Light moment on new heavy rail: Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian enjoys the journey. Credit:Nick Moir Trains will initially run every half an hour. At first they will run only in a shuttle to Liverpool. Ms Berejiklian said they would eventually connect to other parts of the network, but would not say how or where. "We know that many customers from this part of the community want to go to western Sydney, they want to go to the Airport Line, they want to go to the Sydney CBD [central business district]," Ms Berejiklian said. It is understood early work on the South West Rail Link, well before construction started in 2010, planned for the line to also allow significant improvement in train services on the East Hills Line and on the Bankstown Line from Liverpool. That is because as well as providing two new train stations, the line also includes a large stabling facility past Leppington as a place for rail services to start.

The South West Rail Link will be the first heavy rail line to open in Sydney since 2009. Credit:Nick Moir But Ms Berejiklian and the chief executive of Sydney Trains, Howard Collins, said they would be guided by how commuters used services on the line before deciding where trains would run. "Traffic patterns have changed a lot since the early plans," Mr Collins said. Gladys Berejiklian: "We know that many customers from this part of the community want to go to western Sydney." Credit:Nick Moir "So the best thing is to use the current data, the information we get from Opal is fantastic. We will start to understand what services we need to operate."

The land either side of the rail line remains largely undeveloped. Mr Collins said he expected that to change rapidly, as word of mouth spread about the extra services. "Yes, if you look back into the archives you will see photographs of train stations in the middle of green fields, now you will see they're cities," he said. "You've got to start somewhere. And my view about this – it will start quiet. But come back here in five years, you'll find coffee shops, housing … you are talking possibly hundreds of thousands of people." Construction of the train line was stalled multiple times, but did start under the former Labor government. Opposition Leader John Robertson said: "The Liberals have announced that a project planned and started by the former Labor Government will open early next year – Labor did the hard work on this project and the only thing the Liberals will contribute is the cutting of the ribbon."

When it opens, services on the new line, which is being built with 1200 car spots, will start about 5am and finish about midnight. People using the line will be able to change at Glenfield initially to get trains to the city, or continue to Liverpool to transfer to Parramatta. Ms Berejiklian said a new timetable would need to be developed before services ran further than Liverpool. "We are not going to put a time frame on that because again it will depend on what we see as the best way of integration," she said. "It could be 2015 it could be 2016. We will just look to see depending on when the line opens and depending on where customers are going." In the longer term, the government has proposed reserving a rail corridor from Leppington to an airport at Badgerys Creek. Mr Robertson said the rail extension needed to be built at the same time as the airport.