“[The new timetable] was far too tight to effectively maintain services,provide resilience following incidents and to give adequate access for maintenance,” it said.
It warns that the performance of Sydney Trains’ rail infrastructure is “likely to worsen” under forecast maintenance activity,and that a major blitz to fix a growing backlog in defects is urgently needed.
Figures show that the backlog of infrastructure-related defects has soared to about 37,000 in April this year,from about 23,000 in December 2018. At present,there are 1265 critical defects on the rail network which need to be inspected every seven days.
While much of the blame is sheeted at the rail timetable,the report said there was a “sudden and significant increase” in the backlog of infrastructure inspections from mid-2021 to mid-2022 due to theprolonged industrial dispute between the former government and rail unions.
While safety performance has “been good”,the report said underlying risk would increase if the problems facing Sydney Trains were not fixed.
Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said the City Circle line beneath the CBD,and inner parts of the rail network,were causing the most significant reliability problems.
Longland said the challenge was to “do more productive work” when lines were shut for weekend maintenance,and to focus on replacing of old equipment which impacted service reliability. “This is about getting more staff on each of those trackwork weekends,” he said.
Sydney’s suburban train system suffered three major disruptions in March,including the failure of a critical digital radio system that forced the shutdown of the entire network for more than an hour,disrupting 250,000 commuters during the evening peak.
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Transport for NSW acting secretary Howard Collins,who was the boss of Sydney Trains in 2017 when the timetable was last changed significantly,said he accepted criticism in the review that it was the primary cause of the problems.
“It was a tough decision at the time[to introduce a new timetable],” he said. “We felt at the time that there was not much choice. Now we have the opportunity to get the railway back on track.”
The next major change to Sydney’s rail timetable will take place next year when the main section of the $20 billion Metro City and Southwest line between Chatswood and Sydenham is due to open.
The report has also recommended a plan be developed for a rail operations centre at Green Square to resolve “identified shortcomings”,and that oversight of intercity trains,which operate on lines from Sydney to Wollongong,Newcastle and the Blue Mountains,be shifted from NSW TrainLink to Sydney Trains.
A final report from the review into Sydney Trains is due in October.
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