Ten years, and now we are told it will never come. We are all waiting for a train.
Since 1995, trains have become dangerous, dirty and failures for timetables.
The government is promising to do nothing for the life of this parliament. Easy to believe.
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We'll believe it when you build it
By Simon Benson
AFTER 10 years of promises, residents in Sydney's northwest will finally get their train - in the form of a driverless European metro rail system that will funnel commuters into the city within 42 minutes.
But it will be just one of a $50 billion network of high-frequency metro systems being planned to link the west, north west, east and Northern Beaches to the CBD with Sydney's version of London's "tube".
In what Premier Morris Iemma described as a "public transport revolution" a host of rail plans have been scrapped in favour of a new generation of single-deck fully automated trains to service the city.
Announcing that the northwest heavy rail link was now being junked in favour of a $12.5 billion modern 38km single-deck metro system that can carry 60,000 people an hour - twice as many as the existing CityRail network - Mr Iemma said three more for Sydney were on the drawing board.
"Today is the biggest day in the history of public transport in NSW," Mr Iemma said.
"Because today we start a public transport revolution . . . to break free of the existing CityRail system."
The first stage, which Mr Iemma said would be fully funded from the Government's capital works program and was contingent on savings made from the privatisation of the $10 billion electricity industry, would begin with an underground metro rail line from St James station to Rouse Hill, via Epping and Castle Hill, with 17 stations in all.
However, a cynical public, weary of projects that never see the light of day, will have to wait to use it.
The first metro train will run in 2015 between Castle Hill and Epping, with the entire line to be fully functional two years later as scheduled under previous commitments.
It will run 32km underground through a 5.5m-wide tunnel heading west to Rozelle and Drummoyne before heading north to Epping and on to Rouse Hill. The last 6km will be on the surface.
The Government claims a second metro line is being planned also to go between Circular Quay and Parramatta.
A third between the CBD and Matraville will service the Sydney Cricket Ground and football stadium at Moore Park, the University of NSW and Prince of Wales Hospital precinct before ending in Maroubra.
Plans are also being considered for a fourth metro system, which would fulfill the promise of a second Harbour crossing, running from the CBD to Chatswood and then out to Sydney's northern beaches.
The new metro-rail network will be separate from CityRail, using high-tech automated single deck trains based on the European and Asian metropolitan systems. It will also have a separate fare structure.
But the Opposition transport spokeswoman Gladys Berejiklian said the public was entitled to be sceptical about the announcement.
"I find it hard to believe that a project that's been announced for 10 years in relation to the northwest heavy rail link, which has today been scrapped, and that a new project has been announced (and) will be completed within those timeframes," she said.
"It is not believable. It's not conceivable that would happen."
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