Five-year wait for trains to finally arrive on time

After five years of delays, disputes and a billion-dollar hit to the budget, a long-awaited train has finally rolled into the nation's busiest station. The first service using a new fleet of NSW intercity trains pulled in to Sydney as scheduled at 10.55am on Tuesday. Transport Minister Jo Haylen stopped for selfies with excited rail fans disembarking on platform nine of Central Station after she boarded about half an hour earlier at Epping in the city's north-west. The train began its journey out of Newcastle in the NSW Hunter region at 8.21am - about five years after the Korean-built "Mariyung" trains were originally due to enter service. They were too wide to fit through some tunnels, too long for some platforms and faced opposition from the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, including over plans for drivers to monitor platforms using CCTV, reducing staffing requirements. An agreement was eventually reached after a long dispute with the former coalition government and modifications were made locally beginning in August 2023. So far 15 trains had been modified and work was continuing on dozens more, costing up to $973 million over four years, Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said. The majority should enter service by the end of 2025, he said. Ms Haylen said it should not have taken so long for the trains to start taking passengers, reiterating the Labor government's policy to shift manufacturing back to the state. "When you buy something that is off-the-shelf and not designed for our conditions (and) our operating model, it is actually the taxpayers of NSW and the passengers that lose out," she said. The modified trains entering service showed the power of engaging with the workforce, Ms Haylen added, as negotiations with the union continued in a separate dispute over pay and conditions that threatened to shut down the rail network in November. The union's NSW president, Craig Turner, said negotiations had picked up since Premier Chris Minns became involved. "We'll be working with the premier and see if we can get a deal done by Sunday," he told AAP. The modified intercity trains will operate on Newcastle and Central Coast lines, but passengers along the Blue Mountains, Illawarra and South Coast lines will have to wait. The fleet's Mariyung name comes from the Darug word for emu, one of the fastest birds on land. But the trains won't operate significantly faster than the near-five-decade-old units they in some cases replace. "Especially on the Central Coast-Newcastle line, there is speed restrictions so it's not going to be quicker at all, but it seemed to me to be a very smooth ride," Mr Turner said. The Newcastle-Sydney route is the first being investigated under federal government plans for high-speed rail in a bid to cut the two-and-a-half hour trip to about one hour.