‘Fixing’ the trains in Sydney: 1855 revisited f you believe the spin, 2012 was the year that defined a And the really alarming aspect of this is that she almost Iclear new vision for rail in New South Wales. certainly doesn’t realise quite what she’s done. The highlights, the story goes, were the release in Sept- ember of a draft Long-Term Transport Master Plan prepared by What might have been the government’s new “integrated” transport agency, Trans- port for NSW, followed by public consultations on this plan, To understand what has gone on and what the implications the release in October of a parallel State Infrastructure are, it is necessary first to backtrack to 2005. Strategy prepared by the government’s infrastructure advice In June that year, the NSW government, in one of its last agency, Infrastructure NSW, and the finalisation of a com- major decisions before premier Bob Carr was ousted by his prehensive Transport Master Plan in December, along with Labor Party “mates”, announced it would build three new the announcements of clear government decisions on the passenger rail lines in Sydney: a South West Rail Link from competing aspects of the Transport for NSW and Infrastruc- Glenfield to Leppington (by 2012) and a North West Rail ture NSW proposals. Link from Epping to Rouse Hill (by 2017), serving the city’s All very rational, with lots of meaningful opportunities rapidly developing southwest and northwest residential for public inputs, and now at last we have a clear vision for “growth centres”, and, most critically, a new “Harbour Rail NSW railways for the future—or at least the next 20 years, a Link” between St Leonards and Redfern, doubling rail period now officially called “the long term” by the state’s capacity across the harbour and adding a new underground increasingly myopic media, politicians and planners. line through the CBD (by 2017) (Figure 1). These new lines were to be supported by additional tracks on existing lines Pity it’s not true. between Chatswood and St Leonards and between Redfern and Campbelltown. In practice, the decisions announced in 2012 had almost nothing to do with the grandstanding of the “master plans”, This scheme, developed after more than a decade of “strategies” and “public consultation”. Instead, they repre- studies of options by a RailCorp planning group headed by sented the culmination of an exceptionally ugly railway its then General Manager Network Development, Dick Day, planning brawl within the state government’s transport and was later imaginatively dubbed the “Metropolitan Rail financial bureaucracies that dates back to 2005 and earlier, Expansion Program” or “MREP”. It was intended to cater for characterised in 2012 by a series of ad hoc and secretive deci- more frequent, faster and longer (ten-carriage) double deck sions that will have long-lasting adverse consequences. trains, including long-distance expresses, on a new, separate operational “sector” of the CityRail network between Mac- Indeed, just as 1855 is remembered as the year previ- arthur, Campbelltown and Leppington in the southwest and ously agreed plans for a single railway gauge throughout the Hornsby and Rouse Hill in the north and northwest, via the Australian colonies fell victim to the whims of a new chief Airport, CBD, North Sydney, St Leonards, Chatswood, engineer for a private railway line between Sydney and Macquarie Park and Norwest employment centres. Parramatta, who persuaded the authorities at that time that The second harbour crossing component of MREP, his “expertise” should prevail, 2012 is likely to be remem- increasing the number of twin-track railway lines through bered as the year an ambitious NSW Transport Minister, the CBD from three to four, was estimated as being capable Gladys Berejiklian, mistakenly placed her faith in “experts” of boosting the capacity of CityRail lines through the CBD from only one side of the debates and, in doing so, inadver- by almost 30% and, by permitting much more efficient use tently destroyed the future cohesion, interoperability, integ- of the capacity of these and other lines, almost doubling the rity, reliability, capacity and efficiency of Sydney’s rail total patronage capacity of Sydney’s CityRail system. network—ironically by (among other things) permitting them to change the “loading gauge” (minimum tunnel sizes, In addition, the North West Rail Link component was etc) of key cannibalised and excised sections of the existing expected to attract about 215 passengers from the Hills and future rail network so as to forever exclude their use by district off each peak period train on the western line from CityRail or similar double deck services. Parramatta, thereby permitting greatly improved services to PITT TOWN GROSE VALE RICHMOND Cowan