Last week I joined the thousands of people who tried out the new Sydney Metro Northwest. I was going to say half-million people, but the total patronage for the first week of operation of over 546,000 obviously includes return and repeat trips. Still, this is an impressive figure, and even if the first day’s patronage (when travel was free) is taken out, average daily use for the working week was nearly 80,000.
I started my trip by taking a train from the line’s current eastern terminus at Chatswood to the final station in the northwest, at Tallawong. I then retraced my journey in stages, stopping at Rouse Hill, Norwest, Hills Showground and Castle Hill before returning to Chatswood. I was trying not just to get a sense of how the new line is working but also its relationship to the centres and communities along the corridor.
The trains
I’ve described the trains in more detail previously and I’ll revisit them in a future post, but in summary there are 22 six-car 132-metre long trains with 378 seats and a total capacity of 1,100 passengers. These have been manufactured in India by Alstom and are a variant of their Metropolis model.
The trains are energised at 1500 VDC from overhead catenary and are driverless, with operations overseen from a control centre near Tallawong where they are stabled. There are three doors per carriage side with 100% longitudinal seating and spaces for wheelchairs, prams and bikes.