NSW Premier Chris Minns concedes public transport failures as justified criticism mounts over ongoing train delays

Premier Chris Minns has denounced the dire state of Sydney’s rail network, which is grinding Sydney to a halt, saying it is “failing to meet the standards expected of a modern, developed city.

There were also major disruptions to the train network last week. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Premier Chris Minns has admitted the NSW Government is “letting people down” after yet another major rail meltdown left Sydney commuters stranded.

Speaking to ABC Radio, Premier Minns said the state’s heavy rail network — which receives $1.5 billion in annual funding — has consistently underperformed.

He described the current system as failing to meet the standards expected of a modern, developed city, citing persistent issues on major lines such as the T1.

“We’ve been hammered for it, and I think justifiably so, and I can understand why the travelling public is saying, Well, we’re a developed city, we’re supposed to have world class public transport infrastructure, and we spend $1.5 billion a year on the heavy rail network, not the brand new sparkling metros, but the existing heavy rail network. And we’re nowhere near as punctual as efficient, and we’re letting people down.”

“We’re letting people down, if it’s not every day, it would be maybe once a week,” Minns said.

“One out of five trains are late, I know it’s not good enough. It’s a basic responsibility of government to get people to and from work.”

It comes after Sydney commuters were supposed to get a fare free day on Monday to make up for last week’s rail disruption – instead they were subjected to more chaos after trains were completely stopped on two lines just before the afternoon peak.

A mental health incident on the train line near Artarmon resulted in Transport authorities shutting down parts of the T1 and T9 western and northern lines before 4pm.

Due to a police operation underway, trains were completely stopped between Hornsby and Central for almost an hour. Due to the incident occurring close to electrical wires, Sydney Trains crews were required to de-energise the line, resulting in delays across all rail lines except the T4 Eastern suburbs and Illawarra line, which is on a separate system.

The new rail debacle comes on the same day the Minns government offered a fare free day, to make up for major rail disruptions on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, after an overhead wire collapsed on a train near Homebush.

The new rail debacle comes on the same day the Minns government offered a fare free day. Pictured is rail chaos last week. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Though the opal gates were left open for the fare free day, some commuters reported waiting on the platform for more than an hour for a train to arrive.

A Transport for NSW spokesperson said the incident was resolved after 4:30pm and that trains had commenced running but that there would still be delays until after peak hour.

“There is currently a 30 minute service gap on the T1 and the T9 and we’re working really hard to reduce that at the moment,” the spokesperson said.

“Passengers are advised to delay travel or catch the Metro, which is not impacted, or local buses.”

Commuters travelling on buses, ferries and the light rail are still subject to normal fares.

Raul, who did not wish to give his last name, was commuting from St Leonards to Seven Hills on Monday afternoon to pick up his child from daycare when the trains stopped running. Instead of catching his free train home, he was forced to take three buses to his child’s daycare, paying full fares. He said there was very little information at the station and he was he late to pick up his child.

“It’s like Ben and Jerry’s free cone day and they’re out of ice-cream – this is a joke,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“It just paints the government in a really bad light.

“Tomorrow I’m just going to ride my motorcycle in because that’s reliable and I don’t have to rely on public transport.”

Opposition Transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward said the government’s “credibility” on transport “was hanging by a thread”. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

Transport opposition spokeswoman Natalie Ward said the Minns government’s “credibility” on transport had been called into question over the vast number of disruptions to the network.

“Commuters didn’t expect a discount service on fare free day,” she said.

“The government’s credibility of transport policy is hanging by a thread.

“(Transport Minister) John Graham is already walking back his support for the transport secretary and if it doesn’t improve, the public will walk back their support of this government.”

Both last week’s incident at Homebush and the latest incident at Artarmon caused delays and disruptions across the entire network due to the lines being connected to each other.

On Wednesday last week Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said the whole network impacts occur because “a lot of our lines are tangled with each other” and that the government was looking at way “to simplify the network”.

“What we saw (in Homebush) was that one incident in a location like this can bring down a significant part of the network,” he said at the time.

Originally published as NSW Premier Chris Minns concedes public transport failures as justified criticism mounts over ongoing train delays