These challenges include not just making the most of latent system capacity, but also being able to rapidly procure rolling stock suitable for the network, in numbers well above replacement levels.

That was the first structural problem: a management culture emerging from half a century of decline and stagnation and not prepared to tackle the challenges of a growing system.

In 2005 the official line from the transport minister down was that the City Loop was full and Melbourne couldn't handle many more peak-hour trains. But six years later, peak-hour train numbers had miraculously gone up 30 per cent without any new tracks being built in the inner city.

Sadly, that success masked deeper structural problems. So when Melbourne had its own patronage boom, mirroring that in regional Victoria, it took planners by surprise. Services were increased, not as part of any strategy but by force of circumstance.

For years we have lived with the legacy of early mistakes and poor decisions on new suburban trains: delays at busy stations because of an insufficient number of doors; internal layouts that assume more standing passengers but provide no handholds; brakes that failed mysteriously and required timetables to be slowed; and so on. Perhaps it was inevitable that the VLocity fleet – like as with the Siemens trains in Melbourne, originally contracted by National Express – would develop similar problems.

Or perhaps it's the rails and signals themselves at fault. Our second structural problem is the dearth of recurrent funds for root-and-branch renewal of the rail network. Generous funding only tends to flow when attached to a big announceable project, and even then can be poorly applied. Insiders have long been aware that some ageing track circuits in the suburban network, meant to trigger level crossings when trains pass over them, cannot reliably detect shorter trains. If all trains are long enough – it was convenient that three-car operation had already ceased on many suburban lines – the problem could be ignored. Yet a side effect of the VLocity wheel wear issue is that V/Line was forced to run shorter trains, which now can't be trusted on the suburban network.

In probing why the VLocity wheel flanges have been so prone to wear, attention has focused on the Regional Rail Link with its tight curves, both at the city end and the new track west of Melbourne. These crooked paths reflect the failure to anticipate future rail needs and to set land aside in the Melbourne 2030 plan just 15 years ago. Today the line must also do double duty as a regional and a suburban service, and this has meant further compromises in design and operation.

It would be a greater shame if we did not learn from these mistakes. The Andrews government has an excellent opportunity to do so, particularly if Canberra makes good on its renewed interest in well-functioning cities.

Our neglected rail network desperately deserves funding to renew our dilapidated tracks; replace the outdated 1950s signal technology ; improve the standard of routine maintenance; and ensure close control of rolling-stock procurement to ensure its compatibility with our infrastructure and operational requirements.