Opening date revealed for Sydney’s mega metro rail line under harbour

Sydney’s $21.6 billion metro rail line under the harbour and CBD will open to passengers on Sunday, August 4, seven years after construction started on the mega project that is set to reshape the way commuters traverse the city.

The NSW government confirmed it is targeting August 4 for the opening to passengers of the main section of the Metro City and Southwest line between Chatswood and Sydenham, which will be a day after premier Chris Minns cuts the ribbon on the mega project.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the metro trains would be the fastest way to travel in and around Sydney’s CBD and north of the city, including across the harbour, when passenger services start early next month.

The city-section of Sydney’s mega metro rail line under the harbour is about to open to passengers.Credit: Nick Moir

“Excitement is mounting for when commuters will be able to step on-board 445 new metro services deep below the city every day,” she said.

“Through the peak hour, this new metro service will move 37,000 people. Now that’s more than the Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel combined. This will transform our city.”

The new line comprises six new underground stations, including at North Sydney, Barangaroo and Martin Place, as well as new platforms at Central and Sydenham.

NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen on-board a new metro service on Sunday.Credit: Oscar Colman

The opening date will still be subject to the outcome of timetabled trial operations, which began two weeks ago, and final approval from national rail safety regulators.

The private operator of the driverless train line will conduct more than 100 exercises over the next few weeks, including joint drills with emergency services to practice station and train evacuations.

“We are making sure that we are prepared. We’re ironing out all the kinks in the system to ensure that it is safe and reliable,” Haylen said.

Confirmation of the target date for the opening follows about 15 months of intensive testing and commissioning of the new infrastructure, including twin tunnels, driverless trains and stations, which is a key step towards gaining accreditation before passenger services begin.

Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan said it was targeting August 4 for the opening to give the public as much notice as possible, but if all the exercises and final testing were not completed in time, a later date would be announced.

The opening date for the new line under the heart of the city will also influence the start of a 12-month closure of the Bankstown line to allow it to be converted to metro trains’ standards, as well as a new timetable for Sydney’s rail network.

Haylen said the Bankstown line’s closure was “some months away”, but she reiterated that it would not happen until there was a high level of service reliability on the city-section of the metro line.

The second stage of the city’s expanding driverless train network has been known as Metro City and Southwest during seven years of construction. It is an extension of the existing Metro Northwest line, which opened in 2019 between Rouse Hill and Chatswood at a cost of $7.3 billion.

The two stages will form one line and be known as the M1 Northwest and Bankstown line when it opens to passengers. A metro train journey from Chatswood to the new Gadigal station near Town Hall in the CBD will take 13 minutes, while Chatswood to Sydenham will take 22 minutes.

The opening of the line before 5am on August 4, a day after the official ribbon cutting, will be slightly different to that for Metro Northwest in May 2019, when passengers filed through ticket gates less than an hour after then-premier Gladys Berejiklian cut the ribbon on the project on a Sunday.

Minns has previously paid credit to the previous Coalition government for its work on the mega project, and said that Berejiklian and other former premiers will be invited to the opening of the extended metro line.

Since “on-track dynamic train testing” of the main new section started in April last year, about 9800 hours of a total of 11,000 hours of required testing has been completed along the 51.5-kilometre line from Tallawong to Sydenham.

The opening of the final part of the Metro City and Southwest project between Sydenham and Bankstown has been delayed until late next year due to difficulties converting an existing stretch of rail line to metro train standards.

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