(Pictured: Last night’s peak hour choas)

Commuters are facing a third day of chaos as Sydney Trains crumbles under the new rail timetable.

Thousands of commuters faced lengthy delays during yesterday’s afternoon peak as infrastructure damage and staff shortages caused huge dramas.

Police were even called in to ease tensions as travellers were barred from accessing CBD stations due to overcrowding on platforms.

This morning’s services are facing similar delays on the T1 Western and Northern lines.

Sydney Trains is blaming a significant jump in staff calling in sick for the service cancellations.

Rail Tram and Bus Union State Secretary Alex Claassens has given Steve Price a gold-plated guarantee, this is not a covert industrial campaign.

“There is no covert industrial action. That’s not the way we do business.”

Price, “So there’s no nod and a wink saying you guys take a few days of sickness, we know that it’ll impact on the timetable and the trackwork issue.”

“No, definitely not. There were only 10 extra drivers called in sick the other day, over and above the normal 40 that are off on any given day.

“I’m sorry but if we’ve got 2500 trains drivers out there and 10 of them call in sick it should not be the end of the world.

“We have never done this sort of industrial espionage, that’s not our game.

“We’ve been predicting it since the beginning of the timetable on the 26th of November. We’ve been warning people this was going to happen.

“We were not ready to take on this new responsibility of this new timetable… but the Minister and the bureaucrats insisted this timetable had to start and we’ve been dealing with the mess ever since.”

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