Commuters are made to wait to enter Town Hall station and its platforms during peak hour on Monday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Police cordoned off tracks at Wentworthville for almost four hours following the death – the third on the rail network in a week – which meant train drivers were nearing their allowable hours and trains had to be cancelled. Mr Collins said he said would not hide from the fact that the increase in train services meant it took longer for the network to recover from major incidents. "The consequences of running more services mean that you have to be even better in the recovery – that is the lesson for us," he said. Nevertheless, he said the extra services put on as part of the new timetable were "desperately needed" to cater for skyrocketing demand.

Commuters crowd platforms at Wynyard station. Credit:Matthew Whitmore "The timetable is getting a lot of stick and I can understand people would leap to that [to blame for the peak-hour disruption on Monday]," he said. But the veteran of London's railway system said reverting to the old timetable, and fewer trains, would leave people standing outside the main stations by early next year because the rail network would be unable to meet the demand. "If you do nothing and just stick to the old timetable, you will not be providing enough trains for customers," he said. A Sydney Trains briefing document leaked early this month highlighted the challenges of the new timetable, warning delays to trains were likely to be "cumulative and irrecoverable" during peak hours following incidents.

Labor leader Luke Foley seized on it to call for the government to explain what steps would be taken to ensure the "chaotic meltdown" on Monday did not become a pattern on an increasingly stretched network. "The [Transport] Minister and the government can't say they weren't warned. They were warned two weeks ago that this timetable is a recipe for disaster," he said. "How is it that an incident at 6.30 in the morning grinds traffic to a halt at 6.30 in the evening at the major city railway stations?" Transport Minister Andrew Constance accused the opposition of trying to "score political points over what was a tragic incident that deeply affected witnesses". "Ultimately, the timetable has nothing to do with this. Under any timetable, if you are forced to shut the busiest line for close to four hours, there are significant flow-on effects to crew, rolling stock and punctuality," he said.

Mr Constance said trying to get trains back to where they should be over the course of a day was "not easy in a constrained network". "One of our greatest constraints is that all lines lead to the City Circle [in Sydney's CBD]. This is why we are building a new train network with Sydney Metro," he said. Sydney Trains said it was reviewing the incident on Monday, and would be looking at aspects such as crewing and putting resources into the right locations on the network. Tweaks such as changes to stopping patterns on the Airport Line will also be made to the timetable over the coming weeks.

The rail network will come under significant pressure late next year when the Epping-to-Chatswood rail line is closed for seven months. The 13-kilometre line will be converted to carry single-deck metro trains as part of the first stage of Sydney's $20 billion-plus metro railway from Rouse Hill in the north-west to Chatswood. Loading The Rail Tram and Bus Union said an increase in train services during the middle of the day, together with longer dwell times at station platforms, had reduced the ability of the network to recover from incidents in time for peak periods. "Unfortunately it was only a matter of time until the cracks in this new timetable started to appear," the union's state secretary, Alex Claassens, said.