But a public transport expert says the failings, which came to light after the opening of the Redcliffe Peninsula Line revealed there was a shortage of train drivers, could be turned into a positive for QR.

Commissioner Phillip Strachan handed down his report into the QR fiasco on Monday, including 36 recommendations.

Among those were measures to improve culture and communication within QR amid an environment where people did not want to share "bad news".

Mr Strachan, since appointed the board's chair, also recommended management levels be reduced from eight to five and has already said the role of chief operating officer should be scrapped.

Workers are also set to be encouraged to acknowledge issues early and escalate them to senior management.

Griffith University public transport expert Matthew Burke said putting a broom through QR could be a good thing.

"It's a good opportunity for that organisation to become a more proactive, energetic and innovative agency than they've been in the past," he said.

"To create a more innovative and forward-thinking culture across Queensland Rail.

"The issues unveiled by the Strachan report were really mid-level operational issues that should have been resolved.

"It was a failure at mid-level management that should have been elevated up."

Mr Strachan's report pointed to a culture within the QR operations team relying on intuition, complacency and being reluctant to share bad news, which suppressed the identification, escalation and resolution of issues.

It reveals that the risk of a train crew shortage was identified as early as 2013 - and projected to increase - but the forecasts were not acted on or used to inform responses to address the shortfall.

"There is an over-reliance on managerial intuition in operations, at the expense of using data when making decisions," the report reads.

There was also a culture of complacency, with the issues that caused than 100 cancellations on October 21 - ineffective medium-term management of train crew - also significant factors on Christmas Day.

For example, QR had considered downgrading services on Christmas Day to operate hourly rather than half-hourly - but did not.

QR also considered introducing the summer timetable - with fewer services a week earlier - but did not.

The reluctance to share bad news led to references to the Indec report in reports to be provided to be board not mentioning the risk of a train crew shortage.

Instead the reports to the board only identified that consultants were engaged and it identified "business improvement recommendations".

Mr Strachan is also due to conduct interviews with candidates for the job of chief executive officer on Friday.

The position is vacant following the resignation of Helen Gluer in October, with Transport and Main Roads director-general Neil scales acting in the role.

Engineers Australia transport spokesman Chris Warnock said in light of a potential managerial skake-up, highly-skilled people with technical knowledge were needed in senior positions.

Mr Warnock, who was QR Citytrain general manager from 1994 to 2000, said communication upwards should also be combined with interrogation downwards.

"I don't believe any organisation can work effectively if those senior levels of management, and indeed at board level, they don't understand what the information either means or what the information should be telling them

"I would suggest that in any industry, but particularly in a complex engineering-related industry like a railway, people who are asking the right questions have to have the right level of experience to know what questions to ask."

Mr Warnock said management teams were complex and required a team of people who were appropriately qualified.

"It isn't going to be a quick fix of changing one or two people and you'll solve all the problems," he said.