Weekend train trips up to Sydney will be few and far between for Illawarra residents for the next year, with the NSW government announcing a year of intensive trackwork across the Sydney Trains network, including on the T4 Illawarra Line.
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Following the release of the Walsh report in May, today, NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen told train travellers to prepare for 12 months of weekend trackwork.
The Walsh report found the network was overstretched after the 2017 timetable change and there was not enough time for maintenance and upgrades, leading to a network that was fragile and susceptible to major delays after inclement weather.
To counter this, Ms Haylen outlined a $97 million rail repair plan covering 3700 repairs, upgrades and refurbishments and around 100 worksites and hundreds of workers every weekend.
"If you use trains on weekends, I'm sorry but you're going to find yourself on buses - a lot," Ms Haylen said, singling out the Sydney portion of the Illawarra line as in need of an overhaul.
"The 1900 high priority defects are in the areas of the network that experience the most traction, the most work, so we're going to have hundreds and hundreds of workers in sections like the T1 [North Shore & Western] the T2 [Inner West & Leppington] the T4 [Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra] and the city circle. These are the high priority areas of the network."
While NSW Trainlink operates train services to the Illawarra, the interconnected nature of the Sydney Trains network means commuters on the South Coast line are likely to be affected, particularly between Waterfall and Sydney, and Sydney Trains is the maintainer of the fleet and network servicing the Illawarra and the South Coast.
The Illawarra also experience its fair share of failures on the line, including a landslide near Otford after heavy rain which meant trains had to travel slowly through that section for months, before the line was temporarily closed to allow for repairs.
Meantime, the long-promised Mairyung fleet which would replace the current rollingstock on the South Coast line continues to experience delays, with Sydney Trains CEO Matt Longland telling reporters today that there was no fixed date for the first of the fleet to enter service.
"The new intercity train is about to re-enter testing," Mr Longland said. "There's been some positive discussions across Transport, New South Wales Trains and Sydney Trains to make sure we've got all of our people at the table and that we're supporting testing of the train to get into passenger service."
The arrival of the trains has been affected by platforms and tunnels that did not fit the new trains and a long-running industrial dispute between guards and drivers and the government on how the trains would operate.
The trains were first promised to come into service on the Illawarra line by 2022. The trains will run on the Central Coast and Newcastle Line, before being introduced on the Blue Mountains Line and then the Illawarra line.
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