The timing of the harbour rail crossing project is actually a quiet backslide, not a step forward as claimed. Until Tuesday, this project was to have “followed” the completion of the North West Rail Link in 2019, and the Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian had been dropping sly hints it might start even earlier. But Premier Mike Baird now says, if his bribe is not accepted, the project “would otherwise be decades away”. And even if the bribe is accepted, there’s silence about the project’s timing.

What is being “promised” has changed, as well. There’s now no station in the northern CBD employment heartland, no inner west stations, no branch line from Sydenham to Hurstville and no extension from Bankstown to Cabramatta. The government’s 2012 Long-Term Transport Master Plan centrepiece has been gutted, probably because it would have necessitated major works to cater for displaced freight services.

What hasn’t changed are the commitments to privatised single-deck “metro” train services with little seating, an inevitability since the size of the tunnels for the North West Rail Link was deliberately reduced in 2012, a decision every bit as stupid as the 1855 decision to adopt different rail gauges in different states.

The claimed “up to 60 per cent” increase in the number of trains “across the network” assumes “at least” 30 trains per hour each way on the new line, vastly more than any patronage study has ever suggested as necessary. It would also necessitate severe degradations in services on the double-deck lines not taken over by the privatised services, including slower trains, the loss of express services and the termination of many western and northern Sydney trains at Central.



And there will be be a much lower increase in passenger capacity, because each smaller privatised train will carry fewer people. The government’s latest claims to the contrary conveniently cite examples involving longer, single-deck trains and ignore the fact that double-deck services can be upgraded using exactly the same train control techniques as those proposed for the new line (as has been done in Paris).