CORNWALLIS HILLSIDE BEROWRA WATERS COWAN Richmond East Richmond MARAYLYA CLARENDON GROSE WOLD FIDDLETOWN to/from Central Coast Clarendon Windsor GLENORIE SCHEYVILLE AGNES BANKS Mulgrave Berowra CAREEL BAY YARRAMUNDI BEROWRA OAKVILLE ARCADIA BLIGH PARK Extension of NorthWest Rail Link MULGRAVE LONDONDERRY Indicative alignment only Vineyard MIDDLE DURAL GALSTON Mt Kuring-gai MOUNT KURING-GAI BOX HILL NELSON VINEYARD AKUNA BAY NorthWest Growth Centre ANNANGROVE KENTHURST Mt Colah CASTLEREAGH RIVERSTONE DUFFYS FOREST Riverstone MOUNT COLAH M ROUSE HILL Asquith Rouse Hill DURAL INGLESIDE BERKSHIRE PARK MARSDEN PARK RouseSchofields Hill ASQUITH W W ROCK Hornsby HORNSBY ROUNDHornsby CORNER TERREY HILLS Waitara LLANDILO Samantha Riley Drive NORT Wahroonga CRANEBROOK Castle Hill Normanhurst SHANES PARK Burns Road Hills Centre Warrawee NARRAB Quakers Hill Castle Hill Franklin Turramurra Road Thornleigh Norwest Pennant Hills Emu Plains Pymble Penrith Marayong NorthWest Rail Link Beecroft Werrington Cheltenham Gordon DEE WH St Marys Kingswood Doonside Macquarie Blacktown Killara CURL C Seven Hills Macquarie Lapstone Mt Druitt Epping University Rooty Hill Lindfield HARBORD Carlingford Macquarie Roseville Toongabbie Park QUEENSCLIF Eastwood Telopea Delhi Rd Chatswood Chatswood MANLY Pendle Hill Denistone ORCHARD HILLS Westmead Dundas West Ryde Artarmon Wentworthville GLENMORE PARK EASTERN CREEK Parramatta Rydalmere Camellia Meadowbank PROSPECT Harris Park Rosehill St Leonards ERSKINE PARK Rhodes Wollstonecraft Merrylands Clyde Waverton North Sydney North Sydney Granville Olympic Milsons Point Auburn Park ConcordWest HORSLEY PARK Guildford MULGOA North Strathfield Rozelle Circular Quay Flemington Harbour Rail Link Yennora Lidcombe DIAMOND BAY Wynyard Martin Place Berala Homebush Strathfield Fairfield Town Hall Kings Cross Leightonfield Burwood Museum Edgecliff WALLACIA Sefton Regents Chullora KEMPS CREEK Canley Carramar Park Croydon Ashfield Central Sydney CBD Vale Summer Hill Bondi Stanmore Redfern Junction LUDDENHAM Cabramatta Birrong Enfield Lewisham Petersham BONDI BEACH BADGERYS CREEK Newtown Erskineville Yagoona Hurlstone St Peters Campsie Park Dulwich Hill Green Square BRONTE Warwick Farm CECIL PARK Lakemba Canterbury Marrickville Sydenham Bankstown Belmore GREENDALE SouthWest Growth Centre Tempe Mascot Liverpool Wiley Park Turrella COOGEE Punchbowl Bardwell Park Wolli Cree k Domestic Kingsgrove Arncliffe International BRINGELLY Bexley North LeppingtonAUSTRAL Narwee Banksia HOXTON PARK Padstow Casula Panania SouthWest Rail Link ROSSMORE Beverly Hills Rockdale Airport PRESTONS Revesby Riverwood MAROUBRA Leppington East Hills Penshurst Hurstville Kogarah Holsworthy Mortdale Edmondson Park Glenfield Allawah Carlton Port Botany EDMONDSON EAST HILLS GLENFIELD Oatley MALABAR HOLSWORTHY LEPPINGTON Macquarie Fields PORT BOTANY MACQUARIE FIELDS Ingleburn Como Extension of SouthWest Rail Link INGLEBURN HARRINGTON PARK Jannali COBBITTY Indicative alignment only LONG POINT MENAI HERESA PARK CATHERINE FIELD Minto Sutherland Gymea KURNELL MINTO Kirrawee Miranda Caringbah NARELLAN KEARNS Loftus LUCAS HEIGHTS Woolooware Leumeah MINTO HEIGHTS BROWNLOW HILL Cronulla CAMDEN CRONULLA GRASSMERE MOUNT ANNAN Campbelltown Engadine Macarthur ENGADINE AUDLEY WARUMBUL GLENLEE Campbelltown/MacarthurGlenlee Heathcote CAMDEN SOUTH HEATHCOTE Menangle Park BUNDEENA MENANGLE PARK AIRDS Figure 1. The 2005 “metropolitan rail expansion program” (“MREP”) concept for a new CityRail sector to provide substantial capacity relief and serve new residential development centres. the CBD for western Sydney commuters. The additional the scale of the Carr government’s deathbed commitments and faster services from Campbelltown and Chatswood to to public transport improvements. the CBD, along corridors that already have some of the most dramatically overcrowded trains in Sydney, would similarly Within the transport bureaucracies this opposition was have provided vital capacity relief. led by advocates of the conversion of sections of the City- Rail network to “metro-style” single-deck train services, In essence, the MREP concept was designed to provide a with far fewer seats and more doors, usually in tandem with large, step-change increase in the capacity of the CityRail an express or implied privatisation of these services, and by double deck rail network sufficient for the next couple of advocates of entirely new and independent “metro” lines in decades, just like the step-change capacity and operational Sydney as a supposed alternative to a second harbour cross- improvements made possible by the opening of the Eastern ing, rather than subsequently as previously envisaged by Suburbs Railway in 1979. After that, it was considered most (for example) the highly regarded