The Government's failure to keep commuter trains operating is causing significant and unnecessary disruption throughout Wellington, National’s Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown says.

“Thousands of Wellington commuters have been left stranded or forced into overcrowded trains due to KiwiRail’s inability to plan for contingencies, causing significant delays for Wellingtonians commuting on the bus network too.

“Transport Minister Michael Wood needs to launch an urgent investigation into how KiwiRail has brought the entire Wellington rail network almost to a standstill.

“It is unacceptable that our capital city will have reduced train services because KiwiRail can’t organise itself properly.

“It just beggars belief that this has happened. Why does KiwiRail have just one track inspection car? Why was it broken and why wasn't it fixed earlier? Are other tracks at risk of speed restrictions too? Why weren't the appropriate track inspections done earlier?

“Michael Wood needs to apologise to Wellingtonians.

“A resilient and reliable public transport network is critical to getting people to leave their cars at home. This latest failure does nothing to help achieve that shift.”