PTA says it has fixed problems after train de-wiring TRAIN CHAOS: Commuters told PerthNow how they feared injury when the power lines fell. A DANGEROUS train de-wiring on the Joondalup line last year was potentially inevitable because of the systems in place in the days leading up to it, the Public Transport Authority has conceded. The PTA has moved to assure commuters it has fixed all of the issues that led to the October 3 2012 incident where a 25,000 volt power cable snapped near the Stirling train station after the train's pantograph was damaged, the superstructure that connects to train car to the power cables. Cables whipped the train and caused commuter chaos and distress during the break down, leading to services between Whitfords and Stirling stations being suspended for days. An investigation in to what caused the commuting disaster discovered that there were shortages of maintenance and engineering staff, poor training and irregular engineering procedures. This afternoon, PTA managing director Mark Burgess said the authority was completely responsible for what happened. "When you look at the incident as it occurred, the particular equipment used and the isolation had been there for a number of days, it was potentially inevitable, that this might occur," he said. We are taking this on the chin, there was a mistake was made by some very dedicated staff who were trying to do the right thing. The isolation could have occurred without incident and we could have run trains to Leederville, their intention was to try and run trains out to Stirling, so that less passengers were disrupted during these night time stoppages. The procedures used in the days leading up to the cable snapping have now been banned. Mr Burgess said since October maintenance and staffing systems had been overhauled. "A range of factors were involved, we've addressed every one of those factors, we continue to address some, I guess if I'm trying to sum up the key ones - the type of isolation that's conducted, the equipment used, the technique, the procedure, we don't use that anymore at all," he said. It was devised by some senior staff who thought they were doing the right thing but it was not a procedure that we would normally follow. He said the PTA had even recruited staff from overseas to fill the highly skilled area of engineering. Across the engineering field, 23 people have been recruited and there were still two key vacancies left. The site-crew that maintains the overhead cabling has gone from 21 staff members to 31. Today the State Rail, Tram and Bus Union secretary Paul Robinson said the report showed the dangers to the public resulting from a "chronic poor safety culture within the rail industry." "The report shows that this was not just one person making a mistake," he said. It shows there were a litany of mistakes based on under-staffing, poor training and overwork. We were very lucky that no one was injured or killed.