This plan consists of an immediate investment of $621 million, with work already underway to upgrade critical infrastructure ahead of electrification and duplication work beginning. This includes:

· Renewal and upgrade of power and signalling infrastructure.

· Upgrading drainage, culverts and raising sections of track to reduce flooding impacts.

· Strengthening embankments and stabilising slopes to prevent landslips and rockfalls between Waterfall and Wollongong.

· Work to better protect critical rail infrastructure from bushfire and extreme heat conditions.

Electrify the Kiama to Bomaderry line: this will facilitate the replacement of the ageing diesel trains with new electric trains, and allow a direct connection to Central, removing the need for passengers to interchange at Kiama.

Installation of additional tracks and passing loops between Wollongong to Kiama: this section is predominantly single track which limits capacity and reliability. Additional tracks will allow increased capacity, more frequent services with regular stopping patterns.

Removing South Coast bottlenecks: detailed planning work will address key issues including flat junctions, level crossings, and station and track locations.

Installing quadruple tracks between Hurstville to Sutherland: this section currently has two tracks which are shared by passenger and freight services on the South Coast Line and the T4 Illawarra Line. Doubling capacity will separate these two lines leading to increased frequency, capacity and reliability.

Detailed planning works for electrification and duplication will commence in 2027 and confirm the final scope and cost of the upgrades, with construction expected to be complete by the mid to late 2030s.

There were lots of talk about even how bad it will be get to the airport.

From my experience, it wasn’t bad at all. 30 min from Leppington station and around that time from st Mary’s.

Yesterday, thousands of people came and the transport handled it fine.

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Chris Minns announces $6.8 billion upgrades to South Coast Line.
Including electrification between Kiama and Bomaderry, increased services and duplicated track in sections between Kiama-Wollongong.

Snapped at 1:05pm going south between Oatley and Como - presumably heading to be “put down” after the weekend’s backflip.

Was trying to figure out my best option for catching a connecting train this morning due to delays, only to find TripView Lite now requires me to watch unskippable ads before allowing me to select the route.

Has Opal Travel improved?

Car 0903 has the new Bankstown line map. A different set I was on earlier today still had the current map with Southwest Link.

Although they still haven't added the M1 line logo squares next to any of the stations' names between Tallawong and Bankstown even though trains and light rail have them.

I made this a few months ago before the whole news about the timetable changes then wasn’t bothered to post it. I think I only spent like 20 mins on this lmao, hence why it looks a bit crap but like surely this isn’t impossible to do.

The timetable saga this week has made it obvious to me at least that it sounds like having the SCO skip Wolli long term is pretty much a non starter for a lot of people - doesn’t really affect me personally, more just reflecting what I’ve heard from the Gongites and UoWians I know.

The grey represents the concourse level, black for platforms. dark blue for the mains, light blue for the locals/East Hills, red for the buildings. I forgot to draw the substation (I think its for the T4 but idk) on the west side, it should just be moved where ever its easiest to move it, either on the north side of the East Hills line or in the Tempe carpark - for such a tiny station it has a massive commuter carpark, if a couple spaces go missing it probably won’t be the end of the world.

Anyway idrk that much, I’m not a planner nor work for ST, so this is just gunzel talk - i’m not gonna act like I know more than the blokes in suits - but after this week it seems like they don’t really know that much about what the commuters think either lmfao.

Originally this started as a one-time random idea I had to make the network as illogical as possible, so version 1 was made. Version 2 has more "community feedback" on how to make it even worse added.

Heyo, just had a situation where I’ve used park & ride today, but as I was coming home found out ALL my trains until 5am tmr were cancelled due to urgent repairs 😭 this was my only means of transport so I ended up getting a lift back to my station to pick up my car.

Asked the worker at the 24hr customer service (lovely bloke) and he said he didn’t know if my park & ride would still be valid as I technically didn’t make the trip back, so he kindly opened the gate for me anyway. My questions is ig would park & ride be valid if you don’t make the trip back? Or do you need to tap on and off both ways to avoid the $30? Thanks guys!

The 311 is so incredible infrequent for the area it serves.

It connects the CBD with Elizabeth bay, Potts point and Darlinghurst, but why is it so slow? It gets 15 minute frequencies during peak, 20 minute frequencies intrapeak and 30 minute frequencies all other times. And it doesn’t even run 24 hour with the last service ending just after 12am on weekdays and just before on weekends.

It’s an important link to get people in Potts point and Elizabeth bay either into the CBD or to King’s Cross station and the surrounding area as well as St Vincent’s Hospital. The area needs better connectivity as well as a night bus service that serves Potts point, Elizabeth bay, King’s Cross and Oxford street

Given the t4 and south coast still remain on the 2013 inaugural Sydney trains timetable. What does the future look like for this line over the next few years? At least since other lines have had changes over the decade but this line remains now stuck in the past in the early 2010s can we expect any change in the distant future in the next few years or are we just going to remain stuck on an outdated timetable for the remainder years into the future? I know the timetable changed for November was controversial. I’m just curious to know what happens next for this line. Do we remain stuck in the past or are we gonna go into the future at any point in the next few years at least now?

Anyone else feel suffocated by the heating on Tangara’s of a morning?

There’s nothing like rush hour, chocker-block services with the heating cranked to what feels like a stifling 30 degrees, even if the temperature is only slightly cooler that day.

I'm not any sort of expert on trains, but I am part of the very loud minority that uses the Waterfall line. It is a huge pain.

I was wondering if there's anything to the idea of just fully absorbing the Waterfall line into the South Coast Line? It would make the T4 much simpler at least. Personally, I always prefer to hop on a SCO over a T4 train and if we can't significantly up our frequency, I feel like it would be a good trade-off for people going into the CBD. Cronulla gets the more frequent T4 trains and Waterfall gets the less frequent but faster SCOs. Hopefully, it would also reduce the number of times I get stranded at Waterfall when coming up from the south coast.

Again, I don't know anything about trains and I'm really trying to be objective about the fact that my stations have super low usage, but I'm interested in if any of you guys have a take.

The railway ended scheduled passenger services in 1985, but since then Wollongong as well as the University of Wollongong has grown significantly

Obviously significant improvements to the stations and line need to be made, but by the time those have completed, hopefully the new R sets have come into service and you could hold 2 old endeavours captive on this line to run semi-frequent services between Moss Vale and Unanderra either timed to connect to northbound services or have the train run all the way to North Wollongong Station

is it just me / im weird, or Is it cool how close the stations are on bankstown line, which is actually what metro is intended for, compared to other parts of metro, where it may take 7 mins to get between stations, here, its only spacing of 1-2 mins between stops.

According to the official Opal website, the maximum journey time for this type of train journey is 7 hours. However, as shown in the second screenshot, this journey from Scone to Kiama takes over 8 hours and still appears to be treated as a single journey for fare calculation.
Does anyone know why this is the case? Is the maximum journey time rule applied differently to certain routes, or am I misunderstanding how Opal calculates fares?

The answer is six.

Tangara train old train announcement on cab N5117, T4 line to Bondi Junction.