A spokesman said a fault in the radio the driver uses to talk to train control was picked up about 5.30pm on Monday.

The Albury to Southern Cross train on Monday afternoon stopped at Wodonga and transferred passengers to coaches.

Melbourne passengers had four coaches at Southern Cross Station and one at Seymour.

Yesterday’s midday services were also impacted, but the fault was fixed late yesterday afternoon and evening services ran as normal.

The fault affected base-to-train communications, with V/Line saying it was a safety requirement for radio communication with the Australian Rail Track Corporation track manager to be available.

“As a result, we had to cancel two trains (Monday) night and four trains (yesterday),” the V/Line spokeswoman said.

“We apologise for the inconvenience — we know people would rather be on the train than the bus, but in this case we had to put safety first.”

The same radio fault occurred in April and July last year.

Albury’s V/Line customer representative Bill Traill said he would raise the issue at the customer group’s next meeting, at The Cube Wodonga on May 27.

“The fault is interesting as it caused delays and I promise to raise the issue,” he said.