New intercity trains begin service across New South Wales

ABC NEWS (Australia)

They've been idling in storage for five years. But the first of the state's new intercity trains, finally hit the tracks.  The union demanded extensive modifications before they could be rolled out, and the entire fleet won't be running, until at least late next year.

Transcript

00:00It's a case of better late than never, but at least this trip was right on time.

00:13It's always a great day when we have a brand new train for people to jump on board and

00:18to see the opportunity that that brings.

00:21Hundreds of passengers were on board for the inaugural trip from Newcastle.

00:26How are you guys finding the ride?

00:27It's been great, very comfortable, very clean, runs on time, that's the main thing I guess

00:33when you're on a train.

00:34Very quiet, very efficient, love the luggage areas and the charger phone here, there's

00:41some little changes.

00:42Oh it's very comfortable, smooth, five years late.

00:48Known as the Marryoung Fleet, two new trains are being introduced into service, but over

00:54600 carriages remain in storage.

00:57There have needed to be modifications to this train and to the infrastructure that it runs

01:03on.

01:04Now I think those are lessons we need to learn.

01:07For now the service will run exclusively on the Central Coast and Newcastle line, but

01:12it's unclear when exactly they'll be operational on the Blue Mountains and South Coast lines.

01:19When they purchased the train, they didn't understand that it wouldn't fit through the

01:22tunnels on the Blue Mountains and there had to be work done on that.

01:26The rail union also claimed there were security and safety issues with the trains and demanded

01:32cabins reconfigured to keep guards on board.

01:35Because the train was made to be driver only, the crew cabs had to be reconfigured.

01:41The state government hopes the rest of the fleet will be in service by late next year.

01:52For more UN videos visit www.un.org

Category

Transcript

Recommended