It took more than four hours for a train driver's distraught wife to be told he had died in a derailment.
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After getting messages from a friend and seeing news about a fatal train accident, Jenny Kennedy spent hours calling NSW Trains to confirm whether her husband was involved.
She knew in her gut that something was wrong, and could hear it in the voice of the man on the other end of the phone.
But Mrs Kennedy was not told about her husband's death until police knocked on her front door after midnight.
"Everyone appeared to know what had happened except for me, John's wife," she said, in a statement read to Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.
"Without a doubt, confusion and lack of information made an impossible situation unbearable."
Experienced driver John Kennedy, 54, and rail worker Sam Meintanis, 49, were killed after they suffocated due to the weight of dirt and rocks in the front cabin of the train, when it derailed near Wallan in Victoria, prosecutor Sally Flynn KC told the court.
Another 61 people were injured.
More than 150 passengers were stretched across five carriages on the Melbourne-bound XPT train from Sydney on February 20, 2020.
The train was diverted through the Wallan loop track because the signalling system was down on the normal route's straight section.
It was travelling between 120 and 130km/h when emergency brakes were applied and the lead car rolled onto its left side and all five carriages derailed, about 8pm.
Ms Flynn said excessive speed caused the derailment, due to several factors including an "inadequate" risk assessment by Australian Rail Track Corporation about the train's diversion, which did not involve consultation with NSW Trains.
She said the driver was not aware before he began his shift about changes to the working system, which had began that day, and there were no caution or speed signs to warn Mr Kennedy as he approached.
The Office Of National Rail Safety Regulator charged ARTC and NSW Trains for breaching Victoria's Rail Safety Laws, which both pleaded guilty to on Friday.
Ms Flynn asked Magistrate Brett Sonnet to hand the operators a substantial fine.
While the maximum penalty is $1.5 million, the lower court is limited to a fine of up to $413,000.
Both operators publicly apologised to the victims in court, through their lawyers, after hearing emotional statements from loved ones.
Mrs Kennedy took aim at NSW Trains, whom she said took four-and-a-half hours to inform her of her husband's death in the derailment, via a visit from police.
She said train staff and the media had found out before she did.
"I felt let down and abandoned by NSW Trains, whom John was so loyal to for 40 years," she said, in a statement read by Ms Flynn.
"I was distraught and extremely angry with the way the crash was dealt with from the start - it is impossible to put into words how I felt being the last person to be informed of his death."
Mr Meintanis' partner Naomi Bruce said her life changed forever when she lost her lover, best friend, confidante and supporter.
"The one person I did everything with, who understood me like nobody else, he was gone and is never coming home," she told the court, between tears.
Mr Sonnet thanked the victims for their statements, saying it had brought home to him the impact of the offending.
He will sentence the rail operators on April 3.
Australian Associated Press
