Full speed ahead as trial running starts on the new city section of the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project

After more than a year of intensive testing and commissioning of the new infrastructure, including the new tunnels, trains and stations, our operations and maintenance partner Metro Trains Sydney (MTS) will now begin the ‘Trial Running’ phase – a crucial step in achieving accreditation before passenger services commence.

In the Trial Running phase, MTS will prepare for operations by running a range of field-based scenarios across the line and stations, which are designed to imitate real-life timetable services and operational situations.

This will involve running the trains to a timetable, to ensure they are reliable, practising operational processes and procedures, as well as replicating emergency exercises to assess the response to unplanned situations.

Trial Running follows the completion of integration testing between the existing Metro North West Line and the new city section of Sydney Metro City & Southwest, demonstrating the trains, signalling and station systems are all working together and functioning seamlessly along the length of the line.

Since the rigorous testing and commissioning program started in April 2023, more than 9,000 hours of a total of 11,000 hours of required testing has been completed along the 51.5-kilometre line from Tallawong to Sydenham. 

When world-class metro services extend beyond Chatswood and into the city this year, passengers will benefit from fully accessible, safe and direct public transport services with record travel times in the peak, including from:

· Martin Place to Waterloo in six minutes

· Sydenham to Macquarie University in 33 minutes

· Central to Chatswood in 15 minutes

· North Sydney’s Victoria Cross under the harbour to Barangaroo in three minutes.