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Trams borrowed from CBD, South East lines to run on Inner West route
Trams from other light rail lines will be repurposed for travel between Central and Lilyfield from February — but critics say thousands of inner west commuters will still be inconvenienced.
James O'Doherty
December 16, 2021 - 8:54PM
Trams from Sydney’s CBD and southeast lines will be repurposed between Central and Lilyfield to provide a reduced service on part of the Inner West Light Rail route from February.
But passengers will still need to change to a bus to get all the way to Dulwich Hill until the middle of next year, and the cracked Spanish trams that were recently taken out of service will not be fixed until the October long weekend.
Further testing needs to be done to ensure trams from the CBD and southeast lines can work on the inner west route, and drivers still need to be trained in driving the vehicles.
Transport for NSW CEO Howard Collins said he was “pretty confident” the plan would work.
“(I’m) 95 per cent absolutely sure that we’re going to get there by February,” he said.
Mr Collins said the final weight test of the different trams on the inner-west tracks still needed to occur.
He said one of his “biggest concerns” was that taking some trams out of the CBD and southeast lines might impact customers, but said he was “absolutely confident” that passengers would not be affected.
Inner West Light Rail passengers will need to pay full fare to go between Lilyfield and Central when services are restored even though the journey will be slower, and anyone going to Dulwich Hill would need to change to a replacement bus.
“We will progressively restore services to the Inner West Light Rail. It’s planned that by mid year, we will have a full service operating along the route,” Transport Minister Rob Stokes said.
Mr Stokes said all the cracked trams are set to be completed by the October long weekend.
He said this was a “significant improvement” on the original time frame for fixing the trams, which could have taken 18 months.
Labor’s transport spokeswoman Jo Haylen welcomed the return of Central to Lilyfield services, but said “thousands of passengers will still have to wait until at least October next year for a normal service”.
“Passengers shouldn’t be paying full fare for a shuttle service that’s less frequent and slower. If the government wants to provide half a light rail service, then the least they can do is also halve the fare,” Ms Haylen said.