At 0706hrs a protection officer obtained a track occupancy authority from the network controller at Junee to carry out work on the track between the 271.000 km - 271.900 km near Fish River, NSW within the Yass to Joppa Junction track section. The protection officer had also identified that train 8938 had passed his worksite. At 0710hrs the network controller realised that another train (8138) was within the track section and contacted the driver of train 8138 to stop. The train stopped about 11km from the worksite. There were no injuries. The ATSB has commenced an investigation into the incident.

Discountinuation:

Section 21 (2) of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 (TSI Act) empowers the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to discontinue an investigation into a transport safety matter at any time. Section 21 (3) of the TSI Act requires the ATSB to publish a statement setting out the reasons for discontinuing an investigation.

On 10 July 2011, the ATSB commenced an investigation into a safeworking irregularity incident that occurred at about 0706 Eastern Standard Time on 10 July 2011 near Fish River, New South Wales.  Examination of the information collected during the investigation identified that the occurrence had significant similarities to aspects of other occurrences being investigated by the ATSB as part of the  safety issue investigation of rail operations on the interstate rail line between Sydney and Melbourne (RI-2011-015).  

Accordingly the ATSB decided to examine the Fish River occurrence as part of the broader safety issue investigation and the separate RO-2011-010 investigation was discontinued.