Retired railway employee Barry Seghers, of Old Bar on the NSW Mid North Coast, raised the issue with the Manning River Times via a letter to the editor headed: "What's happening to our XPT services?"

Barry says Trainlink has been forced to stop running at least four regional train services and cancel some passenger services after the discovery of cracks in a critical component of the XPT fleet, the centre pins.

He claims management has known of the problem for "some three years or more", which is disputed by Sydney Trains, which is responsible for the maintenance of the XPTs.

A spokesperson for Sydney Trains said cracks in the centre pin of a diesel locomotive were identified in January 2018, with the locomotive removed from service.

"As the pin is a bespoke design with high quality requirements, Sydney Trains was required to go out to tender." Then it took more than a year to find a supplier.

"In April this year the contract was awarded to Bradken Limited to manufacture centre pin castings for the XPT fleet.

"The first two of 38 centre pins have been delivered to Sydney Trains and installed to replace the cracked pins in the locomotive, before returning it to service," the spokesperson said.

"The remaining centre pins will be delivered from early November, and will be progressively installed to replace the centre pins on the entire XPT fleet over the coming months as a matter of caution."

Sydney Trains said in total four XPT diesel locomotives have had cracked pins identified, with the locomotives removed from service. "These locomotives will be returned to service following the completion of all necessary and appropriate engineering assessments and actions."

Barry believes "it is just plain poor management."

"The government came under fire recently with Labor claiming it had known about a maintenance problem in the XPT fleet for at least three years," Barry said.

"Labor attacked over the issue, accusing the government of neglect of the network in allowing a wait of more than a year for replacement centre pins.

"And what is our local member, Stephen Bromhead doing about keeping our very popular XPT services running? The silence is deafening."

Barry said buses will be replacing XPT services on the North Coast until January 2020.

"Some of the blame can also be attributed to ARTC (Australian Rail Track Corporation) which is responsible for maintaining the track," he said.

"In December 2018 there were 389 speed restrictions throughout the State railway network. A month later in January 2019 the speed restrictions jumped to 492, an increase of 26 per cent."

These cancellations have caused a lot of inconvenience to the travelling public, especially the disabled who rely on these services, Barry said.

"How much extra is this costing the public purse by running buses and taxis?"

The Sydney Trains spokesperson said the XPT fleet undergoes thorough inspection every 42 days.

"During the procurement process for the replacement centre pins, all XPT services underwent regular inspections and maintenance, and were deemed safe to operate passenger services.

"Less mobile customers can still travel by train to or from Grafton by booking to travel on the Brisbane XPT. Customers should contact 13 22 32 to confirm their travel arrangements," the spokesperson said.

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