T4 Eastern Suburbs Illawarra Line to miss out on new train fleet
EXCLUSIVE: Southern Sydney commuters will never see the State Government’s shiniest new trains on their line because local train lines cannot cope with the electrical demands of newer models.
Southern Sydney commuters will never see the State Government’s shiniest new trains on their line because local train lines cannot cope with the electrical demands of newer models.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance told the St George Shire Standard last week T4 Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra commuters would benefit from the introduction of 41 “brand new Waratah trains”.
“They don’t break down, they are a really great train,” Mr Constance said.
“It improves reliability and gives us the ability to optimise the service.”
However, Sutherland Shire and St George commuters will still be travelling on hand-me-down Tangara trains cast off by other train lines indefinitely because the local network is incapable of running the new Waratah fleet due to its infrastructure and electrical requirements.
A Transport for NSW spokesman confirmed 17 newly purchased Waratah Series 2 trains would mean Tangara trains would be allocated to the T4 Illawarra Line from elsewhere on the network.
“There are no plans to operate Waratah trains on the T4 Line,” the spokesman said.
Future T4 Line upgrades flagged by Mr Constance are designed for the operation of additional Tangara trains only.
“The More Trains, More Services program will improve infrastructure on the T4 Illawarra and South Coast Line, including power supply, digital signalling and station upgrades,” the spokesman said.
“This work will increase the total number of peak services on the T4 Illawarra Line by 30 per cent, creating more room for customers.”
NSW Labor transport spokeswoman Jodi McKay said Mr Constance owed southern Sydney commuters an explanation.
“The minister is either ill-informed about his own portfolio, or he’s tried to mislead his own community about their train service,” Ms McKay said.
“It’s a shocking situation – he owes commuters an explanation as to why they’ve pretended they can run these new trains on the T4 Line, and a justification for the issues that have been exposed.”
Oatley state Labor candidate Lucy Mannering said Shire and St George commuters had been badly let down by the State Government.
“The government has confirmed that T4 commuters are doomed to old trains forever,” Ms Mannering said.
The spokesman said there were operational and reliability benefits when lines are serviced by one type of train.
However, there is no indication of any plans to buy new Tangara fleets or any other kind of new train compatible with the T4 Line’s infrastructure.
T4 Line commuters will instead have to rely indefinitely on the ageing Tangara trains, the first of which were introduced to the network in December 1987 and the last of which in October 1995.
By contrast the oldest Waratah trains have only been in service since 2011, with the newest trains to be delivered in 2020.
A major Tangara technology upgrade due to be completed in 2018 is also yet to materialise, with the $219.4m project’s end date removed from the Transport for NSW website.
The upgrades were designed to increase the Tangara stock’s life span by updating ageing components such as driver technology.
The last publicly available progress update was in December 2017.
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