Trains are expected to run as normal on Friday afternoon, despite 29 cancelled services this morning.

Metro documents show the operator planned to cancel dozens of Friday train services due to "driver unavailability", even though just six train drivers out of hundreds called in sick.

The "planned cancellations" were booked in on a day train drivers had been planning to hold a four-hour train strike as part of industrial action, however the stoppage was called off early this week after Metro terminated negotiations with the drivers' union.

Eighteen train services are planned to be cancelled this evening, the documents show, although 12 will be in the counter-peak direction.