Ongoing, illegal and dangerous protest activity on the Australian Rail Track Corporation’s (ARTC) Hunter Valley rail lines is placing the public, protestors, and emergency services and rail staff lives at risk.
Despite the concerns for safety raised by ARTC publicly, the illegal activities of protestors since Tuesday in the rail corridor has been increasingly dangerous.
Whilst recognising people’s right to protest; protesters trespassing in a live rail corridor can be fatal and puts themselves, our rail workers, the travelling public and train drivers at risk of serious harm.
ARTC takes its duty of care very seriously to ensure the safety of everyone in the rail corridor, and as of Saturday, ARTC wrote to Blackade Australia and its management to formally request the cessation of the illegal activity.
ARTC put in place mitigation measures overnight for all rail operations to reduce the risk associated with protestors entering illegally.
Unfortunately, this has meant extensive delays to all rail services, including passenger services that many of the travelling public rely on whilst these illegal activities continue.
Delays in movement of services, whilst protestors are removed from the rail corridor by emergency services, have been in the vicinity of an hour to several hours.
There has been extensive cancellations of rail services since Tuesday, including 111 pre-cancelled passenger services.
ARTC encourages passenger commuters to check real time transport apps for the latest information.
(Story supplied by the ARTC)
