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The manufacturer of driverless trains for the multibillion-dollar metro line to Sydney’s new international airport had to halt production of the new fleet in Europe because of the troubled rail project’s construction delays.
Internal Sydney Metro documents describe a “pause in manufacturing” by multinational Siemens from at least last October to December. It was blamed on delays in building a stabling and maintenance depot on the line at Orchard Hills between St Marys and the airport.
The production line pause in Europe illustrates the precarious state of the project and the ripple effect of delays.
The 23-kilometre rail line to Western Sydney Airport was to open to coincide with passenger planes taking off in October but is now running about 18 months late.
The first of 12 trains had been scheduled to arrive in Sydney in November, but it will only arrive at Port Kembla aboard a ship later this week. It is the third train built and had been “delayed due to customer testing of the train in Vienna”, according to a confidential update in January.
The first two trains to roll from the production line in the Austrian capital have been undergoing testing on tracks in Germany.
According to the latest timeline, the rest of the fleet will arrive in NSW progressively over the next 10 months, the last two due in April. When unloaded at Port Kembla this week, the first example will be transported to the Orchard Hills rail yards for on-site testing later this year.
The NSW government has been embroiled in a protracted dispute with the consortium building the rail line, amid claims for delays, scope creep and disruptions that risk blowing out the project’s cost by up to $2.2 billion.
The government in December confirmed that legal claims made by the consortium led by Italian engineering company Webuild might increase the airport rail line’s eventual cost by $1 billion-plus, to more than $12 billion.
A confidential Sydney Metro review in December cited “unresolved” tunnel and viaduct defects among the “time risks” facing the project.
It warned of “across-the-board productivity loss and delayed starts”, and of stations and systems not being “completed to the required standard”, preventing handover to France’s RATP Dev, which will operate the rail line.
The review also cited delays procuring materials and equipment due to “cash flow pressure and reduced commitment”.
Coalition transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward said the train production pause was another sign of a project in more trouble than the government was willing to admit. “The project was to open in four months’ time, and instead we are just receiving the first train,” she said.
Transport Minister John Graham said he had been “very open” about the challenges to the timeline for delivering the project, saying it stemmed from the former Coalition government’s failure to properly design fire emergency exits, putting public safety at risk.
“We don’t apologise for putting the safety of metro passengers first in adding more emergency exits in tunnels on the advice of Fire and Rescue NSW,” he said.
“We are protecting NSW taxpayer money as we work to resolve project issues with the lead contractor.”
The project’s 2020 business case estimates that only about 880 passengers an hour will use the line when it opens, equating to just 11 per cent of train capacity in one direction. Patronage is forecast to grow to 3200 passengers an hour by 2036, and 6200 an hour by 2056.
When the ribbon is eventually cut, there will be 12 trains an hour, with combined capacity of 7800 people in each direction. However, the line will be capable of running 20 trains an hour, which could transport nearly 26,000 passengers should demand occur.
The Siemens carriages are about 30 centimetres wider than the city’s other metro trains to accommodate travellers’ luggage.
They will initially operate on the rail line, which is a combination of tunnel, viaduct and surface-level track, from 4.30am to midnight from Sunday to Thursday, and to 1am on Fridays and Saturdays. The operating hours align with Sydney Trains’ services on the heavy rail network.
