The government on Tuesday sought to abate public backlash by offering forced to catch replacement buses for the suspended light rail network,24 hours after NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet suggested impacted passengers still needed to “pay their fair share”.
Sydney’s inner west light rail will be out of service for up to 18 months after cracks were discovered in all 12 trams.Brook Mitchell
Transport for NSW chief operations officer Howard Collins inspected the Spanish-built trams earlier this week,and said cracks in their base were now clearly visible after sections of the vehicle were stripped back.
“We drove it up and down the line,and you could see the cracks opening and closing on a normal straight bit of track with no bumps or twists as the car body is stressing itself because there are cracks in this suspension area,” Mr Collins told theHerald.
Cracks have been in all 12 trams servicing the inner west light rail,which runs from Dulwich Hill to Central Station,forcing the closure of the entire system for up to 18 months.
Mr Collins said because similar cracks had been discovered in all the trams it would likely not be known until later this week whether it would take the full 18 months to repair them.
“The important thing is how many trams we can repair at a time. One at a time would take 18 months,two at a time could be up to half that time.“
“We are working together to see if this is possible.”
Engineers are still working to assess the scale of the cracking problem and how to adequately rectify it,as well as pinpointing whether the cause was a manufacturing fault or an issue with how the trams were operated. The cost of the rectification work,and who will pay for it,are also yet to be determined.
NSW Labor has seized on the litany of problems with the government’s overseas-procured transport vehicles,including, and now trams,arguing the state also failed to properly investigate how many local jobs would be created if they were manufactured locally.
The government could not provide documents under Labor freedom-of-information requests that proved local jobs assessments were carried out during the procurement processes for transport stock that was ultimately built overseas.
A Transport for NSW spokesman said the agency complied with the government procurement and policy guidelines to make sure all tenders were competitive and transparent to deliver the best outcomes and value for the state.
“We continue to have a strong focus on boosting local jobs to support the delivery of our record $71.5 billion infrastructure pipeline that will shape NSW cities,centres and communities for generations to come,” the spokesman said,adding that more than 130,000 jobs had been created in transport construction roles.
Sydney’s inner west light rail line could be closed for up to 18 months.Steven Siewert
Opposition leader Chris Minns said the government’s decision to procure trams,buses and ferries from overseas had cost the state thousands of jobs.
“It’s damning that the government did not even take the time to consider the local jobs impact of their decisions to build these projects overseas,” Mr Minns said. “Looking at the impact of local jobs shouldn’t be an afterthought,it should be a condition of procurement decisions.”
Four new trams for the inner west line are currently on order from the original manufacturer CAF,while Parramatta’s future light rail service will also use them.
Mr Collins said the government had sought assurances from CAF that changes had already been made to the components that had cracked on the inner west line.
“We’re confident but want to ensure we measure twice and cut once,” Mr Collins said of the trams already on order. “The new version will be significantly different in the areas that we’ve seen cracking. We just want to validate that by CAF showing us the difference and looking at the technical drawings and getting our independent experts to just say ‘yeah,that looks different and will be structurally more robust’.”
CAF is also part of a consortium building the new regional rail XPT fleet,which is expected to enter service in 2023.
Mr Stokes on Tuesday announced passengers would receive 50 per cent discounts on their fares for the replacement bus services,though it would take two weeks to implement the subsidy,with refunds backdated to Monday,November 8.
“I understand regular passengers on the inner west light rail are really frustrated by this situation,” Mr Stokes said.
The government is also considering shuttle bus services to inner west train stations and reinstating the Blackwattle Bay ferry service to improve public transport in the affected areas.
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