Rebuilding rail reliability and increasing services is a key focus of the Minns Labor Government after a decade of neglect under the former Liberal government. The increased services under the new timetable build on a record $2.1 billion investment in rail maintenance and incident response.
The new timetable is the most significant change to South Coast services in more than a decade, and will support the rollout of more Mariyung trains, bringing increased comfort and reliability.
The increase in rail capacity will be enabled by untangling the South Coast and T4 Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra lines between Arncliffe and Central. The South Coast services will run on their own dedicated express line, reducing bottlenecks, improving network capacity and allowing the line to operate at a higher capacity.
Under the new timetable:
- Peak services between Wollongong and Sydney CBD will have four trains per hour up from three. This will mean services every 15 minutes, up from 20 minutes.
- Off-peak and weekend services between Wollongong and Sydney CBD will be doubled, running every 30 minutes on average, up from a service every 60 minutes.
- Over 200 additional weekly services will provide a more consistent timetable across the week.
- All South Coast services travelling to and from Sydney will stop at Sydenham, providing direct connections to Sydney Metro.
- Completing the introduction of the Mariyung trains on the South Coast Line, delivering improved comfort, accessibility and customer amenities.
- A shuttle every 15 minutes in the 8-9am peak hour from the northern suburbs to Wollongong.
- Additional local services will operate between Wollongong and Thirroul. Passengers at Thirroul, Bulli, Woonona, Bellambi, Corrimal, Towradgi, Fairy Meadow, North Wollongong and Wollongong will benefit from improved local connectivity.
While the overwhelming majority of passengers will benefit from more frequent and reliable services, some journeys will change, including different departure times, stopping patterns, journey times and interchange arrangements.
Customers are encouraged to plan ahead and check Trip Planner before travelling when the new timetable comes into effect.
Stopping at Central
The South Coast Line will now terminate at Central Station whereas the current timetable operates to Bondi Junction via the Eastern Suburbs Railway.
The new timetable now allows passengers to stop at Sydenham to access citybound metro services or change at Central Station to access rail stations between Town Hall and Bondi Junction.
