Five years late, date finally set for first new intercity train on Blue Mountains line

Long-suffering passengers on the Blue Mountains line who have endured worsening delays to services will finally gain a hoped-for reprieve when the first new intercity trains start running on the tracks in two weeks.

Two in every five trains operating on the rail line between the Blue Mountains and Sydney were late during the evening peak in September and half failed to meet on-time running targets in July, figures show.

Trains on the line perform better during the morning peak, but at least one in five of those have still been late in each of the past five months.

Intercity services on four lines are falling well short of Sydney Trains’ target to have at least 92 per cent of peak-hour services arrive at stations within six minutes of their scheduled time.

After a five-year delay caused by expensive modifications to the $4 billion Mariyung fleet, the first of the new intercity trains to operate on the Blue Mountains line will depart Lithgow station at 6.24am on October 13, bound for Sydney’s Central Station. Two new Mariyung trains will then operate later that day from Sydney to the Blue Mountains.

By the end of October, seven new intercity trains are due to be operating on the Blue Mountains line, primarily during peak periods. They will be a mix of 10 and six-carriage sets.

Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said the new trains should help improve on-time running on the Blue Mountains line as they were more reliable.

“The PM peak in general is a more challenging peak in terms of the number of incidents that we manage. They sometimes are infrastructure or fleet-related [problems and] sometimes they are medical security or sort of passenger security incidents,” he said.

“The challenge we’ve got with all three of those intercity lines – South Coast, Blue Mountains and the Central Coast – is that we have an interaction between the passenger trains and freight trains.”

Longland said the decades-old V-set trains used on the Blue Mountains line had also been the target of vandals lately, which had included youths breaking into cabins and kicking out windows.

“That won’t be a problem when we roll out the new Mariyung train. It’s got much better security, and most importantly, it’s got cameras on board so we can track those sorts of issues much, much quicker,” he said.

The last of the state’s V-set trains, which are known by commuters for their purple seats, are set to be retired from the Blue Mountains line in the middle of next year, marking the end of an era.

Like those on the Sydney-Newcastle line, Blue Mountains rail commuters will no longer have reversible seats as they did on the V-set trains, as the new Mariyungs have fixed seats, meaning many will face backwards on their journeys

A total of 12 new electric-powered Mariyung trains to be progressively rolled out on the Blue Mountains line will also have a distinctive local touch. The fabric for the passenger seats, designed by Blue Mountains artist Julie Paterson, was inspired by the local bushland.

Blue Mountains Labor MP Trish Doyle said local residents had long awaited the introduction of the Mariyung trains, and she thanked them for their patience.

“Above all, commuters want reliability and punctuality with train services, and I trust that is what this new era of train travel across the network will provide,” she said.

The rollout of the new intercity trains on the South Coast line between Sydney and the Illawarra is still scheduled to begin in the second quarter of next year, although that is dependent on timetable changes.

In June, Mariyung trains fully replaced V-sets on the intercity line between Sydney, the Central Coast and Newcastle, more than five decades after the stainless-steel carriages began operating.

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