Tender documents for the New Intercity Fleet train project reveal that the new trains won’t fit past Springwood station unless costly rectification works are undertaken at platforms and along tracks and tunnels between Springwood and Mount Victoria, according to Member for Blue Mountains, Trish Doyle MP.

The new trains are to be built to an approximate width of 3.1 metres, making them too wide to travel past Springwood without major engineering works at platforms and realignment or widening of tight bends and narrow tunnels through the Mountains.

Current limitations on the line mandate a maximum train width of approximately 2.9 metres.

The tender documents obtained by Ms Doyle state:

“The width of each Train must be maximised within the ‘Medium Electric’ rolling stock outline dimensions…

According to Transport for NSW’s own internal operating manuals, updated as recently as September 2016, the tracks west of Springwood are rated for Narrow Electric rolling stock only due to tight sections of track and tunnel between the Lower Mountains and Lithgow.

The Narrow Electric rating means that trains like the Tangara, Waratah or OSCAR are unable to travel west of Springwood without the risk of scraping alongside one another or the inside walls of narrow tunnels.

“The Baird Government have completely stuffed this up. They have jumped head-first in to a project without actually running the measuring tape over the narrowest point the trains have to pass through. It’s a shambles,” Ms Doyle said.

“Instead of buying ‘off-the-shelf’ designs, they should have brought the project in-house to the experts at Railcorp and designed a new train with our local conditions in mind from the outset.”

The new trains are being built in South Korea by a consortium of overseas designers and manufacturers including Hyundai Rotem, whose trains were withdrawn from service in recent months by the Pennsylvania transit authority after cracking was detected in structural sections of the carriages.

The imported train deal is touted by the Minister for Transport, Andrew Constance, as being 25% cheaper than any locally designed and built replacement train.

“The Minister hasn’t done his homework, and after boasting about getting a cheap deal on new trains, we now discover that the trains won’t actually fit down the line. You couldn’t make this stuff up.”

Transport for NSW has already admitted that with reduced seating per carriage, the current 8 car trains will be replaced by 10 car sets, blowing out the length of the peak hour trains to 205 metres.

On stations such as Linden and Warrimoo, where an 8 car train is already longer than the platform, this will mean up to 4 carriages will be inaccessible for passengers getting on or off the train.

At the remainder of Blue Mountains stations, which were built to a standard length of approximately 180 metres, at least one carriage per train will be inaccessible unless major works are undertaken to extend the platform length at every station.

“We have a $2.9 billion investment in a new train that won’t fit through the tunnels and won’t line up with the platforms, while local designers and manufacturing workers will miss out on jobs sent overseas.”

“Minister Constance now needs to explain to taxpayers what the total cost will be of making sure the whole network is compatible with the new trains,” Ms Doyle said.