{"id":192303,"date":"2025-10-05T22:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T22:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/192303\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T22:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T22:51:08","slug":"electromagnetic-interference-blamed-after-train-drivers-trapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/192303\/","title":{"rendered":"Electromagnetic interference blamed after train drivers trapped"},"content":{"rendered":"

The $15 billion project is expected to open to passengers \u201clater this year\u201d with a soft launch using limited, off-peak services.<\/p>\n

Premier Jacinta Allan has so far refused to give a firm opening date for a full-service timetable, not expected to be implemented until February.<\/p>\n

Testing is under way and has included trials of services running as frequently as every three minutes in each direction.<\/p>\n

However, the executive project director of the new tunnel, Ben Ryan, confirmed on Sunday when asked by The Age that a lengthy shutdown during testing on September 8 was \u201crelated to electromagnetic interference\u201d or EMI.<\/p>\n

EMI is when magnetic fields created by electricity disrupts the use of other devices.<\/p>\n

The interference is an issue for many projects in urban environments, but has been a particular headache for the construction of the Metro Tunnel because of sensitive equipment, such as MRI machines and scanners.<\/p>\n

The equipment is crucial to the work of medical and research facilities clustered around the new Metro Tunnel station at Parkville, with tens of millions of dollars spent trying to shield machines or move equipment to other locations.<\/p>\n

Victoria also abandoned its plans for a major hospital precinct<\/a> at the future Arden station, in North Melbourne, because of the cost of addressing EMI.<\/p>\n

Authorities have also sought to reduce the current of the electricity running through the railway, which an Auditor-General\u2019s report flagged could be reduced further.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

However, last month\u2019s incident is the first time that EMI issues had emerged publicly in relation to activities within the tunnel itself.<\/p>\n

The Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority would not provide details about the incident at the time, with a spokesperson previously saying the shutdown was the result of a \u201cprocedural\u201d issue.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Ryan initially described the fault as \u201cjust a technical issue\u201d. However, after repeated questioning from The Age, he ultimately confirmed the fault was EMI-related.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was related to electromagnetic interference, but we\u2019ve sorted that out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got agreement with all the hospitals that the electromagnetic interference issue at Parkville that we\u2019ve dealt with over a very long period of time, has been accepted by the three hospitals in Parkville (The Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Royal Women\u2019s Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre), so it\u2019s not going to affect the opening of the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The $15 billion project is expected to open to passengers \u201clater this year\u201d with a soft launch using…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-192303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}