Passengers on this train line were hammered by delays. Now there's more bad news
John Cenzato was debating whether to board the 4.11pm to Lithgow on Tuesday, as screens started flashing that no trains were running between Central and Strathfield because of an electrical issue.
The Leura resident and university librarian, who has commuted to Sydney for more than 20 years, decided to get on – he is used to delays on a service that has gone from 'OK for a while' to 'worse and worse'. Ten minutes later, an announcement told Blue Mountains line (BMT) passengers no services would be departing. 'I have no idea how I'm going to get home,' he said.
In the confusion before it was revealed a live wire had fallen on a train at Strathfield, causing days of public transport chaos, the Herald approached Cenzato to discuss another delay. Transport for NSW has said BMT and South Coast passenger services on the new intercity Mariyung fleet, once expected by the second half of this year, would not commence before late 2025.
For Cenzato, contemplating unknown hours on top of his two-hour journey, there were bigger issues. 'They've been promising [the new fleet] since 2014. The main thing for a lot of us is that the trains run on time.'
But the Mariyung fleet rollout is emblematic of problems faced by BMT users, who have experienced some of the worst delays this week, and earlier this year as part of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union's (RTBU) ongoing pay dispute with the state government.
The $4.03 billion Korean-built trains, which arrived in 2019 to replace ageing V-set models, sat unused amid another dispute between successive governments and the RTBU over safety issues. They began on the Newcastle Central Coast line in December 2024 to rave reviews from enthusiasts, after an agreement on changes to cameras, screens and emergency doors was reached in November 2022. Earlier negotiations resulted in tunnel-widening work on the Blue Mountains line completed in 2020.
Craig Turner, president of the RTBU's NSW branch, said he understood the fleet would not start on the line before 'at least the end of 2025' and the South Coast before 2026.
'All these projects get delayed for some reason,' he said. 'We refute anyone that says that we've held up that train. The reason it's been held up was 99.9 per cent on safety. You can't have a train that went out there and actually killed people.'
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