Transport NSW offcial on everyhting to know about the Sydney Metro opening 09:37

Alright, 22 to 5, now after a false start, the Sydney Metro officially opens Monday morning. Forget the false start, we're on. So a $21 billion train line that now connects Tallawong and Rouse Hill to Sydenham through the city. Imagine if I told you that 20 years ago, that that would be possible. So you've got new train stations at Crow's Nest on the Pacific Highway, Victoria Cross, which is in the heart of North Sydney,

The train will then go under the harbour and it pops up at Barangaroo. So there's a station right at the northern end of Hickson Road at Barangaroo. It then goes on to Martin Place and you'll have an opening to the Martin Place train station at Castle Ray, Hunter and Elizabeth Streets and one opening to Martin Place on Castle Ray and Elizabeth Streets.

The next is Gadigal Station, and that's almost on the corner of sort of Pitt and Park Street, right opposite the Criterion Hotel, if you know the pub there, just up from Town Hall. It then goes to Central Station. There'll be a platform for the Metro at Central Station and on to Waterloo on Botany Road and Raglan Streets, which is opposite the Abbots Hotel near the Waterloo Housing Commission Towers, and then finishes up at the existing Sydenham Station.

Well, what else do we need to know? Because this is going to be a game changer. There will be teething problems, but this is a hell of a piece of infrastructure. Josh Murray is the head of transport for New South Wales, and he's on the line for us. Josh, g'day. Chris, how are you? I'm not too bad. So what time's the first train Monday morning?

I believe it's 4.48 is about the timeframe leaving Sydenham. That's the first one that will go under the harbour and through those new stations at the first time. Around 4.30, a train will be leaving Talalong and they'll cross over on the North Shore. Those first two trains...

Monday morning will cross on the North Shore round about Crows Nest Way so we anticipate there'll be plenty of people lining up all the way along the Northwest route through Chatswood and into the city and out to Sydenham to jump on that train in the early hours of Monday morning. So if I've been getting on the Northwest Metro for years and years and years and say if I get on it I don't know Bella Vista and I'll now be able to get off at say Martin Place how long does that take?

Well, it's about 30 minutes through from there, a bit longer than that, but 25 minutes from Castle Hill to Martin Place. It's quick, isn't it?

brand new train carriage and it will bring you straight through the best part is too it's every four or five minutes depending on the time of the day no need for a timetable turn up it'll be there turn up and go jump on and you'll be whisked through so we really do see this as a game changer in terms of convenience for people no changing trains too so if you're on the existing northwest has been some questions about whether they have to change trains no forget it

No, what we actually think is we'll see people on the T1 Northern line coming through down on the heavy rail that jump off at Chatswood, even if you've been on the line all the way down from Hornsby, jump off at Chatswood and maybe onto the Metro for the last stretch because you'll cut a few minutes off your journey. I've just got a text here from Marilyn. Can you please ask Josh in relation to the Metro, where...

When the Wynyard station will be open? It appears all the stations in the CBD are opening, but not Wynyard. I work at Wynyard and it would appear I have to walk the length of Martin Place or up from Barangaroo Metro to get off at my normal station. Wynyard's not part of the Metro, is it?

No, Wynyard's not, but the closest, well, no, Wynyard's not, so Martin Place is the closest one there. Gadigal is maybe the one that your caller's referring to, which still has a number of surface works going on outside and works going on for the commercial tower

above the station so there's a little bit of scaffolding and some some barriers up but people will still be able to get in i was at gadigal earlier today the staff are super excited and the construction crews that are in the zone they know that they've got a job to do as well on monday they'll clean that up and they'll make sure everyone gets in safely are we concerned about anything i know we had the roselle interchange very excited that was a debacle uh we're not expecting the same this time around

We've thrown everything at this, Chris. We'll have teams stood up from the very early hours of Monday morning in terms of operational supervision. Obviously, people are working across the weekend. This is an absolute integration task. So it's not just...

who are the operator of the line and Sydney Metro who runs it for the government but this is involving everyone at Sydney Trains, our bus companies, the ferry integration at Barangaroo. Everyone's making incremental changes to make sure this works. We know there'll be some teething problems. Opening a new station you'll get dust in a door, you might get an escalator or a lift that stops.

All of these things happen when you're opening something for the first time and you're putting people into the mix and we want to make sure that everyone gets the best experience. But I expect a smoke alarm panel might go off at some point and we'll check all of those things, but we will have...

hundreds of additional people ready to go and we've run 13 000 services under the harbour along that alignment all those stations that you talked about 13 000 over recent months the staff have been practicing their jobs since mid-may in the stations they are ready to go and they're very excited to see passengers start to come into the tunnels as we all had a couple of extra weeks to practice

John says, John asked us, hey, we're moving on from that. Josh, don't worry about it. It's just good news today. John says at Camp C, hi, Chris, can you please ask Josh when the Bankstown line will close with the Metro opening?

That's a key part of this. It's not going to be until we are certain about the reliability of the brand new service. So the government and the minister have made that very clear to us. We would anticipate, we always said it would be between July and October, depending on the operational status of Metro. We will test that out and we'll start to communicate with the communities there. But my very clear message is,

on Monday, everything on the T3 Southwest line stays the same. And then we will start to engage as to what the timeframe will look like for the shutdown and the conversion of the T3. Now, I should say that if your listeners...

Google South West Link. They can get all the information on that Sydenham to Bankstown change and when it will happen. We have a specific website set up there. And also we have a community information session that is coming up on the 24th of August at Marrickville Town Hall. So we'll have teams there all day that can meet with people and explain how it's going to work. Gerard's called in from Pendle Hill. Gerard, you've got a question for Josh?

I have. Can you ask him if the new Metro trains are going to have guards on them? Josh, guards on the Metro trains. Are they going to have them or not?

No, the new Metro trains do not have guards on them. They do not have a driver. They will have customer service staff around the stations and on the trains as we get into this first element of running. MTS is making sure they have hundreds of additional people ready to help all of our

passengers and give them the best experience they can. We expect a lot of people will have questions, but no, the trains are designed not to run with staff on them. And if there's an issue, Josh, a security issue or the like?

Staff can get to those trains. There will be staff on trains, on and off, and they will move around stations. But all the trains can be operated remotely and they can be operated by staff if they need to be. There you go, Gerard. That's Gerard from Pendle Hill. Final one, Josh. I know that Central Station and the ones in town, people might be leaving the office sort of middle of next week and thinking, I might give this thing a whirl. If I go to Central Station or, say, Martin Place, the existing train stations,

Will it be straightforward as to where I need to go to get on the new service? Absolutely. It's well signposted, so your listeners would have started to see. We've got the big orange T. There's now the blue, the turquoise blue M, and just follow that through the stations. At Central Station on that great big open new area would be the running track line.

style design platform 11 and 12 off to the right hand side you go straight down you'll be on the metro tracks in terms of martin place it's an even bigger more cavernous expansion and you'll actually enter a new cavern that is next to the main martin place entrances and you'll be taken into where you can access the platform so it's very easy to find and it is marked by that big blue turquoise m

Josh, I really appreciate you coming on and I'll be controversial and say I think you're doing a very, very good job. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Chris. That's Josh Murray, the Transport Secretary for the Department of Transport. 131873. Now, what do you reckon? Will you use the Sydney Metro? $21 billion.

Hell of a train line, hell of a piece of infrastructure and well done to the former coalition government for having the vision and having the you-know-whats to get all the finances ready to rock and roll to get us where we are today.