More than one million people were affected when Sydney's rail system ground to a halt after an overhead wire fell onto the roof of a train in May, trapping 300 passengers.
But many aspects of the situation were preventable, an independent review of the incident released on Tuesday found.
The wiring issue had been detected in 2020 but was not followed up.
Sydney Trains' maintenance regime, incident management and communications also all failed during the network shutdown that affected nearly 1300 trains.
Passengers on the train hit by a live wire were trapped for hours with little information about how long their ordeal would last.
Recovery and repair times blew out and advice about a return to normalcy the following day were also wrong.
One of the trapped passengers said the fare-free days offered as compensation were not useful after she had to spend $80 on an Uber to continue her journey and then lost a day's work.
"Many aspects of (her) experience are simply unacceptable," the review by former Deutsche Bank boss and NBN director Kerry Schott said.
The state government will splash $458 million over four years in response, with the vast majority spent on upgrading track, signals, and overhead wiring in flood-prone areas.
But these projects are expected to further test passengers' patience.
"This will mean some disruption to the travelling public," NSW Transport Minister John Graham told reporters on Tuesday.
"But we need to do it.
"It's not enough to put a bandage on the wound, we actually have to treat the wound more substantially.
"The people of Sydney expect a safe and reliable rail network - and right now, it's not up to scratch," he said in a statement.
A whopping 126 sections of overhead wiring across the network have been found to at risk since the incident in May.
Sydney Trains will declare maintenance critical zones, including the Homebush to Strathfield stretch where the wiring issue triggered the network-wide issues.
An earlier review led to $90 million being spent on the system and Premier Chris Minns admitted in May that had done little to fix the issues.
When asked about whether commuters could trust this second review would make a tangible difference, Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland insisted its outcomes were already being implemented.
"This is a strong wake up call," he said.
He also revealed a handful of key leadership positions at the Railway Operations Centre had been changed in response to the incident.
The report made 12 recommendations, all of which have been accepted by the NSW government.
Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said the government's response wouldn't help commuters.
"It's all talk and spin - none of it results in a better commute for rail passengers," he told reporters.
"The government should come clean and stop hiding behind report after report after report, and actually invest in the train network."
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