The state's transport minister says he wasn't warned about an impending rail crisis until the night before more than 100 train cancellations caused major headaches for south-east Queensland commuters.
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Queensland Rail knew about the problems on Thursday afternoon but commuters weren't told until the Translink website and social media accounts were updated on Friday morning.
On Monday, Stirling Hinchliffe defended the efforts to warn travellers, telling ABC Radio it wasn't until Thursday that he was told regular service cancellations had become a "more fundamental problem".
"I made it very clear that this lack of performance was unacceptable," Mr Hinchliffe told ABC radio on Monday.
"The lack of notice to myself was unacceptable."
Mass cancellations are expected to continue for a fortnight from Tuesday, with more than 50 services to be canned this Friday.
A driver shortage tied to the recent opening of the Redcliffe Peninsula line prompted a mea culpa from the rail operator and sent the board into an emergency meeting across the weekend, resulting in a scaled-back, interim timetable from Tuesday.
Mr Hinchliffe was spotted at the Gold Coast 600 Supercars event on Sunday but said he still briefed the board meeting.
QR chief executive officer Helen Gluer was again apologising for the inconvenience on Monday morning as she foreshadowed a two-week timetable change.
Translink released the interim timetable on its website on Monday morning, detailing cuts to 43 services from Tuesday to Thursday and 52 on Friday.
"We are terribly confident that at the conclusion of this next two weeks that we will be able to deliver against our published timetables with our normal high level of service," she told The Today Show.
"We normally run at 96 per cent. We are the best performer on the east coast.
"We are terribly disappointed we haven't been able to do it this month. We are running at 91.
"We need to get back to where we were. We are confident we will be doing this within two weeks on the interim timetable."
The driver shortage and resulting timetable issues were blamed on the need to train another 100 drivers for the newly opened Moreton Bay Rail Link.
A furious Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the extra drivers were commissioned in 2015 but Ms Gluer said they couldn't be fully trained until the line opened on October 4.
"Because it's a main line, we weren't able to train staff on how that line could operate until it was actually open," she said,
"While that training's happening we have to have an additional driver and an additional guard on all of those services."
On Sunday, Deputy Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington slammed Mr Hinchliffe on Sunday as "incompetent" and criticised him for being "in hiding" while Ms Gluer took the heat.
Mr Hinchliffe denied asking QR to make an apology.
Ms Frecklington called on the minister to tell commuters what he knows, when he was briefed and "what he knows about this issue".
On Monday, Ms Gluer said Mr Hinchliffe was alerted to the problem on Thursday night before the cancellations.
"He then called an urgent meeting on Friday morning," she said.
"He's been in constant contact with us over the last few days. A board meeting was held yesterday at the minister's request and he's made it very clear that we need to get back to delivering services for our customers."
Ms Frecklington ramped up the pressure on Monday, telling ABC Radio the "buck stops" with the minister and there was "no justification" for him to be at the GC600.
On Sunday, Mr Hinchliffe said he was expecting a response report from the board overnight.
"I addressed the board and executive leadership team to express the clear expectation that government has for the highest level of service delivery in public transport," he said.
