Melbourne commuters have had a painful start to their day, with the entire Metro train system coming to a standstill at 8:45 a.m. local time on Thursday morning.
The outage has been blamed on a false alarm in the Transport House control centre, which saw the building evacuated, Metro Trains wrote on Twitter.
Staff have now returned to the centre, but delays continue across all lines and even resulted in what is described as a "tramjam," as passengers changed modes of transport and jumped on the city's trams.
#tramjam caused by #metrofiasco @theage @ClayLucas @theheraldsun @774melbourne @3AW693 pic.twitter.com/p6t3NdTmP6— AnJaGu (@Melway_27_J3) June 17, 2015
As expected, Melbourne locals didn't just roll over and go back to sleep. They attempted to make the journey to work and took to social media to detail the inconvenience. This is how it unfolded:
There was speculation it was all caused by burnt toast.
Just a normal day at work @yarratrams let's hope @metrotrains didn't just burn the toast pic.twitter.com/WKQZwVMcS5— ella_bella (@its_ella_bella) June 17, 2015
Confirmation from an inside source, the #metro control centre was shut down due to burnt barbecued focaccia. @metrotrains #metrotrains #awks— Ines Norman (@inesnorman) June 18, 2015
Some commuters just couldn't deal.
It's the end of the world as we know it! #MetroTrains pic.twitter.com/Qq4lWOYJWj— MetroTrainsPassenger (@MetroTrainsPax) June 17, 2015
Others thanked hindsight for being a bitch.
Almost two hours to travel 14km this am. I should have walked! #MetroMeltdown #metrotrains— Ben Tollady (@tollady) June 17, 2015
Some made the most of a bad situation.
Dear #metrotrains driver currently @ Vic park - I feel like I've gotten to know you after all your #MetroMeltdown announcements. Drink? ;)— Margaret C (@PBearfiftyfive) June 17, 2015
The phone companies no doubt recorded spikes in data usage.
Been sitting on this train for so long that my data is almost finished #MetroMeltdown @metrotrains— Julia Heather (@LiadeleH) June 17, 2015
While commuters dreamt of a simpler time.
For those of you struggling to get to work in today's #metrotrains meltdown, alternative transport is available: pic.twitter.com/zbQzxYvgq7— Michael Smith (@smiddygate) June 17, 2015
And thought to themselves, what would Boris do?
Anybody pondered the economic impact of hundreds of thousands of people being 30 mins late for work? #MetroTrains pic.twitter.com/KOObCPxPQ6— Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) June 18, 2015
Even the secret Get Smart control room couldn't help today. It reportedly only kicks when there's a "major catastrophe."
'Secret' control room https://t.co/FPUpIXmzuW #metrotrains— Nick Stylianou (@kypros1992) June 17, 2015