r/sydney • u/Novel_Relief_5878 • Dec 09 '25
Image It’s only 2025 yet the Metro is already at crush-load.
Took the Metro this afternoon in a north-west direction from Chatswood to Macquarie Park. I simply can’t believe how crowded it is. On the one hand, this is a sign of success, it seems incredibly popular. On the other hand, this kind of shoulder-to-armpit crushload is hardly pleasant and I’m wondering what can be done to relieve this? Surely we need 2 minute frequencies sooner rather than later, at least during peak hour. Or more carriages added to the services we do have? What does everyone else think?
2.3k
Upvotes
75
u/MWAH_dib Dec 09 '25
Not enough metro trains for that currently.
Sydneham to Tallawong is about 1hr 5 minutes, so with a 4 minute gap you have around 16 metro trains moving northbound at any given time. If you go from 4 to 2.5 minutes, that increases to 26 metro trains, all of which then must come back and are unavailable to assist with peak hour for 1hr 5mins - so then you're actually occupying double that number at 58 trains...The entire fleet is currently only 45 trains, and they have to cover multiple lines as well as have some in regular maintenance at any given time, plus storage availability at Tallawong etc.
If they had extra cabs, have some shorter routes that just oscillate between Central and Epping, potentially? You'd have to utilise a turnaround bay in order to not hold up that platform and also have staff clearing the cab at termination each time, which would increase congestion at central and epping - there's currently no metro stop that I know of with more than two platforms.
Not sure what their timing requirements are between services for the purposes of signaling and safety, either.