August slated for opening of mega-metro line under heart of Sydney

Sydney’s $21.6 billion metro rail line under the harbour and CBD is set to open to passengers in early August after trial running of a full-service timetable started on the driverless train link.

The opening of the main section of the Metro City and Southwest between Chatswood and Sydenham will be on a weekend in August, if the trial operations run without a major hitch, and they receive approval from safety regulators.

NSW Premier Chris Minns, Transport Minister Jo Haylen and Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan travel on a driverless train under the harbour on Monday.Credit: Nikki Short

The start of trial operations 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.

The testing of a full-service timetable comes a month after Waterloo station became the first of six new stations to be handed over to Metro Trains Sydney, a private consortium led by Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation which will operate the line.

Sydney Metro has previously said that a firm date for the line’s opening would be narrowed down within a few weeks of trial operations starting.

Premier Chris Minns said the government was “aiming for as early in August as we possibly can”.

The space age-like Victoria Cross metro station in North Sydney.Credit: Rhett Wyman

“When the date is finalised, we’ll make sure that it’s known by everybody as early as possible,” he said. “But we don’t want to disappoint. We want to make sure that it works completely and fully on its very first date.”

Minns paid credit to the previous Coalition government for its work on the mega-project, and former NSW premiers including Gladys Berejiklian and Mike Baird would be invited to the August opening.

“This would no doubt give enormous satisfaction to previous transport ministers and premiers to see this project come to fruition and it’s not right or fair to pretend that the previous government didn’t work at it,” he said.

Minns said the metro line was part of a city-shaping public transport project that would support more housing for a generation of young people locked out of homes for too long.

“If we are going to address the housing crisis, we have to build homes near public transport like this and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.

Trial operations will include replicating emergency exercises to test responses to unplanned situations, and involve about 1000 people in simulated scenarios. Trains stopped in tunnels, passenger evacuations and drills involving emergency services are among the scenarios to be tested.

The opening date for the new line under the heart of the city will also determine 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.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen has repeatedly said she would not allow the Bankstown line to be shut until she was guaranteed that services were running reliably on the new metro extension from Chatswood to Sydenham.

Haylen said a range of different scenarios would be tested over the coming weeks to ensure that it was “absolutely ready” for passengers to jump on board. “It’s like the countdown to the Olympics and we’re training the trains to get ready,” she said.

“We’re warming up … testing all the systems and making sure that this works perfectly for the thousands of passengers that will enjoy this new service. This is a transformational public transport system for Sydney, and the journey times are fast.”

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” when it opens to passengers.

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 state government also announced on Monday the completion of tunnelling on the new 23-kilometre metro line to the curfew-free Western Sydney Airport. The $11 billion project comprises twin tunnels almost 10 kilometres long, as well as surface and viaduct sections.

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