NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the Sydney Metro City rail extension was the biggest change to the city’s public transport system since the opening of the Harbour Bridge. Photo: Sydney Metro.
After gaining final approval from the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR), the Sydney Metro City rail extension from Chatswood to Sydenham opened on Monday (19 August).
The extension of the current Northwest Metro, which runs from Tallawong near Rouse Hill to Chatswood, allows passengers from the Hills district to travel to the city and beyond without having to change to the T1 heavy-rail line at Chatswood.
NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said it also doubled rail capacity across the harbour and delivered a fantastic new transport service for passengers throughout Sydney.
“The M1 Line will see 45 state-of-the-art metro trains, which can carry around 1150 passengers, moving through six new stations across our city,” she said on the eve of the extension’s opening.
In the early hours of Monday, the M1 Line began services at Tallawong and Sydenham stations for seven days a week. It’s expected to move 17,000 people each way every hour during the morning peak.
The M1 line also includes:
- 445 new metro services each weekday, with a train every four minutes in the peak, seven minutes during weekdays between morning and afternoon peak services (increasing after the first month to a train every five minutes), and every 10 minutes during off-peak and on weekends
- Six fully accessible new stations at Crows Nest, Victoria Cross, Barangaroo, Martin Place, Gadigal and Waterloo, along with new platforms at Central and Sydenham
- Uninterrupted network mobile coverage
- About 100 CCTV cameras at every station and 38 cameras inside each train
- More than 600 secure bike parking spaces at Crows Nest, Victoria Cross, Waterloo and Sydenham as part of 900 new bike parking spaces across all eight stations
- Platform screen-door technology to keep people and objects safely away from tracks.
Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan said more than 50,000 people worked on the project “and I know they are as proud as I am to show Sydney what we have been working on”.
“We thank everyone for their patience,” he said.
“This comes after a year of testing and commissioning, including more than 200 simulated exercises that have included disruption, emergency scenarios and security drills to ensure the trains and stations are ready for passengers to enjoy.
“We have always said safety is the number-one priority, and we’ve worked with the relevant authorities throughout construction and commissioning to ensure everything is safe and secure.”
ONRSR completed its assessment of the new section’s operational safety, which delayed the transport mega project’s original scheduled opening date of 4 August.
The delay came a few days after a firefighter received an electric shock at the Metro’s new Barangaroo station during an exercise, and concerns from the NSW Fire Brigade Employees Union (FBEU) that the line was not yet safe for passengers.
In a strongly worded 2 August statement, the FBEU said it had staunchly opposed the NSW Government’s “hard deadlines” for the project due to what it described as “the inability of Sydney Metro and the operator (MTS) to clean up their act”.
It said its position was based on the results of a series of exercises culminating in an uncontrolled evacuation drill at Barangaroo.
The MTS said the cause of the shock was a stray current, an explanation the FBEU found “completely unacceptable”. The union has called for an independent investigation into the matter, to be conducted by an electrical engineer.
