescribed premises without lawful excuse, and breach of bail.
Police will allege in court that the two men broke into a restricted transport facility and damaged critical signalling infrastructure at the site.
The result of the alleged damage was utter chaos, as thousands of Tillies fans found themselves stranded at Sydney Olympic Park post-game because of the Sydney train delays.
It’s estimated 100,000 people attended Sydney Olympic Park that night, for either the Matildas game or a Luke Combs concert that was on.
So you can imagine the scenes as thousands crammed into the train station, families and kids in tow, to get home after the game. I imagine spirits were also a little low as it was given the Matilda’s heart-wrenching loss against England, 3-1.
I was devastated and a little cranky while just sitting on my couch afterwards — imagine having to contend with huge crowds to get home, too.
“It was an unfortunate incident that occurred and that’s an act of suspected vandalism that hit some of our critical signalling infrastructure at Ashfield. The timing couldn’t have been any worse,” Sydney Trains executive director Jas Tumber told ABC News.
“Initially you think it’s a problem with the signalling system, it’s a failure or a fault, [but] once the engineers arrived on site and saw the damage, it was an assessment and repair job, and it took about 90 minutes to get things moving again.”
An hour and a half!!
It took our poor editor Josie *three hours* to get home.
Trust Sydney Trains to fall apart on a night like this, with international visitors here to see just how much of a cluster-fuck our transport system is. Though I guess the network reckons this time, it is not to blame.
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