A silver lining in Sydney’s railway system

WORDS BY BIANKA FARMAKIS

Put away those anti-light rail thoughts we all have circling through our minds every time we’re within a 100m radius of George St, because public transport in Sydney has finally taken a positive step.

Sydney’s North-West line, that will link up the Hills district, Kellyville and Rousehill (or where the OTHER races are to any Eastern suburbs shut ins reading this) will soon receive a driverless metro train, capable of travelling over 100km/h.

The metro system has been highly anticipated for decades, connecting the illusive ‘Bible Belt’ district of Sydney to the rest of its parochial areas. It’s main advantage, outside of its high tech properties and progressive innovation to NSW's transport system, will be to reduce waiting times.

So to anyone accustomed to those volatile bus timetables, you can now expect regular, four-minute train intervals, sans the occasional (or daily), delay.

“Every global city has a metro system. We’ve missed out until now – and here we are delivering a brand new suburban rail network,” said transport minister Andrew Constance.

Apparently it’s yet to be determined whether the mode of transport is safe when travelling at fast speeds, but it’s no Tokyo bullet train, or country P-plater in rural NSW, so hopefully it’s fine.

Source: GIPHY

As expected, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows – the train line will be shut down between Epping and Chatswood in order to accommodate the laying of the new tracks. Hopefully they don’t pull a light rail and start building at the most inconvenient part of the train line and delay progress for several years.

The full shutdown between Epping and Chatswood will occur September 30th, with bus replacements to occur for seven months.

Passengers should expect to use the new train line by the “second quarter of next year”.

Hopefully anyone who goes to Macquarie bought their super cheap parking space for the year.